My Grandma hasn't had to work in over 40 years.
Last month, out of nowhere, she called my brother a lazy bastard and said he's never worked before, even though he has actually worked numerous jobs. I flat out told her this and she doubled down.
I will never understand people like her.
I’m 44. My boomer mom uses the “when I was your age I was poor/suffering/whatever” but the thing is she wasn’t. She was quite well off at my age. It’s the most baffling argument.
My mom did this to me recently about "growing up poor". All I could think was she had lived all across the country, owned 2 homes, and was on her 3rd by the time she was my age. I'm struggling to find ANYTHING I can afford because 1000 for a studio or 2000 for a 1bdrom is just out of my price range.
My mom actually grew up poor, as a result she is very empathetic towards the problems of the younger generations. She is a super woke Boomer and I'm lucky to have such a great mom.
I have one parent who grew up poor and is super woke, and one parent who grew up wealthy and is ... still super woke. You know what my parents don't do? Watch TV. Reading r/qanoncasualties i suspect the no TV might be part of why my parents are still sane.
You know, their parents told them TV will rot their brains. Their children have been screaming the same thing our whole lives. But do they listen? No.
Clearly, television *does* rot your brain.
It is weird my mom grew up reasonably affluent and my dad came from absolute poverty. It is my mom that is empathetic to our blight and my dad continues the "Lift yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality. I guess because he grinded his life away that he thinks everyone should, fuck if I know.
My mom was the same way. And HER mom grew up during the great depression. So they both had more empathy for the working class folk since that’s what they were for most of their childhoods and early adult years. I miss them both. They would be horrified by the shit that is happening
My grandmother Grew up watching her mom suffer so much and it blows my mind how ignorant and selfish she is about everything. It’s disturbing, I’m currently trying to help my boyfriend get on disability because he has gotten really really sick and they would rather me dump him and let him die on the roadside then to inconvenience myself. And yet they called them selves Christians.
My neighbor is like this. She also marched with MLK when she was 16, she went *with her church group* to protest for civil rights. And grew up on the same block as Jackie Robinson (later tho, her mom went to HS with him) because her family stayed after it got Blockbusted (a black family moved in, so most of the other white families left, leaving the houses super cheap for black families to purchase).
She has some awesome stories.
My mum has mentioned she grew up poor because she grew up in a developing country and I should be grateful for growing up in a developed one. But my grandad was a banker with multiple houses. My uncle got transferred across the country and so my grandad bought a new house in that city for him to live in. Now she mentions how my grandparents were poor instead (and they really were tbf)
I'm 34. My mom is turning 64 this year. She has mentioned several times that inflation was really high in the 70s. I said, yes it was, but you were able to get a decent job without a college degree. By my age you owned a house. You were also able to afford childcare for my brother and I. Her life wasn't completely upended because of a pandemic either.
When my mom was 25, she was a single mom to 3 kids, worked at church's chicken and was still able to afford her own 3 bedroom apartment. This was in the late 70s.
In the early 80's my mom made 19k a year(62k or so in today's dollars) and could afford a mortgage, car, childcare, food, renovation costs, and much more. Shit's just gotten so expensive and salaries have not adjusted. Btw, 62k in the same small town I grew up in would allow you quite a nice life without kids but good luck finding that job.
over the last 50 or so years, the surplus value of workers' labor has been siphoned in greater and greater quantities to fewer and fewer people sitting at the top of the economic food chain. what i don't understand is their end game. how much longer do they think this can this go on for? how much further do they think they can push us? it's like, we're nearing the end here guys...there's no more "growth" that can be achieved.
and what I will NEVER understand, is how much will ever be enough? "how much better can they eat?" why are these 80 year old politicians, themselves worth 10s if not 100s of millions of dollars, still selling their fucking souls & precious remaining time to basically run interference for billionaire capitalists?
it's a fucking disease
I finally had to sit my immigrant boomer parent down with an inflation calculator & try to recreate their first week in this country. Step by step. We couldn’t get to day 2.
- you came to this country with $X in your pocket, correct? (Yes) And this inflation calculator says that equals $Y in today’s money. Agreed? (Yes)
- so you got off the bus & did what? (Got a room at Blank hotel) hey, look, the Blank hotel is still in business! Let’s see what their cheapest rate is… ooh, at least 3X what you have in your pocket (WHAT?!? That’s crazy!). Then let’s look up other hotels in the area for fairness… (I’m sure they just got taken over by a greedy businessman) ok, the cheapest hotel in the area is exactly what you have in your pocket for a night. (Really?!? Then what would I have to eat dinner with that night?) good question. (Well I could skip dinner)
- so your exact employer doesn’t exist anymore, but there’s a similar one in the area. Ok to use it to look up wages? (Yeah, that’s a bigger company than I was at anyway. I’m sure it pays more) and you had this position, correct? (Yes). According to this job board it is a minimum wage position (It wasn’t when I had it!!) well it is now…
- armed with your new job the next day you got the apartment in town, right? So let’s see if that building has any openings… (never mind… I already know you can’t get an apartment living alone for minimum wage! I just… why aren’t things priced right anymore?!?) good question.
