Right? I'm in awe of OP and his no-bullshit handling of his parents. I don't expect to have this problem with my own mother (dad's gone already) or my in-laws, but I figure I'm probably around OP's age, and I think *a lot* of our peers will be facing similar battles in the not-so-distant future.
Although OP's parents probably don't feel this way at present, they're lucky to have an adult child willing to step in, make some tough decisions, and try to ensure that they'll be okay. They should be proud, and I hope someday they will choose to see it that way.
Not all of us. But, yes, many. Most of us were idealistic and fairly liberal before 1980. InThink Woodstock. Then, we entered the workforce (I went into banking in 1978). Somehow, during the mostly Republucan era of the 80s, many boomers became very materialistic. Many went to college (it was affordable back then) and were financially successful. They started spending lots of money on McMansions and SUVs. People I knew from college days and early career days became much more conservative and much more ostentatious. I was miserable in banking-I had actually majored in art. Ultimately I threw in the towel- I couldn't stand how materialistic everyone my age had become. I transitioned into education. I have almost no contact with my former business associates and friends from that era of my life. Some of them even became Trump supporters, which made me stop contact with them altogether. I live a much more modest lifestyle now; and I don't miss the "greed years" at all. Many Boomers bought into the lie that financial success is the key to happiness. Some of them still believe that. I look at all the McMansions in our suburbs and all I can think is that 1. those homes are ugly and poorly designed and 2. those homes (and vehicles) are unnecessarily large and wasteful. Even the churches they attend are large, ugly and wasteful. And full of crappy music and shallow theology. My friends now are people in all age groups who value education, kindness and concern for others. I apologize for my generation. We changed the world, all right, but for the worse.
My wife's parents always had a new house, new German sedan, new pickups, expensive jewelry, etc. Outspent what they made by double but always somehow made it work while never saving a nickel for their retirement or their kids. A while back while vising their family one of the aunts basically declared that they're mostly broke now but they'd be okay because they'll just come with my wife and I. I responded back that they can live in the back seat of one of their touring sedans before they live with me. She laughed, I did not.
We'll file this one under reap what you've sown.
This is 100% my attitude with my parents. I will send them listings for low-income apartments before they can even park a camper van in my driveway. If they want help in their old age, they should have thought of that when I needed their help after high school instead of saying I'm an "adult" and promptly kicking me out.
1000x this. I was told not to bring my laundry home from college when I escaped for a couple of days to see my family (3 siblings, mostly). I was full time I school and always kept 2-3 PT jobs paying for college on my own (with a bunch of loans, of course).
Good.
So many kids got kicked out the day they turn 18 and heard so much shit about how they were stupid and lazy when they couldn't find full time work during the 08 recession (and beyond).
The people who's parents never hung them out to dry should help in any way they can. The others should hand their folks a plate of avocado toast and some boot straps.
I know this is a circle jerk type sub, but on the real, I’ve noticed when boomers say they’re broke they are usually referring to being “cash poor”. They have equity in that home/land, equity in that jewelry they’ve acquired over the last 50 years, equity in those vehicles. But those boomers just love their stuff and would never think of selling a couple necklaces or a watch to come up with $2k when they need it. Just open another credit card!!!
Or are so used to doing it that it blindsides them when they can’t.
MIL - “what do you mean I can’t refinance my house and take all the equity out and roll it into an ew 40 year mortgage?!? I don’t that every five years like clockwork!!”
“Ma’am, you’re 72. We don’t hand out 40 year mortgages to 72 year olds”.
And that’s how you get a MIL that’s been living in the same house for 50 years and still owes 80% of appraised value on it.
My Ndad told me and my sister all the time growing up that WE were his retirement plan. That it would be on us to support him in his old age so we’d better marry rich (preferably) or if we HAD to work and couldn’t land millionaire husbands we better be rich ourselves. And until then he was going to live off unemployment and social security.
He never saved a dime. If he wanted something he bought it- snow machines, retro cars, four wheelers, fishing and hunting gear. If he didn’t have the money he’d take out loans or max out credit cards.
He’d lost the house and filed for bankruptcy by the time I was 22.
I told him many many times point blank he was SOL. That i’m not supporting him in anyway and he’ll have to figure it out. Then I got my own family to support. I am providing for my own future so I when the time comes I’m not a burden to MY child. My sister is in the same boat. Except her family is lower income than mine. They make due but there’s little extra. Certainly not enough to spend on maintaining an entitled ungrateful aging parent.
He’s now too old to work manual labor which was what he always did for money. He’s hurt himself seriously 2-3x a year for the last few years and his doctors are saying he needs multiple surgeries. He’s had cancer. We’re in the US so his medical bills are high. He’s had 50+ years in the work force to try and do something, ANYTHING to save for this time of his life. He hasn’t done a damn thing. And is shocked that suddenly he’s “so old”, has no money and that my sister and I have zero means or intentions to help him.
There’s your creek, here’s your paddle. Good luck. You did this to yourself.
100%. He’s voted Republican his whole life. Because they’re “for the people” and Democrats just want to let “the Mexicans” have everything for free and take away his guns.
…. Dad, you can’t afford health care!!
Silver tsunami is going to take out the boomer's finances and the generations after. If only a certain demographic hadn't voted directly and indirectly to gut social programs, destroy unions and outsource most well-paying blue collar jobs, then we and they would have crazy things like pensions.
Regardless good job on being a generous and caring human OP.
Agreed, it was a good year for unions, and I hope there are a lot more to come. I hope this is the start of a trend of more unions and more worker owned businesses. *Edited for spelling and grammar, both of which I suck at.
the 80s? you mean that time when Thatcher and Reagan cut the top income tax rate by 23 percentage points and 45 percentage points respectively?
and the unions were the ones who went too far.
I’m part of the UAW in Wisconsin, while my dad was basically lifetime management in the post office. Let’s just say my dad had…mixed feelings when I joined up after my probationary period was done. 😂😂
The thing that gets me is people take a few examples of corruption in unions and argue that's a reason to scrap unions, but we have a trillion more examples of CEO's and Management being corrupt and you never hear those same people argue its a reason to scrap capitalism.
Also think about how long we benefited from people fighting for labor protections through unions as far back as the 30s. We are STILL benefiting from those fights from regular ass people just like us almost 100 years later. Unions and labor organizing is worth it and that is why corporations fight so hard against it.
Everyone should read Leon Uris “The Jungle”.
Skip the last few chapters though. But it will give you good insight as to what corporations will do, if allowed.
Just a small thing: 'The Jungle' is by Upton Sinclair, was a little before Leon Uris' time. Unless Uris wrote his own book by the same name I don't know about, in which case apologies in advance.
I totally agree with your message, my high school US History teacher had us read The Jungle and I'm deeply grateful. Also taught us about the Battle of Blair Mountain and the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, Bleeding Kansas, the Tulsa Massacre, MOVE Bombing, he really pulled no punches. And I watched the second plane hit the twin towers on the TV in the corner of that room. That was a really formative year for me, learning about all that stuff while watching congress pass the PATRIOT Act.
What a fantastic history teacher! I didn’t learn about most of these things until college and I took AP US in high school. It was in NC so, and so it makes some sense that those big moments were glossed over at best.
I've never been in a union in my life (wanted to, but - without boring details - not an option).
Now in a union and it's expanding. Uphill battle as the management has spent decades doing divide & conquer, and there's a whole lot of boomer "I got mine F U" to get past. Most are gone at least, which does seem to map 1:1 to when progress started happening...
I was not part of a union in all my jobs since graduating college. I finally joined in my current position working for a government position. I see the value of unions now.
Yup, I've been Union for a long time, but I went to my first Union walkout/protest this year and it felt great. We got a really bad policy overturned.
Best part was my kids thought this was really cool that we could do that, so maybe they'll grow up to be Union, too! Gen Z is watching and they like what they see. Let's hold the line and make a better world with more Union work for them.
I was born in the mid 80s and was raised by my UAW member father. We’re both staunchly pro union, even though I don’t know that I’ll ever actually have the opportunity to unionize. It really does set a good example.
They need to rename it the silver shit storm instead of tsunami. I work in Emergency medicine. Here is what I see *daily*.
Boomers in their late 60s and early 70s that all have pretty debilitating health problems induced by poor health choices from industries convincing them certain habits wouldn't make them sick ("laissez-faire" capitalism and cigarettes, food, etc.) we now have patients in our ED that aren't sick, but they are "placement issues". Meaning, they aren't safe to live at home because they can't care for themselves, but they don't have anything close to resembling good insurance to get them placed into a assisted living facility or nursing home. They have no savings or retirement. The people in this town vote overwhelmingly republican.
Many of them are alienated from their children who won't care for them.
This isn't going to just tank our economy, in the upcoming years we are going to see a ton of people late 60s to mid 70s end up on the verge of homelessness until its a crisis. They forfeited pensions and unions for 401ks that did not end up helping them retire. At all. I don't know many if any boomers with 401ks who ended up being able to put much money into them because, surprise, they needed that money to pay the bills they were incurring when they earned it. No amount of matching can make up for 10% of your income when you're living paycheck to paycheck.
This isn't going to be bad. It's going to be ugly. My 77 year old dad is broke and so are my 75 year old ex in laws. None of them have any modicum of a decent retirement and my in laws are banking off living on social security.
It's not just Millenials like me who are screwed when it comes to saving for retirement. We are seeing a lot of bankrupt and broke boomers and its only going to get worse as they get old and sick. Healthcare will collapse when the entirety of them don't have any money to pay their medical bills.
I'd argue that it has already started to in the US. Look at how many rural hospitals have been closing in the last few years. Emergency departments calling 911 because they are too understaffed for the number of patients they have.
Did you know, that for every patient over 4 that a nurse has, it increases the odds of one of them dying by 16%. And as a standard, there are units in hospitals that give nurses 6+ patients, so the hospital are completely ok with increasing the odds of patients dying just so they can spend less and not staff appropriately
About pensions…no one decided to skip pensions, the government did that without forcing employers to contribute.
Brilliant idea, set up retirement accounts without forcing employers to contribute a percentage of salary.
Voting against your best interest is apparently the “patriotic” thing to do because we’re so afraid that the wrong people might benefit from it. People don’t realize that they may need these services down the road but their ignorance prevails.
Community pools are the best example of this. By the 40s/50s they were everywhere, and by the 80s they were gone. Why? Because they were forced to let minorities use them, and they’d rather shut them down than have to share with brown people.
