Are We the Baby Boomers of Solar System Life Forms or the Gen X?

We don't know how many generations of stars have been involved in making our stuff. We think that in general, there have been around three generations of stars. But it is possible that there were many, many generations very early on in the universe when stars were very big and very hot but didn't live for very long. Why can't stars fuse iron or iron men? That is an interesting question. It provides a clue about what's going on at the heart of these nuclei. How you build them out of protons and neutrons,. why something fundamental changes after you get to iron.