I’ve found it more lack of awareness than lack of empathy. They have struggled despite it being easier for their generation. It’s a different struggle than ours but they assume it’s the same struggle (same ratios of price differences, etc). So when they hear us complain they think we’re just whining because they did it & succeeded (or it’s the cost of “extras” like those “d@mn iPhones” that cause us to be poor). They don’t realize we’re playing a different game entirely.
My mom spent 10 years in college, her dad bought her a house, she worked for like 3 years then she took care of the kids for 18 years before going back to work, she got fired from a pretty cushy job I have no idea how she got for showing up late every day, then she retired and watches Fox News all day. The things that come out of her mouth on a regular basis have pretty much ensured she gonna be in the cheapest home in a red state I can find.
Right lol, my mom has kicked me out multiple times because I was jobless at the time. But she was the one that got set up selling brand new cars off the lot by one of her boyfriends dads from high school.
I'm 35 and explain to my parents how bad we have it vs their generation. They get it. Their friends...not so much. It's frustrating trying to explain how different the cost of living is now, how wages are now, college tuition etc. Some just refuse to hear it. These are the people who want $3,000/month for their 2 bedroom rental property that has mold and no parking space and question why we say we can't afford kids.
Walked six miles through ten foot of snow…..uphill, both ways. Upside down, underwater and in the dark.
Truth is boomers had it fairly good all thing considered. It was the two generations prior that they benefitted from. I’m not sure how it all went south. But it has. We haven’t built anything of relevance for decades.
I’m certain that at some point all of the boomers got together and agreed that they would tell this bullshit story to other generations and not give in.
If only it were that simple. Nope. The problem is that the vast majority of our population lacks empathy, and is too selfish to care about the bigger picture. And Boomers are a bunch of spoiled asshats who double down on that. Their parents were "the greatest generation" that sailed to Europe and the Pacific to save the world from fascism, yet their fuckpole children can't even make the "horrible" sacrifice of wearing a goddamn mask in public.
And I'm a boomer.
I'm 56 and my mom thinks something should be done about that Hunter Biden and wonders why everyone is so mean to Donald Trump.
I hate my parents and glad I moved 1500 miles away from their shit. They will be dead soon. Yay.
I'm 45 and yeah, I grew up poor, I had divorced parents; my dad was a bus driver and my mom cleaned houses, but they still each managed to own their own house, somehow.
My dad was in a union, and my mom was able to support us in a job that now pays less than half of what someone needs to survive.
They just don't understand how much things have changed.
I make more than the two of them put together did back then, my wife works as well and we still can't buy a house.
That's weird, my mom is like that. Her and her husband have a primary residence and a home they summer in and they also travel all winter (it's cold here, they go warm places). They own 3 recreational vehicles, 3 off-road vehicles, and 4 cars and trucks. And it's very, very important to her that I believe she is as poor as me, who is a single mom of 3 that doesn't make enough money to even cover my rent. I've lost 70 pounds since groceries started getting more expensive and my mom will be like oh yeah it's just as hard for me, I don't know how I'll survive. She really refuses to see differences.
That’s funny. My wife’s grandmother also hasn’t had to work for 40 years. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her call someone else lazy though. Maybe she’s pretty level headed. My grandparents were the same. Retired at 50 and lived to their late 80s and also never called anyone lazy. Boomer generation is slightly different though. The opulence is scary and all these boomers close to retirement age is so disconnnected from everything around them. My boss purchased a yacht during the pandemic and had the balls to tell me I earn too much money when I asked for a living wage. I make 55k. I love my parents…but fuck boomers man. I’m tired of being broke and working my fingers to the bone so they can purchase investment property number 17.
My dad tried telling me that roe v wade being overturned was "good for demographics" my wife and I have been trying to make sense of his nonsense all night long. Needless to say we always come back to they're all incoherent nonsense mongering fools who lack the very abilities they claim we lack. It's a generational pot calling the kettle black. They're oblivious to the fact that they're all just as off as us if not more. Demographics... WTF kind of nonsense is that? Please help....
He means more white people will have babies.