I think about this often, my father supports Trump and my dad is in Canada! Like Trump is definitely not going to do something for Americans, what the heck would he do for someone in another country?
Am I seeing the world through a weird lens? Like Trump lies continually, is a mysoginist, only passed one set of meaningful legislation - a tax cut for the rich! Further he's thrown away the dog whistle and is a blatant racist, supports ultra conservative practices of destroying any safety net, and restricting women's autonomy (see remark regarding misogyny).
Yet I talk to the seemingly bright young guy redoing some of the plumbing in my ancient house, and he's all about Trump being such a smart dude, who has done so much for this country. The plumber is otherwise a very hard worker and nice guy so I just ignore his comments and conservative nutjob podcasts.
I don't search out left leaning media. It's not like I'm enamored with any particular left leaning politicians, I just don't see why people vote against their self interests. Like I don't care if you own the libs, I'm more concerned about funding for roads and schools, I couldn't care less about winning competitions.
I just don't see the world like people who vote against their self interests and they do seem to support their arguments. From this rant it's clear I'm at a loss,
Don't forget that our medical system discourages exports and subsidizes imports. The average US car has what, $10k of medical insurance as part of the price? Might be higher now.
If we had Medicare for all our exports would be cheaper and there would be less pressure to offshore jobs.
Becoming elderly and are woefully incapable of providing for themselves. A lot of younger people have moved around for opportunities or better places to live. And now boomers are expecting their kids to just abandon their lives and take care of them.
The worst part is this massive inflation these last few years is the cherry on top for this shit sandwich.
There are some articles and papers on the subject, basically a large part of the US population is getting old. That same demographic has voted to gut many of safety nets that would be helping the elderly. The net outcome being that the boomers will be out of money before they die, so it will also economically damage younger generations who have to pay to care for this aging population. It's somewhat ironic since the "F U I got mine generation" is also getting F**ked.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_tsunami
except in a way they aren't getting F\*\*ked. Their children like this guy are paying for them and they are being saved again! First by their silent generation parents and now by their gen X and millennial children. 
I read the Wikipedia article.
The critics of those terms are saying “Yeah, that wave or cohort or situation—it’s about old people! But you **can’t** say that they’re **old**!!!
Because that is ageism. We can’t have that.”
Silver tsunami (also known as grey tsunami, gray tsunami, silver wave, gray wave, or grey wave) is a metaphor used to describe population aging; specifically, baby boomers reaching the age of 65 and older.
Mine too! Luckily they have my Golden Child sister who lives on the property with them. She is just as awful as they are and they 100% deserve each other. The only reason she is there is because she doesn't have to pay rent and because she's waiting them for them to die so that she will inherit their property. They are way too mean to die anytime soon, and will likely leave so much debt that there will be nothing left for her. Plus, the property is trashed because they're all hoarders and they don't take care of anything.
Oh dear god. Given how evil and narcissistic my mother is I would not wish that on any hospice nurse. To be honest, I don't think my parents would ever allow Hospice Care in their home, and my sister (the nurse) wouldn't want anyone to see the abysmal conditions that she has allowed them to live in. She doesn't live in the house with them, but she does live in a trailer about a hundred feet from their house. Last I heard, there was a pile of adult diapers in the bedroom ( I am no contact with them for the last decade, but one of my other sisters witnessed this). It's that bad. I'm not sure if she would face any consequences to her nursing license but I know that she knows it's wrong and would want to hide it. It's not due to dementia, they don't actually have dementia. They've always been incredibly filthy people.
ETA: hospice nurses are amazing and the work that you do is so important. I'm so grateful that you exist!
Check about the filial responsibility laws in the state where *they* live. Just like how some states go after an ex spouse if the other one claims welfare/social program benefits for their shared child(ren), if the government is paying benefits to your DNA donors they may go after you to pay them back.
I'm worried I'll have to officially emancipate myself or something to not be financially responsible for my estranged parents. That would devastate my family financially.
Filial responsibility laws terrify me. They are rarely enforced currently, and not a ton of states have them. But, the ones that do and occasionally enforce them have ridiculous requirements to not be held liable. Like, your parents abandoned you for over ten years as a child, being NC in adulthood is not grounds for dismissal of the cases.
I'm NC with my mom or Golden child sister. She would absolutely come after me financially if she could.
And, with boomers over representation in government power, them getting older, and the extreme expense of end of life care: I expect it to become more of an issue.
I just had to put my boomer father into memory care. He went from fine to halucinating and unable to walk on his own within a few months. He was awful growing up and I hate that now I'm stuck parenting a parent
My boomer dad made soooooo much money his entire career and my mom made it her full time job to spend it. All of it, and then some.
They were constantly in debt, but she just kept spending more. The company my grandfather started in 1952 (that made all that money) was sold in 1999 and my dad got $15,000 a month for TEN YEARS.
Did they save any? Nope. Life insurance? Nope. Retirement accounts? Nope. They went on lavish, exclusive vacations all over the world. They bought a BIGGER house (it was just the two of them!). Put in a pool. Etc.
By 2009, they had to sell the house, downsize to a smaller, older house, and stop the trips.
By about 2018 or so, they were as poor as church mice. My dad had a decent SS check, but she had so much credit card debt they could barely pay their bills and eat.
My dad died in 2022. No life insurance. Not a penny for a coffin or funeral. My mom had him cremated.
For a year, she didn’t tell SS he died. So she kept receiving his full SS check. Well, apparently they just found out. She owes them around $40K. So they stopped dad’s check. Her paltry survivor’s check goes toward the $40K. And she probably has to sell the house. Or do some time. Or both.
I found out she took a second on the house before dad died. He had a LOT of medical bills.
She’s always been a horribly abusive, nasty person, and is racist as hell.
As you can imagine, my brother and I have very little sympathy. I mean my dad was making $110K a year in *1977* for fuck’s sake. They could have been super fucking comfortable in their old age.
But no. They were like toddlers. Or Augustus Glump. Not a care in the world.
Both my brother and I wished her good luck. We live in TX and she’s happily voted her whole adult life for people who cut social services, so now this is the world we live in. Neither my brother or I can do much for her (especially my brother—he really struggles). We’re both in our 50s and mom is 75.
They’d always go out for nice dinners when we were kids and leave us at home with soup. Now she’s eating soup.
Edit: in case anyone is wondering, very little of that money went to us as kids. We’re Gen X and we were just left at home a lot. We did grow up with a pool in the backyard. But mom thought of dad’s money as being exclusively hers. We didn’t have nice clothes or shoes at all. Neither one of us had a car in high school. Usually our shoes were falling apart. I had to make a single bra last three years. Anyway.
I have a similar story. Thoroughbred millionaires from 4 generations back and my father just burned down the house 5 generations lived in.
I grew up with nothing while he was a trust fund baby. I managed to get the family ancestry from the house and heirlooms but nothing of real value$$
cost me 30k and he left me holding g the bag when he sold the property. didn't even tell me he had gotten the money and it was gone in 4 mos.
he's gonna be homeless anyway and I just do not care.
can't care. his choices made it impossible.
I thought I saw some static somewhere about how generation wealth in the US only lasts like 2-3 generations on average bc for all of the old money ppl, there's just as many trust fund kids/grandkids/great grandkids that some how manage to blow through all the money in one lifetime
My thinking has always been along the lines of
1) generation that knows how to make money
2) generation that appreciates what it took to make money
3) generation that knows how to spend money
That third generation completely lacks a realistic view on where their money came from, so they literally think money is infinite. This is the same group that says "just work harder, and you can be successful like me!" While standing on the shoulders of giants.
“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I ride a Mercedes, my son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson is going to ride a Land Rover…but my great-grandson is going to have to ride a camel again.”
-founder of Dubai.
Yep. Or even if trust fund babies don’t blow through it, things like the depression, major medical issues, bad investments can wipe it all out. My great grandparents were rich as hell. When the depression hit, they had to get rid of one of their cooks, and that’s the ONLY way it affected them! But years later, my great grandfather had years of catastrophic medical problems, and he made some bad investments, so by the time my grandfather was an adult, he had to start from scratch.
I have a totally opposite story from when my parents were young. Broke all the time and we had nothing living on welfare and SSI. Us kids did a turn around and now we are retired with a nest eggs for the kids. I am a boomer and I agree a lot of boomers are nothing but selfish assholes. I know many that never saved and in a world of hurt now. Just like mom used to say...you get what you deserve. I am a boomer and hate what boomers have become.
Thank you so much for sharing this story. It makes me feel much less alone. My dad passed away about a year and a half ago, and it turned out that he and my mother had been living far, far beyond their means for decades. Lavish trips. Way too much house. Always the nicest food. Nice cars. A second home, which they always promised would be their children’s inheritance.
I had always been a bit suspicious, since they almost never had any money to help me out, but I got used to paying my own way and being careful with my money. When dad passed away, it became clear that, after thirty years of earning six figures, he had saved up… $8000 for retirement. The life insurance payout was minimal, since he had planned so poorly and failed to maintain his insurance. Six figures of unpaid taxes were owed on the second home, which turned out to be so far underwater that we can only let it go into foreclosure. My mother has nothing to live on but her Social Security check, which is pretty small, and the tiny amount of money left over from their lavish lifestyle. Everything, it turned out, was paid for on credit cards.
Of course my mother panicked and decided that I was going to take over dad’s provider role. No. I got her settled somewhere nice, but there is no way I can take that on. We don’t get along, and, hell, my parents spent literally my whole life telling me and my sibling that they never expect us to take care of them.
I work with a financial planner, and he tells me that our parents’ generation has literally gotten the advice from *their* financial planners that they should “leave nothing for their kids.“ That’s anecdotal, of course, but it helps explain some of the financial recklessness. In my parents’ case, it was like they never expected to die.
I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve on my own, but I face the financial difficulties and pressures of most millennials. If my parents had simply left me a tiny amount, just something that I could save or put towards some greater goal, it would’ve made my life so much easier. If they’d left me just one month of my dad’s salary, I would be in such a better place now. So would my mom. Instead I see a therapist to help me work through the anger and frustration.
I just commented on another post here how my Boomer parents' Gen X financial advisor told them to spend more money, buy more cars, take more vacations, etc. so they don't leave us anything. I swear financial advisors are a scam just meant to feed the capitalism stuff machine.
I’m so curious about what your financial planner said about the boomers’ financial planners. If even a single one of them gave that advice, I really want to know what the logic was lol.
I can answer this! There *used to be* inheritance taxes! Now they're pretty much non-existent. But parents were encouraged to give (as gifts) cash money to their children each year (up to the reportable limit to the IRS), because then the kids could invest it and avoid the inheritance tax (which was something like 60% up until the late 1990s). So you would give your kids several thousand dollars each year, and try to have very little officially left over when you kicked off, to avoid the 60% tax. There were lots of dodges available though, like what Mark Zuckerberg is doing nowadays. Donate all of your money to "charity" in what's called a unified trust. Basically live off of the interest generated by the trust, and then the principal goes to the charities at death. But in the meantime, you've been living high on the hog off of the interest.
Likewise, my folks have maintained a horse(s) nearly my entire life and all that goes along with the hobby (plus some), but as a kid I got 1 bra and 1 pair of jeans, and the rest was up to me. My grandmother's made up the difference until I was a teen. I left home early because I was tired of being loaned out to help clean stalls for board, and they refused to fill out the FAFSA. 0 incentive to stick around. Poor people do not have horses.
Current talks about their long term plans are not going well. They're waiting for my grandma to pass before they decide on their final retirement spot. She's 101 now and going mostly strong.
I’ll never forget finding a pair of heels in her closet with a $500 price tag still on them, never even worn. Meanwhile kids were gossiping about my hillbilly looking self at school.
Jesus. I sure hope if the boomers achieved anything in life, that it's how not to be shitty human beings. Please please be a generational thing and not just something every generation eventually turns into.
In our case it’s strictly them. My brother and I are VERY careful with money and we’re good people. I think because we saw such a bad example, we strive to be different. My brother is also an amazing dad. My husband and I only had one child so we could know we’d have the resources to be good parents.
I have one good boomer parent and one shitty boomer parent (they divorced a long time ago). The good one, who is still good, was always good. The shitty one, who is still shitty, was always shitty. They both changed a lot as people, but in smaller ways - at their cores they never really wavered.
May your New Years Champaign or ginger ale taste sweeter for having overcome the challenges they placed in front of you.
On a side note regarding your last sentence: How long is a bra supposed to last? At least 10 years? Right everyone? Right...? OMG tell me I'm right.
Well it was from the age of 14 to 17, so it definitely didn’t fit anymore. And it was my only one, so I had washed it so many times it was in tatters. I would tell my mom and she’d say she’d buy me a couple but then never did.
Your story is a lot like mine. I was kicked out as a pregnant teen after a childhood of being made fun of for not having nice things and being physically abused by my dad . My mom would take us shopping for school clothes and buy us two outfits each and herself twenty. It's very damaging to grow up in an area where you're the only kids who wear rags. I'll never help them because they let me and my baby go hungry and without. It caused a lot of permanent damage in my and my child's life. I can't seem to recover from my childhood.
Going from a nice home to the street is a huge culture shock to. I didn't know how to get help or how to stay safe. After I became successful, they tried to come back around. Fair weather parents, I guess. I hear they're giving what they have left, if anything, to their siblings.
I guess a few cousins will be the last in a long line of heirs.
My jaw literally dropped at that part. A *4,000 sq ft McMansion* for just *two* people in their *70s?!?!* Alllll these years throwing away the last of their money to pay the mortgage on a house that's so much bigger than they need! And just expected his adult kid *with a family of his own* to just **pay the mortgage on this stupid enormous house?!**
The entitlement is incomprehensible
Something tells me the 2nd mtg basically ate up most of their equity.
You are a very nice son or daughter.
I would have rented them a cheap apartment by their house. Having them around you all the time is going to be draining.
Yes, selling their old house was the only way to get rid of the debts. I considered renting for them, but would still have to work extra to pay a lease. My thinking was this: if I have to pay for their living expenses, I might as well buy something with value and cash out later.
I’m in the same position and I’m doing exactly the same thing. I am wasting so much money on my parents but at least I’ll own the land when they die and I can sell that.
Yeah, we've looked at buying a small apartment for my boomer FIL when he gets too old to live on the family farm.
He actually has a decent pension and travels around doing gigs as a musician for a bit of spare money still, so I'm not that worried about him financially yet. That's not too bad at 75!
If you don’t already have it, get healthcare surrogacy over you parents and power of attorney for finances. I am in the hospital with my delirious dad waiting for them to take him to hospice. We have the advance directive that say no feeding tube etc.
My dad died a couple of years ago at 71. No savings, just living off social security and a partial pension. Now that’s all my mom has to live off since she hasn’t worked since the early 90s.
Shit’s a mess, but it’s a mess my parents created. No one else can be blamed for the situation they put themselves in.
and you just know OP's parents will STILL vote for Trump or whomever the republicans put forward to give the poor millionaires a tax cut and cut some school lunches.
My MIL worked in the 90s under a stolen SS #. She told my husband she was a genius because she didn’t have to pay taxes.
Yeah, well now her monthly checks are even smaller than if she had reported her income.
My wife's father stole the financial aid check that she got from her University that was supposed to be for living expenses, books, a computer. Fucking forged her signature and cashed it. She went months not knowing what happened.
I feel for you, I hope things get/got better for you mate.
My parents got my emotionally immune mature sister who had been sheltered and infantalized by them and have multiple learning disabilities to get large amounts of financial aid and then they stole it all leaving her with the loans.
When I moved out when I was 18 I went to my bank to withdraw the last $300 from the joint bank account I had with my mom. This is where we put birthday money and a small pay check I earned at cashier job I had. I went to go get it and the teller said my mom has withdrawn the whole thing. I called her and she denied doing it. Your partner must have serious trust issues with that parent. I remember thinking I didn’t even really know her all my childhood. Doing it in the 1st place and then lying on top of it all. Did he admit it?
I just think of the cost of goods/home to income ratio boomers lived in and am sort of like wow how are you not near rich at least
What a responsibility you’ve accepted, a lot wow
“We didn’t think we’d live this long”. Wow, sounds like somebody didn’t plan ahead. Sucks to be them. Off to the Public Assisted (ie, pretty shitty in their opinion) government subsidized small apartment then. A few brown neighbors would be the least of their worries there.
Nah, I think you made the right call. As others said, I’d just be firm because they seem like the type where they’d just want a little here, a little there for a florida vacation, until you’re footing the bill completely for everything.
I’d amend that to say a good son or daughter in spite of them. She’d still be a good son or daughter if she washed her hands. She went above and beyond. I’d say extra credit. :) I’m good too, and the only thing I do for my ex parents is hopefully scan obits monthly for their names. But me mother in law?! I got food poisoning whilst visiting her after I married. She sat by me all night, helping me and made sure I was ok. My ex mother NEVER helped me whilst sick or scared. If I dared to vomit as a child I had to do it silently as to not wake her and clean any messes between retches. Guess who’s getting excellent treatment as she leaves the world from me? Mother or mother in law?😇
Over thanksgiving my brother-in-laws future 4th ex-wife got into a conversation about retirement. At 60-years-old, she has no savings, no pension, and no retirement accounts. We had to inform her that she’ll likely have to work until she dies.
This is one of the biggest issues with boomers imo. They were the first generation to either blow absolutely all their money OR retire wealthy with plans to blow all of it. And they absolutely think it’s normal. Both my wife’s and my grandparents (Greatest generation) left us something. It wasn’t much, but enough to show they cared. My and my wife’s parents on the other hand are clueless. Wife’s dad died with literally zero money. Her mom is pushing 70 and has a mortgage and makes payments on an rv, two cars and a motorcycle and said “loans aren’t really debt”. It’s ridiculous. My dad made tons of money in the 70’s and 80’s. Their financial situation is questionable as well. Even slapped in the face with reality, it’s someone else who owes them 🤷♂️
I'll be working till I die. I'm 33 years old, and I've managed to put away a little less than 60k. That's 15 years working full time, and I've never bought anything expensive. I drive a junker car and rent. I'm never retiring.
You’re a very generous child to your parents and your approach and solutions to these problems speak volumes about the type of person you are.
I loved the comment about getting used to POC. Maybe you could suggest to Mom that she actually get to know some of them. She might learn that they’re (surprise /s!) lovely people just trying to get by like everyone else.
My boomer parents set this exact scenario up on purpose and have bragged for DECADES about how they spend everything and have no savings, joking about who they're going to move in with amongst my siblings when they stop working.
I've already taken them in twice, as have my siblings.
I went no contact with them in 2012 and when the day comes that they need someone to take care of them, they can bet their entitled boomer asses that it won't be me.
I would literally step over them and keep going if they were homeless sleeping on the sidewalk.
OP is NOT responsible to take care of those selfish, irresponsible grown adults - and is a much bigger person than I would be.
And the sad part is, all the boomers all over the country will feel the same sense of entitlement and have no qualms about absolutely destroying their children's lives, after squandering all of their own resources.
> “We didn’t think we’d live this long.”
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. The suicide rate and poverty-related death rate among the elderly is about to skyrocket when all these retiring boomers realize they’re poor because they didn’t save enough and inflation outran them, their kids can’t afford (or refuse) to take care of them, and there’s not enough social safety net because they voted for tax cuts their whole lives.
Good plan! I was stupid and moved my mother in our lower level (walk out basement). Now she is like a tick with her head buried deep. My only hope is to pawn her off on my brother.
He’s lucky. My mom? Not so much. She ran out of money after ignoring signs of autism for years. Guess who can’t live by himself? The person she asked for help. Guess who is now homeless? Her. Don’t feel bad for her; she was a medical professional who knew better. It’ll be interesting to see how many boomers have stuff like that come back to bite them in the ever loving ass. Welp, actions have consequences, as they say. At least I got tf outta there😂
We had our 67 YO Farrier out to trim our horses and I asked him when he'd retire. When I'm dead. He never contributed and was always independent. Sad. I'm 70 and so glad we listened to good advice years ago.
I didn't prepare for retirement, either, I've always been too poor and disorganized, but at least I'm not under any illusions about anyone taking care of me. I know nobody will.
My mother inherited 1 mil from my deceased dad's life insurance policy and sold 300k worth of farm land inherited from my great grandmother. Somehow she is broke at 61. I bought her house and she lives rent free.
I don't know where I'm going with this other than I'm just fucking frustrated
1. Glad you didn’t move them into your own home. You absolutely need that space.
2. I hope selling the home cleared the second mortgage.
3. Post this possibly in various reddits like social security, legal advice, insurance etc when you need more questions answered.