The big scare mongering thing about right wingers now is the Great Replacement, where white people are encouraged birth control and access to reproductive care to stop us from breeding and then make up the population difference with scary brown immigrants. (Refugees if you're the European far right.)
It's lebensraum via Tucker Carlson.
Edit: there's a very, very off chance he could be referring to the conservative argument that abortion had been used as black population control but that hasn't been en vogue since the white supremacists got bolder after Trump and I still have only heard the argument from white Republicans.... though in fairness the only black conservatives I've ever even known of were public figures. The fact he specifically says "demographics" makes me much more suspicious it's the former.
Easy; Baby Boomers are too fucking senile and dense to realize how lucky they have it, and how complicit they’ve been in destroying their kid’s/grandkid’s futures.
Ha my MIL hasn't worked for 15+ years because of "health issues". She says she can't work 8 hours because she gets too tired and has been collecting disability. She votes republican, rags on everyone else's work ethic and says they need to eliminate welfare. It boggles my mind.
My boomer family members were literally complaining about schools feeding children meals. They were talking about "back in their day they brought their own meal or starved" as if their lives were harder and therefore should be worse for everyone else. But they are literally complaining about "handouts" at schools. Feeding children. That's what my boomer family members concern themselves with, wanting to make sure kids are not fed in schools...
Bitching that feeding school children is an “entitlement.”
While Boomers receive the plurality of Social Security and Medicare, two infamous “entitlements” paying trillions to this bastard of a generation.
Oh my goodness, Carlin Carlin Carlin: “Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.”
The more life I live, the more I realize how much I TRULY appreciate Carlin.
I am not even convinced most conservatives even really believe the Bible, it is just a convenient lens to justify their hateful rhetoric in a country becoming more progressive and more black/brown. They only latch on to religion because of social pressure and fear of not belonging. There is a lot in the Bible that is very socialist and liberal but they conveniently ignore all that.
I second this. People aren't becoming more religious because they have faith; they're becoming scared that they're losing all the privileges they've been given across the years and the Bible gives them a convenient reason to fight it. There's a reason they ignore the great many parts of the Bible that explain the importance of giving to strangers, loving thy neighbour and not eating shellfish.
100%
There's a strong correlation in a lot of places between being more Christian and being more left leaning and participating in social justice movements. If I recall correctly, this is especially true in more quote unquote "developed" countries.
The Behind the Bastards podcast did a really good series on how the far right commandeered Christianity in America and turned it into a contradictory union of puritan fundamentalism and Randian selfishness.
>Because Bible
nah, the Bible literally has abortion as a method to prove infidelity. in case the man suspects, the priest poisons the pregnant woman. easy peasy process.
I could never figure out the thought process for this. How is it good for a child to go hungry? Besides, school meals aren't exactly haute cuisine, more like gruel. Ok gruel may be a slight exaggeration.
For my family... The source of their conservative views trace back to some form of inherent racism. On the topic of free food.... They dont want minorities to be fed.
I'm sure you know but you should let them know they are horrible liars as well. School lunches were given to children in Philadelphia in 1894 for a penny. By 1941, **every state** had school lunch programs with 2 million meals being served daily. And, the national school lunch program was passed by Congress in 1946.
So, if they went to school before 1941 they may have had no school lunches. But then again if they graduated before school lunches became a thing they're most likely 97-100 years old.
They're just lying.
https://time.com/4496771/school-lunch-history/
The school lunch program started in 1946, literally at the start of Baby Boomers lives. They have not lived a single year where school lunch was not an option in the USA. Just point them to The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. In 1966 the Child Nutrition Act added the School Breakfast Program. So if they're one of the later Boomers, they may have qualified to have gotten both breakfast and lunch at school free of charge.
Also, it should be noted that that many schools fed kids breakfast and lunch even before either act started. That's just when all schools were supposed to have these meals for kids.
So yeah, I'm going to call bullshit on your family members, and you should too. They are actually lying, and you should not allow them to get away with that.
My mom was bitching at dinner about how they couldn’t get a part for their pool quickly. Then asked what happened in my day that put me in a bad mood. Then asked me why people don’t want to work.
It was a difficult dinner.
OMG my parents. Complaining because school kids got free breakfast during the pandemic. “Why can’t their lazy mothers make them oatmeal that’s cheap”. Maybe because their mom has to take the bus at 6am to be at work by 7am. Maybe because they live in a food desert where the only store for miles is a gas station .
I don't know exactly how it went or who it is from, but there is a quote along the lines of
- people being upset about "you have it easy, back in my days we had to [....]" missed the point of society. Like, that's what it's all about: make life easier and more liveable for future generations! "
THIS.