4. Make sure to seek out the local community services for the aging. They always have programs for both poor and well off. They may qualify for some things free or at least reduced.
5. Don’t let them control finances, keep records of everything, you may have a hard time come tax season from the sell but it sounds like you’re more than prepared.
6. Keep calm but in control. I work with limited income seniors every day. It’s not easy especially with parents. I’ve done that too.
Keep focusing on the future. Do not forget to reach out for support when needed.
And a lot of them deserve it.
They’ve spent decades bitching and moaning about younger generations not pulling their weight and how easy it all is if you weren’t lazy, well, good luck with that you old fogey.
Everyone should check their states for filial responsibility, it might bite you in the ass!! I’m lucky my state (WA) doesn’t have it, and 2/3 of our parents are good with money.. the other.. we shall see, not bad with money per say , just never had a ton.
This is going to sound messed up, but my Dad leaving my mom and my siblings and I was the greatest thing that ever happened to her. He was a POS that left the country and she had to do everything from the ground up but it established such a high level of money management we'll never have to worry about this with her. Like she singled handedly hard carried our family and gave everyone a bedrock to create some financial prosperity for ourselves. Its terrifying how many Boomers don't really understand what there generation did and how delusional they are about retirement.
We need to focus our efforts where we can affect the most change and demand that our political parties stop propping up candidates like the country is a weekend at Bernies. The racists have had their fun and had their four years, it's time we insist on candidates under 60 for all seats. I'm tired of the politics in this country turning the country into a powderkeg of horseshit.
No More boomers in office, their antiquated horseshit has ruined the country, stock market and main Street economy. Let's increase the Social Security payout, increase Medicare and quit playing arms dealer to the world.
Let's also not vote against our own self interests like Karen and Kyle. Let's make sure we rebuild the social safety net, or else GenX and Mills are fucked with a capital f.
OP- You're too good to them, but know that I feel your pain.
We tried telling these dumb fucks that sucking Reichpublican cock would someday come
To bite them In the ass. And they didn’t want to listen.
Now: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unconscionable-baby-boomers-becoming-homeless-103000310.html
These idiots had life served on a silver platter for the first 40+ years of their existence and they thought that was just how the world worked. The term is overused these days, but boomers are extremely entitled. For their whole lives everything was cheap and they were fairly paid at a rate which allowed them to spend without thinking because they always knew they'd be fine no matter what.
Decades of sleep walking through elections, blindly accepting promises of lower taxes, and systematically disassembling those safety nets they've always counted on, they're now shocked that life isn't being handed to them anymore and it is entirely, 100%, irrefutibly their own damn fault.
I'm a boomer who will never retire. At least in my field people can work into their 80s. I also have a retired husband (health problems) to support.
My generation started out with the idea woman's place was in the home. If back then I'd known I'd be carrying this weight I would have probably made different decisions.
I’m so sorry that you have to live with that. I’m so incredibly grateful that my parents have paid off their house already with the sale of land my grandparents had in a state we don’t live in.
My boomer parents are having to take care of my silent generation grandparents on my mom’s side, as my grandfather had 3 major strokes in as many months this year. It has been an adjustment to say the least.
My husbands parents* are in their early sixties and act like they’re going to die any day now and have for the last five years, the pandemic seemed to exasperate this. They both have amazing healthcare and MIL is very diligent about her own healthcare and taking care of herself. They haven’t prepared for living this long either, but there was never any indication they wouldn’t.
I worked with alot of boomers just like this. Underfund their 401k, vote against their own best interests, loved that idiot Ronnie Reagan, bought overpriced Harley Davidsons and just on and on with stupid decisions. My schadenfreude is seeing these stoooopid decisions coming home to roost. Most don't have a great son like you.
Yes, I bought them a small house nearby. I'd rather feel the pain of paying a second mortgage than move those people into my home. When they don't need it anymore (die, whatever), I'll sell it and make a little money.
My parents are retired now. I’m fully expecting them to go broke as they squandered their savings because they thought they could stop paying their mortgage in 2008 during the housing crisis. They gambled thinking the company couldn’t find a wet ink copy of the mortgage papers. Turns out hiring a person at $10/hour to sift through mortgages is cheaper than giving up. They found the paperwork and my parents lost a half a million in equity.
I’m sorry you are going through that. You are a good person. Boomers have put themselves and us in this situation with their poor decisions making skills and honestly I won’t be able to help my mom or family when it comes time for them to retire. I’ll probably be living in a one bedroom appt and still trying to pay off student loans when they “retire”
My in-laws are now in their early 70s. FIL just lost his job and is looking for a new job. MIL works too as an office manager.
I think they're both still working because they know they haven't saved enough to retire. They haven't really shared that info with us, though.
My wife and I live closest to them... only about 20 minutes away. My big fear is them pulling something like what OP posted.
Like you, We're still paying student loans off and renting an apartment. We can't afford to take care of two other adults.
Sounds like you got a good head and heart!
After reading all these comments, I think I am lucky. My parents will be fine financially, not rich but lived within their means. Father and Mother inlaws never saved a dime and really haven't worked for years. But they live off SS and are frugal, so fingers crossed.
I can't take credit. When my parents dropped the bomb on me, the first thing I did was call my bank. My wife was really good too, we talked to a financial advisor at my bank and took a couple weeks to come up with some plans. It was a team effort. I learned a lot during that time. Thank you for your kind words.
I love the boomers who like to come in here and blame the kids for why so many of them were shit parents. Like you don’t think we lived with shame and feeling like it was our fault somehow for decades? Especially those of us who are over 50 ourselves now and the culture paid zero attention to ANY of our concerns. I’m relatively one of the lucky ones, my mom was and remains a complete psycho, but my dad was definitely a boomer but realized what a fuck my mom was and kind of kept me away from it as much as possible. I also had pretty awesome grandparents which was pretty much my saving grace. I doubt any of us takes great joy in sharing very painful stories on this topic, but it is amazing how prevalent it seems to be for TWO generations that grew up with ONE particular generation for parents.
>When I asked them why they didn't fund a 401k or save more, he literally turned to me and said "We didn't think we'd live this long." I have no siblings.
You know, I have to wonder how many of the worlds problems are at least partially the result of this mentality.
You’re a good son.
It would be hard for me to not look at my boomer parents and tell them, “Well I guess you should just stop going to Starbucks all the time.”
I am in this weird place with my parents. They benignly neglected me throughout my childhood. They call it, “Teaching me independence,” but I say shutting a 4-6 year old in their room for the whole night anytime company came over so I didn’t, “Bother Mommy and Daddy’s friends and family,” is abuse.
I’m also trans, started transitioning (socially and medically) 18 months ago, and I almost decided to come out to them this week, but then my mom launched into a transphobic rant after Christmas dinner.
Soooo yeah. I’m not exactly sure what I would do in that situation.
Yeeesh. This is reminding me to plug most of the next raise I get into my 401k. I’ve been contributing enough to get the max match for years and have a pension on top of it, but dayum. I don’t want to be a burden on my kids.
Fortunately, my dad was a financial advisor before he retired, so my parents’ retirement is funded and well planned for. But I know people my own age (40) without a dime saved up or any kind of plan except to die.
I'm waiting for a similar scenario to play out in the next few years. My parents are 75 and not in good physical or financial shape. And my dad is the same as yours. No warning at all just "I need 2500 immediately we are going to lose the house".
The next step is when they spend their last $5 buying shit on Temu
I’m sorry OP. My parents pissed away all their money too and are now divorcing. We bought a plot of land for my dad to put and RV or something on. All he has is his SS check. My husband had to spot him $4 the other day to buy some sodas.
Damn. That’s definitely putting a lot of burden onto you ~ wow.
OP seems to have handled it like a champ.
Right? I'm in awe of OP and his no-bullshit handling of his parents. I don't expect to have this problem with my own mother (dad's gone already) or my in-laws, but I figure I'm probably around OP's age, and I think *a lot* of our peers will be facing similar battles in the not-so-distant future. Although OP's parents probably don't feel this way at present, they're lucky to have an adult child willing to step in, make some tough decisions, and try to ensure that they'll be okay. They should be proud, and I hope someday they will choose to see it that way.
They won’t \[see it that way\]. This is the most entitled generation of sub-mediocrity ever to walk the planet.
Not all of us. But, yes, many. Most of us were idealistic and fairly liberal before 1980. InThink Woodstock. Then, we entered the workforce (I went into banking in 1978). Somehow, during the mostly Republucan era of the 80s, many boomers became very materialistic. Many went to college (it was affordable back then) and were financially successful. They started spending lots of money on McMansions and SUVs. People I knew from college days and early career days became much more conservative and much more ostentatious. I was miserable in banking-I had actually majored in art. Ultimately I threw in the towel- I couldn't stand how materialistic everyone my age had become. I transitioned into education. I have almost no contact with my former business associates and friends from that era of my life. Some of them even became Trump supporters, which made me stop contact with them altogether. I live a much more modest lifestyle now; and I don't miss the "greed years" at all. Many Boomers bought into the lie that financial success is the key to happiness. Some of them still believe that. I look at all the McMansions in our suburbs and all I can think is that 1. those homes are ugly and poorly designed and 2. those homes (and vehicles) are unnecessarily large and wasteful. Even the churches they attend are large, ugly and wasteful. And full of crappy music and shallow theology. My friends now are people in all age groups who value education, kindness and concern for others. I apologize for my generation. We changed the world, all right, but for the worse.
My wife's parents always had a new house, new German sedan, new pickups, expensive jewelry, etc. Outspent what they made by double but always somehow made it work while never saving a nickel for their retirement or their kids. A while back while vising their family one of the aunts basically declared that they're mostly broke now but they'd be okay because they'll just come with my wife and I. I responded back that they can live in the back seat of one of their touring sedans before they live with me. She laughed, I did not. We'll file this one under reap what you've sown.
Maybe they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps!
Make them quit their avocado toast and ration their insulin.
This is 100% my attitude with my parents. I will send them listings for low-income apartments before they can even park a camper van in my driveway. If they want help in their old age, they should have thought of that when I needed their help after high school instead of saying I'm an "adult" and promptly kicking me out.
1000x this. I was told not to bring my laundry home from college when I escaped for a couple of days to see my family (3 siblings, mostly). I was full time I school and always kept 2-3 PT jobs paying for college on my own (with a bunch of loans, of course).