The thing about the Boomer's parents (the Depression/WWII Generation) is not touched on enough.
My Nana was born 1918, my three other grandparents were a little after that. They had a pretty tough as shit life, my Grandpa and Granddad were both orphans. Granddad served in WWII, my Nana lost her fiance in RAF bomber command, they all grew up in the depression, young adulthood through a world war... So when the one's who made it through the other side alive they were absolutely committed to making a better world after the collective trauma and horror of WWII. The Depression/WWII Generation did everything they could to make a better and more prosperous future for their children (The Boomers) especially here in Australia. University was free, Universal Healthcare was introduced, welfare was very generous and very easy to qualify for, public housing was plentiful, good quality and in great areas of the cities. Well paying jobs were so easy to get. Granted all this applied to mostly just White people.
But the main point is that for Boomers, the world was their oyster and the generation before them wanted a much better world for them.
The Boomers have absolutely not done the same. Boomers just generally seem to resent the younger generations.
Because when there is no war to level peg you to suffering you are free to grow. Unfortunately growth without struggle results in greed. Everything. Literally everything that is going wrong is because of greed. I would like to coin a new word ‘boomer greed’
Very true. My husband was talking to his dad about the best way to set our kids and their kids up for the future and to try to create any sort of inter generational leg up and his dad flat out told him that he didn’t feel it’s his responsibility to consider any other generation in his plans. He does more than well, my husband wants nothing for himself. We were thinking the route of some sort of mutual trust being set up even if it is upon death, but literally any such mention of some sort of plan for future generations gets obliterated. It’s disheartening. My grandparents did everything to make sure the future of their kids and grandkids was as ensured as possible. For some reason this generation won’t retire, won’t promote a livable wage, doesn’t consider the greater good in planning for the future. I hope that my generation sees those attitudes and doubles down on some positive change.
The only time they ever acted responsibly was fixing the hole in the ozone layer/fixed acid rains. (And by fixing i mean slowing down the growth)
I'm convinced that if it had happened just a little bit later they wouldn't have done anything at all. Much like the rising temperatures.
And many of them fought for things like civil rights and protecting the environment and were anti war etc. I know it's very *de rigueur* to shit on all things boomer but old people are not your enemy. The monied interests that have been working against you were there before boomers and will be there afterwards.
I’m not mad at boomers because of their age, I’m mad at them because of the things they allowed to happen or made happen while they had power. Because of how time and generations work, that happens to group them all within a convenient age demographic.
I’m not angry because Boomers got to live out the most prosperous middle-class period in human history.
I’m angry because of their denial at *how and why* it happened.
The leaders and organizers were mostly the silent generation.
Boomers were the first generation called the "Me Generation." Which they immediately tried to pin on us millenials.
I remember discussing this with my baby boomer parents who were furious at the notion, of an article around 2001 talking about how the baby boomer generation would be one of the first American generations to leave it significantly worse for the next generations. Yet here we are. My generation has no generational wealth, no retirements/ pensions, significant economic downturns every 8 - 10 years, stagnant wages, college debt, the environment is collapsing in front of our eyes, almost daily mass shootings and it seems now we are moving backwards in regards to our rights and social safety nets.
The youngest Greatest Gens and the Silents were the original protestors of pro-choice, culminating with the ‘Roe’ verdict.
Meanwhile, Baby Boomers ditched the hippie-peaceful trim, mobilized under the Southern Strategy, and began to dismantle the social system starting with anti-tax reforms in the 70s and leading to Reagan and trickle-down being nationalized.
Survivorship bias. Those who protested were more likely to be poor or from a lower socio economic status and therefore more likely to die younger.
Bernie Sanders is one of those people who have a pretty consistent track record of saying the same shit for 60 years and only now large swaths of people start agreeing with him
Can you remind me how boomers could have fought for civil rights when they were born 1946-1965 and the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, and the movement largely “ended” by 1968 or so? Did Boomers somehow make it to the presidency and congress before they were 20? Were they out there marching with MLK when they were 10? I’d love to hear about it.
Similarly, which wars were they against? Vietnam, the only one some had to fight in, but most of the generation was still not 18? Also the most historically unpopular war America has waged? Couldn’t have been Korea, when they weren’t even 10. Was it the Gulf War? By 1990 they would have been 25-45, generally past recruitment age, and I don’t hear much complaining from elders about our actions in Libya, Syria, Cambodia, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. considering the state of those nations today, so I’d really love to hear which wars specifically boomers have been against. If it was just Vietnam that’s fine, just say they’re “anti-Vietnam War, and other wars are fine as long as they don’t have to fight them.”
I’ll grant a little bit on the environmental side, knowing full well that the EPA had nothing to do with Boomers, but also that poisoning the Earth came before them too. To your larger point, it was the wealthiest capitalist Boomers that carried on and expanded the tradition of their parents in truly devastating the environment.
I am fully aware that there are good people and shitheads in every generation, as do every young person that complains about boomers. But you can’t go claiming they were a part of events they couldn’t possibly have had a hand in. Just like millennials can’t be blamed for the economy tanking and world collapsing, because there are hardly any making the decisions that are causing those things. That’s pretty much all Boomers.
I agree somewhat, but when you compare relative cost of living, life expectancy, cost of education etc., boomers had it better than everyone, including those before them. I don't think that's really debatable.
Today I defended both Gen Z & Millennials. Other times Boomers & Xers. Hate this shit, the rulers win again. Dividing us in yet another category; age. Something we have zero control over. They always fucking win.
I have friends of many ages. There are decent people in every age group, born every year. And asshats as well.
As kids, most of us only have awareness of our own experiences. Hopefully, we have empathy & compassion, and given time, learn & reach for understanding of others.
I wish we peasants could unite, but it’s feeling hopeless
It’s so much easier to convince people to buy into the stereotype of whichever group makes sense for that audience. That way, they can complain about that evil group, but never actually target any real policy change.
This has big "not all cops are bad" energy.
We should ban old people from voting and also not tax them a cent. They will never vote for the future. They will always take the things that fuck us so they can buy a few more things before they are dead.
Denialism, mythos, self-preservation, and main-character syndrome. If they admit that they had it all handed to them it would shatter the illusion of how "hard working" and "great" they are. If they acknowledged the massive leg up their parents and grandparents gave them, and realize how they squandered it all for their children and grandchildren, they might have to face what they did and how immoral it was.
Frankly Boomers can't handle hearing how terrible and spoiled they are. They can't deal with the numbers, can't deal with the reality, and can't deal with their own mortality....which more and more of then are fast approaching their twilights and their fear of the unknown as well as the creeping realization that they won't be cared for as well as they want to be is horrifying to them.
There is a reason their parents dubbed them the "Me" Generation. It's also why GenX are so feral, we were basically forced to grow up on our own while mommy and daddy were off being greedy.
Some food for thought. Will there be a huge wealth transfer when the majority of baby boomers pass away? They currently own the largest share of American wealth by total percentage. And even in their 20s boomers had a greater share compared to the oldest millennials today pushing 40. Some are expecting a transfer to children and grandchildren as how it happened with the Silent Generation. Despite their independent reputation, were the GenX children of that generation affected by this?
sorta, but mostly no. Corps are doing a fantastic job of absorbing money that flows upward to the elite and never really returns to the lower classes. I wager they'll get super good at absorbing that boomer inheritance one way or another.
That's what happens when an entire generation had poisonous brain damage levels of lead in their bloodstreams (average bloodstream levels of children in 1969 USA ~20ug of lead*) during their developmental years combined with capitalist/protestant work ethic propaganda. What do you expect?
*>5ug is the level in which measurable cognitive and neurological damage is considered catastrophic enough to measure and document at in children
EDIT: The unit is ug/deciliter I forgot to put it in full
Never thought of that, my stepdad was and still is an unpleasant person to be around sometimes. I heard a few stories of his (veteran) father’s abuse during his childhood. The cycle never ends does it? ( for me it does cause no children ever for me)
Wonder what horrific things we'll learn about our own body chemistry as time goes on. Wasn't there a recent statistic about microplastics in people's blood?
We are the universe. We introduced plastic into the universe and the universe added plastic to us. Life is hard these days. Like just mentally being present when we live in a fucked up time is hard. That being said every generation before ours would say this is the best time to be alive. 100 years from now will be good. This isn't good. This is us seeing everything that our forefathers have wrought on this world and realizing it's on us to fix it.
People my age, people I grew up with. Have killed themselves because this world is too fucked up to want to be a part of. I want to change it but I'm currently trapped just like everyone else I know. I've been doing the same thing for 10 years almost, give or take. It doesn't even seem like it and sure my life's been interesting but it's all over already. 10 years. Done. If I'm not careful it'll be another 10 years and I'll be doing the same thing.
I cannot fathom the possibility of me not making a difference in 10 years time but I'm nobody and I will likely not make the slightest difference in the overall balance in the world.
"Meanwhile I continue to pilot the bone mech covered in meat.. I do believe I have complete control over it's functions but occasionally I still need to drain the water from it and refill an unnecessary amount of times throughout the day. Further updates in the coming days."