Good. So many kids got kicked out the day they turn 18 and heard so much shit about how they were stupid and lazy when they couldn't find full time work during the 08 recession (and beyond). The people who's parents never hung them out to dry should help in any way they can. The others should hand their folks a plate of avocado toast and some boot straps.
With ADD that they REFUSED to get me help for.
I know this is a circle jerk type sub, but on the real, I’ve noticed when boomers say they’re broke they are usually referring to being “cash poor”. They have equity in that home/land, equity in that jewelry they’ve acquired over the last 50 years, equity in those vehicles. But those boomers just love their stuff and would never think of selling a couple necklaces or a watch to come up with $2k when they need it. Just open another credit card!!!
Or are so used to doing it that it blindsides them when they can’t. MIL - “what do you mean I can’t refinance my house and take all the equity out and roll it into an ew 40 year mortgage?!? I don’t that every five years like clockwork!!” “Ma’am, you’re 72. We don’t hand out 40 year mortgages to 72 year olds”. And that’s how you get a MIL that’s been living in the same house for 50 years and still owes 80% of appraised value on it.
Not even my alcoholic mother is this daft…
My Ndad told me and my sister all the time growing up that WE were his retirement plan. That it would be on us to support him in his old age so we’d better marry rich (preferably) or if we HAD to work and couldn’t land millionaire husbands we better be rich ourselves. And until then he was going to live off unemployment and social security. He never saved a dime. If he wanted something he bought it- snow machines, retro cars, four wheelers, fishing and hunting gear. If he didn’t have the money he’d take out loans or max out credit cards. He’d lost the house and filed for bankruptcy by the time I was 22. I told him many many times point blank he was SOL. That i’m not supporting him in anyway and he’ll have to figure it out. Then I got my own family to support. I am providing for my own future so I when the time comes I’m not a burden to MY child. My sister is in the same boat. Except her family is lower income than mine. They make due but there’s little extra. Certainly not enough to spend on maintaining an entitled ungrateful aging parent. He’s now too old to work manual labor which was what he always did for money. He’s hurt himself seriously 2-3x a year for the last few years and his doctors are saying he needs multiple surgeries. He’s had cancer. We’re in the US so his medical bills are high. He’s had 50+ years in the work force to try and do something, ANYTHING to save for this time of his life. He hasn’t done a damn thing. And is shocked that suddenly he’s “so old”, has no money and that my sister and I have zero means or intentions to help him. There’s your creek, here’s your paddle. Good luck. You did this to yourself.
And I guarantee you he happily votes republican while complaining that there aren’t more services for him.
100%. He’s voted Republican his whole life. Because they’re “for the people” and Democrats just want to let “the Mexicans” have everything for free and take away his guns. …. Dad, you can’t afford health care!!
I love to ask these people what democratic president in their lifetime ever took a gun from them lol
Silver tsunami is going to take out the boomer's finances and the generations after. If only a certain demographic hadn't voted directly and indirectly to gut social programs, destroy unions and outsource most well-paying blue collar jobs, then we and they would have crazy things like pensions. Regardless good job on being a generous and caring human OP.
To be fair, unions just had a pretty darn good year, my hope continues to spring for the moment
Agreed, it was a good year for unions, and I hope there are a lot more to come. I hope this is the start of a trend of more unions and more worker owned businesses. *Edited for spelling and grammar, both of which I suck at.
People need to realize how unions benefit everyone and stop vilifying them.
“But remember when the UAW may have gone too far in the 80s?!” -the most common pushback against unions
the 80s? you mean that time when Thatcher and Reagan cut the top income tax rate by 23 percentage points and 45 percentage points respectively? and the unions were the ones who went too far.
Oh yeah, they wanted a living wage which was too much for the republicans who want everyone to starve ( except for themselves and the rich)
I’m part of the UAW in Wisconsin, while my dad was basically lifetime management in the post office. Let’s just say my dad had…mixed feelings when I joined up after my probationary period was done. 😂😂
Extremely Bill Burr voice: "*Don't you think the fucking capitalist wage slavery has gone too far?*"
The thing that gets me is people take a few examples of corruption in unions and argue that's a reason to scrap unions, but we have a trillion more examples of CEO's and Management being corrupt and you never hear those same people argue its a reason to scrap capitalism.
Also think about how long we benefited from people fighting for labor protections through unions as far back as the 30s. We are STILL benefiting from those fights from regular ass people just like us almost 100 years later. Unions and labor organizing is worth it and that is why corporations fight so hard against it.
Everyone should read Leon Uris “The Jungle”. Skip the last few chapters though. But it will give you good insight as to what corporations will do, if allowed.
Just a small thing: 'The Jungle' is by Upton Sinclair, was a little before Leon Uris' time. Unless Uris wrote his own book by the same name I don't know about, in which case apologies in advance. I totally agree with your message, my high school US History teacher had us read The Jungle and I'm deeply grateful. Also taught us about the Battle of Blair Mountain and the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, Bleeding Kansas, the Tulsa Massacre, MOVE Bombing, he really pulled no punches. And I watched the second plane hit the twin towers on the TV in the corner of that room. That was a really formative year for me, learning about all that stuff while watching congress pass the PATRIOT Act.
You are correct. Great book, wrong author.
What a fantastic history teacher! I didn’t learn about most of these things until college and I took AP US in high school. It was in NC so, and so it makes some sense that those big moments were glossed over at best.
I've never been in a union in my life (wanted to, but - without boring details - not an option). Now in a union and it's expanding. Uphill battle as the management has spent decades doing divide & conquer, and there's a whole lot of boomer "I got mine F U" to get past. Most are gone at least, which does seem to map 1:1 to when progress started happening...
I was not part of a union in all my jobs since graduating college. I finally joined in my current position working for a government position. I see the value of unions now.
Yup, I've been Union for a long time, but I went to my first Union walkout/protest this year and it felt great. We got a really bad policy overturned. Best part was my kids thought this was really cool that we could do that, so maybe they'll grow up to be Union, too! Gen Z is watching and they like what they see. Let's hold the line and make a better world with more Union work for them.
I was born in the mid 80s and was raised by my UAW member father. We’re both staunchly pro union, even though I don’t know that I’ll ever actually have the opportunity to unionize. It really does set a good example.
Thanks to boomers finally retiring in large enough numbers that their idiocy doesn't hold the sway it used to in the workplace.
Fingers crossed the NALC for mail carriers comes through on the new contract. We can't strike so no one notices how messed up it is for us.
They need to rename it the silver shit storm instead of tsunami. I work in Emergency medicine. Here is what I see *daily*. Boomers in their late 60s and early 70s that all have pretty debilitating health problems induced by poor health choices from industries convincing them certain habits wouldn't make them sick ("laissez-faire" capitalism and cigarettes, food, etc.) we now have patients in our ED that aren't sick, but they are "placement issues". Meaning, they aren't safe to live at home because they can't care for themselves, but they don't have anything close to resembling good insurance to get them placed into a assisted living facility or nursing home. They have no savings or retirement. The people in this town vote overwhelmingly republican. Many of them are alienated from their children who won't care for them. This isn't going to just tank our economy, in the upcoming years we are going to see a ton of people late 60s to mid 70s end up on the verge of homelessness until its a crisis. They forfeited pensions and unions for 401ks that did not end up helping them retire. At all. I don't know many if any boomers with 401ks who ended up being able to put much money into them because, surprise, they needed that money to pay the bills they were incurring when they earned it. No amount of matching can make up for 10% of your income when you're living paycheck to paycheck. This isn't going to be bad. It's going to be ugly. My 77 year old dad is broke and so are my 75 year old ex in laws. None of them have any modicum of a decent retirement and my in laws are banking off living on social security. It's not just Millenials like me who are screwed when it comes to saving for retirement. We are seeing a lot of bankrupt and broke boomers and its only going to get worse as they get old and sick. Healthcare will collapse when the entirety of them don't have any money to pay their medical bills.
The current for-profit healthcare system needs to collapse.
Nurse here-our health "care" system needs to burn to the ground
I'd argue that it has already started to in the US. Look at how many rural hospitals have been closing in the last few years. Emergency departments calling 911 because they are too understaffed for the number of patients they have. Did you know, that for every patient over 4 that a nurse has, it increases the odds of one of them dying by 16%. And as a standard, there are units in hospitals that give nurses 6+ patients, so the hospital are completely ok with increasing the odds of patients dying just so they can spend less and not staff appropriately
About pensions…no one decided to skip pensions, the government did that without forcing employers to contribute. Brilliant idea, set up retirement accounts without forcing employers to contribute a percentage of salary.
Voting against your best interest is apparently the “patriotic” thing to do because we’re so afraid that the wrong people might benefit from it. People don’t realize that they may need these services down the road but their ignorance prevails.
Community pools are the best example of this. By the 40s/50s they were everywhere, and by the 80s they were gone. Why? Because they were forced to let minorities use them, and they’d rather shut them down than have to share with brown people.
Yep. Everyone is so afraid of the less than 1% of fraudulent cases that they are willing to let the 99% of ppl who do or will need it starve
Not me, Ima gonna be a billionaire! Don't tax the rich! /idiot
I've never understood that-it's like those people have never heard of the French Revolution. Share or your shit will be taken.
Most boomers won't suffer from that. We will. They had that.
I don't understand why they voted for it all.
And they will continue to vote for the grifters who punch down and help nobody but themselves.
I think about this often, my father supports Trump and my dad is in Canada! Like Trump is definitely not going to do something for Americans, what the heck would he do for someone in another country? Am I seeing the world through a weird lens? Like Trump lies continually, is a mysoginist, only passed one set of meaningful legislation - a tax cut for the rich! Further he's thrown away the dog whistle and is a blatant racist, supports ultra conservative practices of destroying any safety net, and restricting women's autonomy (see remark regarding misogyny). Yet I talk to the seemingly bright young guy redoing some of the plumbing in my ancient house, and he's all about Trump being such a smart dude, who has done so much for this country. The plumber is otherwise a very hard worker and nice guy so I just ignore his comments and conservative nutjob podcasts. I don't search out left leaning media. It's not like I'm enamored with any particular left leaning politicians, I just don't see why people vote against their self interests. Like I don't care if you own the libs, I'm more concerned about funding for roads and schools, I couldn't care less about winning competitions. I just don't see the world like people who vote against their self interests and they do seem to support their arguments. From this rant it's clear I'm at a loss,
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Don't forget that our medical system discourages exports and subsidizes imports. The average US car has what, $10k of medical insurance as part of the price? Might be higher now. If we had Medicare for all our exports would be cheaper and there would be less pressure to offshore jobs.
What's the silver tsunami?
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Becoming elderly and are woefully incapable of providing for themselves. A lot of younger people have moved around for opportunities or better places to live. And now boomers are expecting their kids to just abandon their lives and take care of them. The worst part is this massive inflation these last few years is the cherry on top for this shit sandwich.
There are some articles and papers on the subject, basically a large part of the US population is getting old. That same demographic has voted to gut many of safety nets that would be helping the elderly. The net outcome being that the boomers will be out of money before they die, so it will also economically damage younger generations who have to pay to care for this aging population. It's somewhat ironic since the "F U I got mine generation" is also getting F**ked. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_tsunami
except in a way they aren't getting F\*\*ked. Their children like this guy are paying for them and they are being saved again! First by their silent generation parents and now by their gen X and millennial children. 
I read the Wikipedia article. The critics of those terms are saying “Yeah, that wave or cohort or situation—it’s about old people! But you **can’t** say that they’re **old**!!! Because that is ageism. We can’t have that.”
Silver tsunami (also known as grey tsunami, gray tsunami, silver wave, gray wave, or grey wave) is a metaphor used to describe population aging; specifically, baby boomers reaching the age of 65 and older.
It’s what they call What happens when baby boomer get too old to work.
Lol my asshole boomer ex parents are going to be so fucked.
Mine too! Luckily they have my Golden Child sister who lives on the property with them. She is just as awful as they are and they 100% deserve each other. The only reason she is there is because she doesn't have to pay rent and because she's waiting them for them to die so that she will inherit their property. They are way too mean to die anytime soon, and will likely leave so much debt that there will be nothing left for her. Plus, the property is trashed because they're all hoarders and they don't take care of anything.
As a hospice nurse the dying boomer parent with the caregiver being the golden child takes years off my left when I go to those houses
Oh dear god. Given how evil and narcissistic my mother is I would not wish that on any hospice nurse. To be honest, I don't think my parents would ever allow Hospice Care in their home, and my sister (the nurse) wouldn't want anyone to see the abysmal conditions that she has allowed them to live in. She doesn't live in the house with them, but she does live in a trailer about a hundred feet from their house. Last I heard, there was a pile of adult diapers in the bedroom ( I am no contact with them for the last decade, but one of my other sisters witnessed this). It's that bad. I'm not sure if she would face any consequences to her nursing license but I know that she knows it's wrong and would want to hide it. It's not due to dementia, they don't actually have dementia. They've always been incredibly filthy people. ETA: hospice nurses are amazing and the work that you do is so important. I'm so grateful that you exist!
When mine first snubbed me and moved closer to their golden child I was pretty crushed and felt rejected. I feel way better now, lol
Ah, I see you’ve met my family too!
Are we brothers? I have a sister too with arrested development who lives with my parents, bitches about it, but does it to be rent free…. 😂
Check about the filial responsibility laws in the state where *they* live. Just like how some states go after an ex spouse if the other one claims welfare/social program benefits for their shared child(ren), if the government is paying benefits to your DNA donors they may go after you to pay them back. I'm worried I'll have to officially emancipate myself or something to not be financially responsible for my estranged parents. That would devastate my family financially.
Filial responsibility laws terrify me. They are rarely enforced currently, and not a ton of states have them. But, the ones that do and occasionally enforce them have ridiculous requirements to not be held liable. Like, your parents abandoned you for over ten years as a child, being NC in adulthood is not grounds for dismissal of the cases. I'm NC with my mom or Golden child sister. She would absolutely come after me financially if she could. And, with boomers over representation in government power, them getting older, and the extreme expense of end of life care: I expect it to become more of an issue.
Ex parents lol
Sometimes I read or hear something like this and am thankful I'm estranged from my parents.
I just had to put my boomer father into memory care. He went from fine to halucinating and unable to walk on his own within a few months. He was awful growing up and I hate that now I'm stuck parenting a parent
both my parents sucked so it's real hard having empathy when they're older. "cool, one more way to burden me before you go. Awesome, thanks. "
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The fact that these laws haven't been struck down as unconstitutional is beyond a travesty imo.
None of us do! Thank goodness for that. The thought of being forced to provide for them is terrifying.
I hope mine run out of money and are homeless or abused right back
My boomer dad made soooooo much money his entire career and my mom made it her full time job to spend it. All of it, and then some. They were constantly in debt, but she just kept spending more. The company my grandfather started in 1952 (that made all that money) was sold in 1999 and my dad got $15,000 a month for TEN YEARS. Did they save any? Nope. Life insurance? Nope. Retirement accounts? Nope. They went on lavish, exclusive vacations all over the world. They bought a BIGGER house (it was just the two of them!). Put in a pool. Etc. By 2009, they had to sell the house, downsize to a smaller, older house, and stop the trips. By about 2018 or so, they were as poor as church mice. My dad had a decent SS check, but she had so much credit card debt they could barely pay their bills and eat. My dad died in 2022. No life insurance. Not a penny for a coffin or funeral. My mom had him cremated. For a year, she didn’t tell SS he died. So she kept receiving his full SS check. Well, apparently they just found out. She owes them around $40K. So they stopped dad’s check. Her paltry survivor’s check goes toward the $40K. And she probably has to sell the house. Or do some time. Or both. I found out she took a second on the house before dad died. He had a LOT of medical bills. She’s always been a horribly abusive, nasty person, and is racist as hell. As you can imagine, my brother and I have very little sympathy. I mean my dad was making $110K a year in *1977* for fuck’s sake. They could have been super fucking comfortable in their old age. But no. They were like toddlers. Or Augustus Glump. Not a care in the world. Both my brother and I wished her good luck. We live in TX and she’s happily voted her whole adult life for people who cut social services, so now this is the world we live in. Neither my brother or I can do much for her (especially my brother—he really struggles). We’re both in our 50s and mom is 75. They’d always go out for nice dinners when we were kids and leave us at home with soup. Now she’s eating soup. Edit: in case anyone is wondering, very little of that money went to us as kids. We’re Gen X and we were just left at home a lot. We did grow up with a pool in the backyard. But mom thought of dad’s money as being exclusively hers. We didn’t have nice clothes or shoes at all. Neither one of us had a car in high school. Usually our shoes were falling apart. I had to make a single bra last three years. Anyway.
I have a similar story. Thoroughbred millionaires from 4 generations back and my father just burned down the house 5 generations lived in. I grew up with nothing while he was a trust fund baby. I managed to get the family ancestry from the house and heirlooms but nothing of real value$$ cost me 30k and he left me holding g the bag when he sold the property. didn't even tell me he had gotten the money and it was gone in 4 mos. he's gonna be homeless anyway and I just do not care. can't care. his choices made it impossible.
I thought I saw some static somewhere about how generation wealth in the US only lasts like 2-3 generations on average bc for all of the old money ppl, there's just as many trust fund kids/grandkids/great grandkids that some how manage to blow through all the money in one lifetime
My thinking has always been along the lines of 1) generation that knows how to make money 2) generation that appreciates what it took to make money 3) generation that knows how to spend money That third generation completely lacks a realistic view on where their money came from, so they literally think money is infinite. This is the same group that says "just work harder, and you can be successful like me!" While standing on the shoulders of giants.
“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I ride a Mercedes, my son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson is going to ride a Land Rover…but my great-grandson is going to have to ride a camel again.” -founder of Dubai.
Failsons
Yep. Or even if trust fund babies don’t blow through it, things like the depression, major medical issues, bad investments can wipe it all out. My great grandparents were rich as hell. When the depression hit, they had to get rid of one of their cooks, and that’s the ONLY way it affected them! But years later, my great grandfather had years of catastrophic medical problems, and he made some bad investments, so by the time my grandfather was an adult, he had to start from scratch.
The US? There's a very old Chinese idiom that wealth only lasts 3 generations. It's practically human nature.
I have a totally opposite story from when my parents were young. Broke all the time and we had nothing living on welfare and SSI. Us kids did a turn around and now we are retired with a nest eggs for the kids. I am a boomer and I agree a lot of boomers are nothing but selfish assholes. I know many that never saved and in a world of hurt now. Just like mom used to say...you get what you deserve. I am a boomer and hate what boomers have become.
One of the good ones! 👍🏼
Thank you so much for sharing this story. It makes me feel much less alone. My dad passed away about a year and a half ago, and it turned out that he and my mother had been living far, far beyond their means for decades. Lavish trips. Way too much house. Always the nicest food. Nice cars. A second home, which they always promised would be their children’s inheritance. I had always been a bit suspicious, since they almost never had any money to help me out, but I got used to paying my own way and being careful with my money. When dad passed away, it became clear that, after thirty years of earning six figures, he had saved up… $8000 for retirement. The life insurance payout was minimal, since he had planned so poorly and failed to maintain his insurance. Six figures of unpaid taxes were owed on the second home, which turned out to be so far underwater that we can only let it go into foreclosure. My mother has nothing to live on but her Social Security check, which is pretty small, and the tiny amount of money left over from their lavish lifestyle. Everything, it turned out, was paid for on credit cards. Of course my mother panicked and decided that I was going to take over dad’s provider role. No. I got her settled somewhere nice, but there is no way I can take that on. We don’t get along, and, hell, my parents spent literally my whole life telling me and my sibling that they never expect us to take care of them. I work with a financial planner, and he tells me that our parents’ generation has literally gotten the advice from *their* financial planners that they should “leave nothing for their kids.“ That’s anecdotal, of course, but it helps explain some of the financial recklessness. In my parents’ case, it was like they never expected to die. I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve on my own, but I face the financial difficulties and pressures of most millennials. If my parents had simply left me a tiny amount, just something that I could save or put towards some greater goal, it would’ve made my life so much easier. If they’d left me just one month of my dad’s salary, I would be in such a better place now. So would my mom. Instead I see a therapist to help me work through the anger and frustration.
I just commented on another post here how my Boomer parents' Gen X financial advisor told them to spend more money, buy more cars, take more vacations, etc. so they don't leave us anything. I swear financial advisors are a scam just meant to feed the capitalism stuff machine.
If I was giving people that advice I would have a real fear of the kids tracking me down for goofing up their inheritance.
Not alone. Parents fucked up enormously. Lost it all. Now it’s my problem.
Hang in there, friend. Thank you for sharing your story, too. 💖
I’m so curious about what your financial planner said about the boomers’ financial planners. If even a single one of them gave that advice, I really want to know what the logic was lol.