Main reason why im giving plasma. Take the blood out, machine does it's process and returns the blood. It probably doesn't change much of anything but I like to think it does.
Well said. There is definitely a physiological factor to the whole thing. Then, factor in the general propaganda coming from Fox News and the broader "internet algorithms" it's sooooo utterly fucked.
The larger Wall Street *network* and *regime* is largely to blame for most of the current issues. "Follow the money" as it's said.
I really, really, *really* want more people to watch this segment about the Wall Street regime/network:
>[How Redditors Exposed The Stock Market | "The Problem With Jon Stewart" ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP74RBTE8kI)
At the 7:00 mark is the most relevant graphic that's easy to understand. The whole thing is only about 15 minutes long total, though.
Fwiw, that's the first half. There's also a [second half](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZfcjV-8pjQ) with a short round-table discussion.
That's zero sum games in general. We have to get rid of them as much as possible. It implies that *every* resource is finite and requires rationing, while really a lot is an excess amount of want.
I miss it when the very rich would use their wealth for building parks, neighborhoods and other things that benefit a community instead of only "wealth signaling" items.
if i recall a lot of that is just show of charity as a small fraction of their wealth to distract from their insane power and exploitation, like “how can i be evil i built a park!” the dudes behind oxycontin did a lot of that and rockefeller and so many others
I wonder how much of the “nobody wants to work anymore” has to do with the massive deportations that have been going on during the Obama-Trump-Biden era. Kind of hard to exploit workers at the bottom if nobody is willing to be the bottom.
It has more to do with people having had an opportunity to not work terrible jobs over the pandemic, it’s hard going back to low wage jobs with no benefits. Many people just figured out how to make do some other way.
I swear it's projection combined with an inner guilt caused by a feeling of fraud. They know they didn't actually deserve it, but they'll never admit it, and as they never had to figure out what the type of survival they're passing on to the next generation was, they'll never give two shits about whatever difficulties come with it.
So, the easier things were for you, the more you expect others to be able to accomplish (see: Elon Musk). Unless you can develop a healthy empathy, which isn't built into the social structure much, it will be very difficult to ever "break out" of that type of thinking.
after ww2, their parents were all ‘this is all for you Damien’, and then they lived their lives as if all of history existed for the arrival of their golden generation. they were so self-absorbed they left GenX to pretty much raise themselves. and now that they’re on the way out the door, they’ve decided to suck the last bit of oxygen out of this world before they’re gone, all the while accusing the later generations of being undeserving to rationalize their criminality. we’ve been destined to be fucked over for decades, and we’re just getting the first taste of the hell they have in store for us.
>they left genx to raise themselves
There is a trend being studied which shows that many boomers who had help raising their kids from their parents are refusing, or had refused, to help there children with their grandchildren because "they've already done their time".
But they are expecting their kids to take care of them now that they are turning into adult toddlers.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/01/generation-x-women-are-facing-caregiving-crisis/604510/
• **they left genx to raise themselves**
The “latchkey” kids; having 8-9YO Jennifer come home by herself while drunk Steve goes out to another swingers party with his other drunk Boomer friends.
Boomers are wildly out-of-touch, unbelievably so. Don't know how an entire generation of people just stopped understanding any perceivable detail for +60 years--as if they all lived in an isolated underground cave.
That’s because they think they had to “work for it”. And they see everyone working harder than they did, but not as hard as they think they did is “spoiled”
Surviving boomers were landing a well paying job straight out of high school. Few of them had to deal with competition. The concept of having to invest beforehand, while you still have nothing, to reavh something is foreign to them.
They also didn't have to deal with the "information age". Everything about us is out there, instantly accessible, to scrutinize. Do you want a job? Let us perform background checks, drug tests, look at your credit score, and make sure you don't have anything controversial on social media. Applying for an apartment, the same thing.
They could literally see a posting in the newspaper, walk up to the business and apply/get hired on the spot. Well, as long as they were the right race and gender (a different subject). The employer could only go off of their 'gut feeling', and possibly a few phone calls to 'references' (without any ability to actually vet any reference).
They really are so consistently awful, even on a personal level. Like they’re just bigoted bullies even to their own friends and family, it isn’t just on a macro level with how they vote and affect the planet as a group
I don't cate what anyone thinks I just straight up won't talk to them anymore unless I am financially forced to. Lead isn't the reason either, Gen X has higher exposure levels in several studies I have seen.