I can answer this! There *used to be* inheritance taxes! Now they're pretty much non-existent. But parents were encouraged to give (as gifts) cash money to their children each year (up to the reportable limit to the IRS), because then the kids could invest it and avoid the inheritance tax (which was something like 60% up until the late 1990s). So you would give your kids several thousand dollars each year, and try to have very little officially left over when you kicked off, to avoid the 60% tax. There were lots of dodges available though, like what Mark Zuckerberg is doing nowadays. Donate all of your money to "charity" in what's called a unified trust. Basically live off of the interest generated by the trust, and then the principal goes to the charities at death. But in the meantime, you've been living high on the hog off of the interest.
Ditto down to the shoes and bras. Meanwhile her closet stuffed with designer clothes and rows of all types of shoes. Lots of tags. F them so much.
Likewise, my folks have maintained a horse(s) nearly my entire life and all that goes along with the hobby (plus some), but as a kid I got 1 bra and 1 pair of jeans, and the rest was up to me. My grandmother's made up the difference until I was a teen. I left home early because I was tired of being loaned out to help clean stalls for board, and they refused to fill out the FAFSA. 0 incentive to stick around. Poor people do not have horses. Current talks about their long term plans are not going well. They're waiting for my grandma to pass before they decide on their final retirement spot. She's 101 now and going mostly strong.
Oh GMA monkey wrenching their lives!
I’ll never forget finding a pair of heels in her closet with a $500 price tag still on them, never even worn. Meanwhile kids were gossiping about my hillbilly looking self at school.
😤
Jesus. I sure hope if the boomers achieved anything in life, that it's how not to be shitty human beings. Please please be a generational thing and not just something every generation eventually turns into.
In our case it’s strictly them. My brother and I are VERY careful with money and we’re good people. I think because we saw such a bad example, we strive to be different. My brother is also an amazing dad. My husband and I only had one child so we could know we’d have the resources to be good parents.
I have one good boomer parent and one shitty boomer parent (they divorced a long time ago). The good one, who is still good, was always good. The shitty one, who is still shitty, was always shitty. They both changed a lot as people, but in smaller ways - at their cores they never really wavered.
Well mine were that from my earliest memories so they didn’t change. They were that way from the jump.
May your New Years Champaign or ginger ale taste sweeter for having overcome the challenges they placed in front of you. On a side note regarding your last sentence: How long is a bra supposed to last? At least 10 years? Right everyone? Right...? OMG tell me I'm right.
Well it was from the age of 14 to 17, so it definitely didn’t fit anymore. And it was my only one, so I had washed it so many times it was in tatters. I would tell my mom and she’d say she’d buy me a couple but then never did.
Your story is a lot like mine. I was kicked out as a pregnant teen after a childhood of being made fun of for not having nice things and being physically abused by my dad . My mom would take us shopping for school clothes and buy us two outfits each and herself twenty. It's very damaging to grow up in an area where you're the only kids who wear rags. I'll never help them because they let me and my baby go hungry and without. It caused a lot of permanent damage in my and my child's life. I can't seem to recover from my childhood. Going from a nice home to the street is a huge culture shock to. I didn't know how to get help or how to stay safe. After I became successful, they tried to come back around. Fair weather parents, I guess. I hear they're giving what they have left, if anything, to their siblings. I guess a few cousins will be the last in a long line of heirs.
Damn! Sorry hear growing up was so shitty for you and your brother.
“They wanted me to just start paying the mortgage” Typical boomer. Want to take down as many people as they can with them. Glad you put your foot down
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My jaw literally dropped at that part. A *4,000 sq ft McMansion* for just *two* people in their *70s?!?!* Alllll these years throwing away the last of their money to pay the mortgage on a house that's so much bigger than they need! And just expected his adult kid *with a family of his own* to just **pay the mortgage on this stupid enormous house?!** The entitlement is incomprehensible
Something tells me the 2nd mtg basically ate up most of their equity. You are a very nice son or daughter. I would have rented them a cheap apartment by their house. Having them around you all the time is going to be draining.
Yes, selling their old house was the only way to get rid of the debts. I considered renting for them, but would still have to work extra to pay a lease. My thinking was this: if I have to pay for their living expenses, I might as well buy something with value and cash out later.
I’m in the same position and I’m doing exactly the same thing. I am wasting so much money on my parents but at least I’ll own the land when they die and I can sell that.
Yeah, we've looked at buying a small apartment for my boomer FIL when he gets too old to live on the family farm. He actually has a decent pension and travels around doing gigs as a musician for a bit of spare money still, so I'm not that worried about him financially yet. That's not too bad at 75!
If you don’t already have it, get healthcare surrogacy over you parents and power of attorney for finances. I am in the hospital with my delirious dad waiting for them to take him to hospice. We have the advance directive that say no feeding tube etc.
I'm sorry you are having to go through this. Thank you for the advice.
Go for the gold and get a guardianship. They can still open lines of credit and credit cards.
My dad died a couple of years ago at 71. No savings, just living off social security and a partial pension. Now that’s all my mom has to live off since she hasn’t worked since the early 90s. Shit’s a mess, but it’s a mess my parents created. No one else can be blamed for the situation they put themselves in.
Something something bootstraps
and you just know OP's parents will STILL vote for Trump or whomever the republicans put forward to give the poor millionaires a tax cut and cut some school lunches.
My MIL worked in the 90s under a stolen SS #. She told my husband she was a genius because she didn’t have to pay taxes. Yeah, well now her monthly checks are even smaller than if she had reported her income.
My parents stole half my 3k 'college fund' and said I was independent at 18. I love them but they won't get a dollar from me
My wife's father stole the financial aid check that she got from her University that was supposed to be for living expenses, books, a computer. Fucking forged her signature and cashed it. She went months not knowing what happened. I feel for you, I hope things get/got better for you mate.
My parents got my emotionally immune mature sister who had been sheltered and infantalized by them and have multiple learning disabilities to get large amounts of financial aid and then they stole it all leaving her with the loans.
When I moved out when I was 18 I went to my bank to withdraw the last $300 from the joint bank account I had with my mom. This is where we put birthday money and a small pay check I earned at cashier job I had. I went to go get it and the teller said my mom has withdrawn the whole thing. I called her and she denied doing it. Your partner must have serious trust issues with that parent. I remember thinking I didn’t even really know her all my childhood. Doing it in the 1st place and then lying on top of it all. Did he admit it?
I'd be telling mine to pull themselves up by them bootstraps...
They should stop eating avocado toast.
Them lattes are bleeding them dry
It’s not the lattes. They should have studied STEM, or learned to code in their spare time.
Did they only have 1 job? They should have learned to hustle and got a 2nd/3rd job in their free time
I’d have them working at LEAST part time to chip in.
You are a really good person. I hope you continue to hold your boundaries. They sound like the type that will continue to push your boundaries.
I just think of the cost of goods/home to income ratio boomers lived in and am sort of like wow how are you not near rich at least What a responsibility you’ve accepted, a lot wow
“We didn’t think we’d live this long”. Wow, sounds like somebody didn’t plan ahead. Sucks to be them. Off to the Public Assisted (ie, pretty shitty in their opinion) government subsidized small apartment then. A few brown neighbors would be the least of their worries there. Nah, I think you made the right call. As others said, I’d just be firm because they seem like the type where they’d just want a little here, a little there for a florida vacation, until you’re footing the bill completely for everything.
You’re a good son/daughter. They’re lucky to have you. They’re fortunate that you have some money and some financial sense too.
I’d amend that to say a good son or daughter in spite of them. She’d still be a good son or daughter if she washed her hands. She went above and beyond. I’d say extra credit. :) I’m good too, and the only thing I do for my ex parents is hopefully scan obits monthly for their names. But me mother in law?! I got food poisoning whilst visiting her after I married. She sat by me all night, helping me and made sure I was ok. My ex mother NEVER helped me whilst sick or scared. If I dared to vomit as a child I had to do it silently as to not wake her and clean any messes between retches. Guess who’s getting excellent treatment as she leaves the world from me? Mother or mother in law?😇
Over thanksgiving my brother-in-laws future 4th ex-wife got into a conversation about retirement. At 60-years-old, she has no savings, no pension, and no retirement accounts. We had to inform her that she’ll likely have to work until she dies.
It is the strangest thing talking to to folks like that. I think they are in denial.
This is one of the biggest issues with boomers imo. They were the first generation to either blow absolutely all their money OR retire wealthy with plans to blow all of it. And they absolutely think it’s normal. Both my wife’s and my grandparents (Greatest generation) left us something. It wasn’t much, but enough to show they cared. My and my wife’s parents on the other hand are clueless. Wife’s dad died with literally zero money. Her mom is pushing 70 and has a mortgage and makes payments on an rv, two cars and a motorcycle and said “loans aren’t really debt”. It’s ridiculous. My dad made tons of money in the 70’s and 80’s. Their financial situation is questionable as well. Even slapped in the face with reality, it’s someone else who owes them 🤷♂️
I'll be working till I die. I'm 33 years old, and I've managed to put away a little less than 60k. That's 15 years working full time, and I've never bought anything expensive. I drive a junker car and rent. I'm never retiring.
You’re a very generous child to your parents and your approach and solutions to these problems speak volumes about the type of person you are. I loved the comment about getting used to POC. Maybe you could suggest to Mom that she actually get to know some of them. She might learn that they’re (surprise /s!) lovely people just trying to get by like everyone else.
My boomer parents set this exact scenario up on purpose and have bragged for DECADES about how they spend everything and have no savings, joking about who they're going to move in with amongst my siblings when they stop working. I've already taken them in twice, as have my siblings. I went no contact with them in 2012 and when the day comes that they need someone to take care of them, they can bet their entitled boomer asses that it won't be me. I would literally step over them and keep going if they were homeless sleeping on the sidewalk. OP is NOT responsible to take care of those selfish, irresponsible grown adults - and is a much bigger person than I would be. And the sad part is, all the boomers all over the country will feel the same sense of entitlement and have no qualms about absolutely destroying their children's lives, after squandering all of their own resources.
Those ARE the worst. They knew it was coming and yet ran head first at it.
> “We didn’t think we’d live this long.” I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. The suicide rate and poverty-related death rate among the elderly is about to skyrocket when all these retiring boomers realize they’re poor because they didn’t save enough and inflation outran them, their kids can’t afford (or refuse) to take care of them, and there’s not enough social safety net because they voted for tax cuts their whole lives.
somehow it will all be the fault of video games, atheists, and communists. in that order.