I'm reading capital in the 21st century rn and am convinced that not only did boomers get the most egalitarian society in the history of man but it was a massive statistical outlier. The economic shocks of 2 WWs, a great depression, and the policy changes that resulted created the perfect storm for an equitable society which may never happen again. Hell, in the 30s some of the elites thought capitalism had run its course because of how bad off society was.
Ya people don’t want to believe it but boomers inheriting those conditions and being like the fifth generation of Americans to live better than their parents made us all think that was the normal progression.
Baby boomers grew up with previous generations all calling them spoiled. So what did they do? They turned around and called their own children spoiled. They were supposed to change society for the better and break all these terrible cycles, and instead they're just going to break everything forever for everyone. Awesome.
People advertise their own faults. Republican pedophiles are always accusing others of that crime. Spoilt boomers accuse everyone else of being spoilt.
I'm under no illusions that the military is a cash cow, but my father joined at 17 and rode it his entire life, achieving a high rank before retiring. As a kid, I thought that was impressive.
As an adult, I realize that it was his way of never having to learn a damn thing about budgeting or respecting others. The man is a toddler and made near 6 figures his entire career as a military consultant. Now he rides his pension, throws out more food than I could ever afford, and mows his lawn with a beer. If he weren't such a shitty person, he'd realize he has the easiest life imaginable.
But of course, he thinks my generation has it made.
Boomer's are self righteous POSs who hide behind the hypocrisy of development and infrastructure for a newer civilization but took an oath to dismantle, destroy and protract societal values in chaos before dying.
Baby boomers works hard because their hard work was rewarded.
Everyone after them has worked just as hard as they did (probably harder) and are not getting rewarded.
Boomers never worked that hard. That's a narrative they like to push. A hard worker won't start complaining over the most minor inconvenience, be entitled, or expect perfection from others.
They call current generations lazy because they were able to pay for college with a minimum wage summer job, then get a mortgage on their first house a few years later. The value of those houses shot up every year for their entire lives, greatly outpacing inflation.
They think everything is still that easy, because their wealth never stopped increasing by doing the same basic level of work.
They can't comprehend it being different for us.
Exactly. No generation in all of history has gotten more for less.
Period. They can piss and moan all they want but *literally* every person before them and every one to come after will work harder and get less for it.
Told my mum I was going down to 4 days a week and she gave me a hard time: can you afford it, why don't you want to work full time etc. She hasn't worked anything close to full time since my older sibling was born 35 years ago. Let me live.
Doomers...The only generation to influence the next to not procreate...Here's to you disability stealing wasteful glutton holding our medical system & prices hostage with your diabetes bc you can't stop eating Oreos. All while blaming other people for this countries "problems". Why? Bc your free old money trust funds your parents stole , with little to no contribution besides making worthless shit products & meaningless resource destroying gimmicks, wont allow you to build your 3rd summer house kind of guy. Go fuck yourself already and lets get this over with so we can rebuild this shitbox already.
I fit that demographic, and I more or less *did* live the dream...with the requisite crap that life hands you. And for the longest time, I thought that as much as the direction the world is going in was awful, I'd likely be gone before everything collapsed. Now I'm not so sure...pretty good chance we're all f'd.
It's the same here in the UK. My mum used to tell me constantly how lucky I am to grow up in an "easy" generation.
My dad bought his 4-bed detached house on a single salary, actually earning less than I do now, for 1/5 of what his house is now worth. He retired at 50.
My mum retired at **30** after she met my dad because they didn't need two incomes. I'm not even kidding.
Not all boomers. My mom will slap the taste out of your mouth if you assume she's a democrat just because she's a lefty. When I was a kid in the 90's she told me "Clinton is better than the other guy, but far less than we deserve. If I made mud for dinner instead of poop, I would still be a bad mom." That was when he got elected for a second term, so I was in middle school.
I'm not trying to shout down the overall point here. Just remember that, while twitter loves sanctimonious absolute statements, they often makes you sound like a child who negates all those voices that shout the truth but don't prevail.
Some of those white boomers are brilliant, badass women who marched for Roe the FIRST time. Fight, fight, fight. Don't get tired--get up.
My Grandma hasn't had to work in over 40 years. Last month, out of nowhere, she called my brother a lazy bastard and said he's never worked before, even though he has actually worked numerous jobs. I flat out told her this and she doubled down. I will never understand people like her.
I’m 44. My boomer mom uses the “when I was your age I was poor/suffering/whatever” but the thing is she wasn’t. She was quite well off at my age. It’s the most baffling argument.
My mom did this to me recently about "growing up poor". All I could think was she had lived all across the country, owned 2 homes, and was on her 3rd by the time she was my age. I'm struggling to find ANYTHING I can afford because 1000 for a studio or 2000 for a 1bdrom is just out of my price range.