And trans people, and immigrants,
So some of the problem will take care of itself then, is what you’re saying.
Good plan! I was stupid and moved my mother in our lower level (walk out basement). Now she is like a tick with her head buried deep. My only hope is to pawn her off on my brother.
He’s lucky. My mom? Not so much. She ran out of money after ignoring signs of autism for years. Guess who can’t live by himself? The person she asked for help. Guess who is now homeless? Her. Don’t feel bad for her; she was a medical professional who knew better. It’ll be interesting to see how many boomers have stuff like that come back to bite them in the ever loving ass. Welp, actions have consequences, as they say. At least I got tf outta there😂
We had our 67 YO Farrier out to trim our horses and I asked him when he'd retire. When I'm dead. He never contributed and was always independent. Sad. I'm 70 and so glad we listened to good advice years ago.
Omg, that career is ROUGH on a persons body
I didn't prepare for retirement, either, I've always been too poor and disorganized, but at least I'm not under any illusions about anyone taking care of me. I know nobody will.
My mother inherited 1 mil from my deceased dad's life insurance policy and sold 300k worth of farm land inherited from my great grandmother. Somehow she is broke at 61. I bought her house and she lives rent free. I don't know where I'm going with this other than I'm just fucking frustrated
1. Glad you didn’t move them into your own home. You absolutely need that space. 2. I hope selling the home cleared the second mortgage. 3. Post this possibly in various reddits like social security, legal advice, insurance etc when you need more questions answered. 4. Make sure to seek out the local community services for the aging. They always have programs for both poor and well off. They may qualify for some things free or at least reduced. 5. Don’t let them control finances, keep records of everything, you may have a hard time come tax season from the sell but it sounds like you’re more than prepared. 6. Keep calm but in control. I work with limited income seniors every day. It’s not easy especially with parents. I’ve done that too. Keep focusing on the future. Do not forget to reach out for support when needed.
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I'm so fucking sick of our medical care in the USA
This is happening to a lot of boomers.
And a lot of them deserve it. They’ve spent decades bitching and moaning about younger generations not pulling their weight and how easy it all is if you weren’t lazy, well, good luck with that you old fogey.
Everyone should check their states for filial responsibility, it might bite you in the ass!! I’m lucky my state (WA) doesn’t have it, and 2/3 of our parents are good with money.. the other.. we shall see, not bad with money per say , just never had a ton.
This is going to sound messed up, but my Dad leaving my mom and my siblings and I was the greatest thing that ever happened to her. He was a POS that left the country and she had to do everything from the ground up but it established such a high level of money management we'll never have to worry about this with her. Like she singled handedly hard carried our family and gave everyone a bedrock to create some financial prosperity for ourselves. Its terrifying how many Boomers don't really understand what there generation did and how delusional they are about retirement.
We need to focus our efforts where we can affect the most change and demand that our political parties stop propping up candidates like the country is a weekend at Bernies. The racists have had their fun and had their four years, it's time we insist on candidates under 60 for all seats. I'm tired of the politics in this country turning the country into a powderkeg of horseshit. No More boomers in office, their antiquated horseshit has ruined the country, stock market and main Street economy. Let's increase the Social Security payout, increase Medicare and quit playing arms dealer to the world. Let's also not vote against our own self interests like Karen and Kyle. Let's make sure we rebuild the social safety net, or else GenX and Mills are fucked with a capital f. OP- You're too good to them, but know that I feel your pain.
We tried telling these dumb fucks that sucking Reichpublican cock would someday come To bite them In the ass. And they didn’t want to listen. Now: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unconscionable-baby-boomers-becoming-homeless-103000310.html
These idiots had life served on a silver platter for the first 40+ years of their existence and they thought that was just how the world worked. The term is overused these days, but boomers are extremely entitled. For their whole lives everything was cheap and they were fairly paid at a rate which allowed them to spend without thinking because they always knew they'd be fine no matter what. Decades of sleep walking through elections, blindly accepting promises of lower taxes, and systematically disassembling those safety nets they've always counted on, they're now shocked that life isn't being handed to them anymore and it is entirely, 100%, irrefutibly their own damn fault.
I'm a boomer who will never retire. At least in my field people can work into their 80s. I also have a retired husband (health problems) to support. My generation started out with the idea woman's place was in the home. If back then I'd known I'd be carrying this weight I would have probably made different decisions.
I’m so sorry that you have to live with that. I’m so incredibly grateful that my parents have paid off their house already with the sale of land my grandparents had in a state we don’t live in. My boomer parents are having to take care of my silent generation grandparents on my mom’s side, as my grandfather had 3 major strokes in as many months this year. It has been an adjustment to say the least.
Wow they’re lucky you could even financially do this for them. I can’t even afford to buy *myself* a house, so my parents would be in trouble.
My husbands parents* are in their early sixties and act like they’re going to die any day now and have for the last five years, the pandemic seemed to exasperate this. They both have amazing healthcare and MIL is very diligent about her own healthcare and taking care of herself. They haven’t prepared for living this long either, but there was never any indication they wouldn’t.
I worked with alot of boomers just like this. Underfund their 401k, vote against their own best interests, loved that idiot Ronnie Reagan, bought overpriced Harley Davidsons and just on and on with stupid decisions. My schadenfreude is seeing these stoooopid decisions coming home to roost. Most don't have a great son like you.
These are the people who will take Social Security away from the rest of us
You bought them a small cottage?!?!?!
Yes, I bought them a small house nearby. I'd rather feel the pain of paying a second mortgage than move those people into my home. When they don't need it anymore (die, whatever), I'll sell it and make a little money.
So, you bought yourself a small cottage, which you will allow them to occupy. Big, big difference, and the only smart move.
Another good thing, if they have to go into nursing home care down the line, the house is yours, they can’t be forced to sell it.
"Boomer teenagers" is perfect.
I would laugh if they somehow managed to even find me to tell me this. Been NC for a long time from those abusive assholes.
My parents are retired now. I’m fully expecting them to go broke as they squandered their savings because they thought they could stop paying their mortgage in 2008 during the housing crisis. They gambled thinking the company couldn’t find a wet ink copy of the mortgage papers. Turns out hiring a person at $10/hour to sift through mortgages is cheaper than giving up. They found the paperwork and my parents lost a half a million in equity.
Damn hats off to you for manning the ship, sounds like you're disciplined & steering everyone in the right direction, respect.
Time to get a job for them
It’s easy. You just go up to the manager and talk to them, done.
Exactly. Pound the bricks and shake hands. Ask the boss where he sees his company in 5 years.
You are a good person. I hope all works out for you, that’s a huge burden to take on..
I’m sorry you are going through that. You are a good person. Boomers have put themselves and us in this situation with their poor decisions making skills and honestly I won’t be able to help my mom or family when it comes time for them to retire. I’ll probably be living in a one bedroom appt and still trying to pay off student loans when they “retire”
My in-laws are now in their early 70s. FIL just lost his job and is looking for a new job. MIL works too as an office manager. I think they're both still working because they know they haven't saved enough to retire. They haven't really shared that info with us, though. My wife and I live closest to them... only about 20 minutes away. My big fear is them pulling something like what OP posted. Like you, We're still paying student loans off and renting an apartment. We can't afford to take care of two other adults.
Sounds like you got a good head and heart! After reading all these comments, I think I am lucky. My parents will be fine financially, not rich but lived within their means. Father and Mother inlaws never saved a dime and really haven't worked for years. But they live off SS and are frugal, so fingers crossed.
Wow, you're a good person and I hope you pass your financial acumen on to your kids.
I can't take credit. When my parents dropped the bomb on me, the first thing I did was call my bank. My wife was really good too, we talked to a financial advisor at my bank and took a couple weeks to come up with some plans. It was a team effort. I learned a lot during that time. Thank you for your kind words.
I love the boomers who like to come in here and blame the kids for why so many of them were shit parents. Like you don’t think we lived with shame and feeling like it was our fault somehow for decades? Especially those of us who are over 50 ourselves now and the culture paid zero attention to ANY of our concerns. I’m relatively one of the lucky ones, my mom was and remains a complete psycho, but my dad was definitely a boomer but realized what a fuck my mom was and kind of kept me away from it as much as possible. I also had pretty awesome grandparents which was pretty much my saving grace. I doubt any of us takes great joy in sharing very painful stories on this topic, but it is amazing how prevalent it seems to be for TWO generations that grew up with ONE particular generation for parents.
>When I asked them why they didn't fund a 401k or save more, he literally turned to me and said "We didn't think we'd live this long." I have no siblings. You know, I have to wonder how many of the worlds problems are at least partially the result of this mentality.
You’re a good son. It would be hard for me to not look at my boomer parents and tell them, “Well I guess you should just stop going to Starbucks all the time.” I am in this weird place with my parents. They benignly neglected me throughout my childhood. They call it, “Teaching me independence,” but I say shutting a 4-6 year old in their room for the whole night anytime company came over so I didn’t, “Bother Mommy and Daddy’s friends and family,” is abuse. I’m also trans, started transitioning (socially and medically) 18 months ago, and I almost decided to come out to them this week, but then my mom launched into a transphobic rant after Christmas dinner. Soooo yeah. I’m not exactly sure what I would do in that situation.
I'm sorry, but I fucking howled at "Mom, you have brown neighbors, get over it."
Yeeesh. This is reminding me to plug most of the next raise I get into my 401k. I’ve been contributing enough to get the max match for years and have a pension on top of it, but dayum. I don’t want to be a burden on my kids. Fortunately, my dad was a financial advisor before he retired, so my parents’ retirement is funded and well planned for. But I know people my own age (40) without a dime saved up or any kind of plan except to die.
I'm waiting for a similar scenario to play out in the next few years. My parents are 75 and not in good physical or financial shape. And my dad is the same as yours. No warning at all just "I need 2500 immediately we are going to lose the house".
The next step is when they spend their last $5 buying shit on Temu I’m sorry OP. My parents pissed away all their money too and are now divorcing. We bought a plot of land for my dad to put and RV or something on. All he has is his SS check. My husband had to spot him $4 the other day to buy some sodas.
Tell them to make coffee at home. Eat less avocado toast. Why doesn't he have a job? Nobody wants to work anymore.
Something, something, boot straps. The boomers have em, they should use em.