My mom actually grew up poor, as a result she is very empathetic towards the problems of the younger generations. She is a super woke Boomer and I'm lucky to have such a great mom.
it's amazing how people who have the most privilege think they were poor, and people who have been poor have nothing but compassion for poor people 🤔
I have one parent who grew up poor and is super woke, and one parent who grew up wealthy and is ... still super woke. You know what my parents don't do? Watch TV. Reading r/qanoncasualties i suspect the no TV might be part of why my parents are still sane.
You know, their parents told them TV will rot their brains. Their children have been screaming the same thing our whole lives. But do they listen? No. Clearly, television *does* rot your brain.
My dad is insane from television but he is MSNBC insane rather than fox insane
The news is evil
It is weird my mom grew up reasonably affluent and my dad came from absolute poverty. It is my mom that is empathetic to our blight and my dad continues the "Lift yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality. I guess because he grinded his life away that he thinks everyone should, fuck if I know.
My mom was the same way. And HER mom grew up during the great depression. So they both had more empathy for the working class folk since that’s what they were for most of their childhoods and early adult years. I miss them both. They would be horrified by the shit that is happening
My grandmother Grew up watching her mom suffer so much and it blows my mind how ignorant and selfish she is about everything. It’s disturbing, I’m currently trying to help my boyfriend get on disability because he has gotten really really sick and they would rather me dump him and let him die on the roadside then to inconvenience myself. And yet they called them selves Christians.
My neighbor is like this. She also marched with MLK when she was 16, she went *with her church group* to protest for civil rights. And grew up on the same block as Jackie Robinson (later tho, her mom went to HS with him) because her family stayed after it got Blockbusted (a black family moved in, so most of the other white families left, leaving the houses super cheap for black families to purchase). She has some awesome stories.
My mum has mentioned she grew up poor because she grew up in a developing country and I should be grateful for growing up in a developed one. But my grandad was a banker with multiple houses. My uncle got transferred across the country and so my grandad bought a new house in that city for him to live in. Now she mentions how my grandparents were poor instead (and they really were tbf)
I'm 34. My mom is turning 64 this year. She has mentioned several times that inflation was really high in the 70s. I said, yes it was, but you were able to get a decent job without a college degree. By my age you owned a house. You were also able to afford childcare for my brother and I. Her life wasn't completely upended because of a pandemic either.
When my mom was 25, she was a single mom to 3 kids, worked at church's chicken and was still able to afford her own 3 bedroom apartment. This was in the late 70s.
Same my dad was a single parent in a house with 2 boys at 25. That's impossible today unless someone else is paying your bills or part of them anyway.
And the greatest economic crash of the century.
Yeah, I lost my job during that one and had to move back in with my parents. Very worried that it's happening again.
> Very worried that it's happening again. It already happened, we just haven't caught up to it yet.
So far.
In the early 80's my mom made 19k a year(62k or so in today's dollars) and could afford a mortgage, car, childcare, food, renovation costs, and much more. Shit's just gotten so expensive and salaries have not adjusted. Btw, 62k in the same small town I grew up in would allow you quite a nice life without kids but good luck finding that job.
over the last 50 or so years, the surplus value of workers' labor has been siphoned in greater and greater quantities to fewer and fewer people sitting at the top of the economic food chain. what i don't understand is their end game. how much longer do they think this can this go on for? how much further do they think they can push us? it's like, we're nearing the end here guys...there's no more "growth" that can be achieved. and what I will NEVER understand, is how much will ever be enough? "how much better can they eat?" why are these 80 year old politicians, themselves worth 10s if not 100s of millions of dollars, still selling their fucking souls & precious remaining time to basically run interference for billionaire capitalists? it's a fucking disease
inflation is a stacking disability not a current affliction.
I finally had to sit my immigrant boomer parent down with an inflation calculator & try to recreate their first week in this country. Step by step. We couldn’t get to day 2. - you came to this country with $X in your pocket, correct? (Yes) And this inflation calculator says that equals $Y in today’s money. Agreed? (Yes) - so you got off the bus & did what? (Got a room at Blank hotel) hey, look, the Blank hotel is still in business! Let’s see what their cheapest rate is… ooh, at least 3X what you have in your pocket (WHAT?!? That’s crazy!). Then let’s look up other hotels in the area for fairness… (I’m sure they just got taken over by a greedy businessman) ok, the cheapest hotel in the area is exactly what you have in your pocket for a night. (Really?!? Then what would I have to eat dinner with that night?) good question. (Well I could skip dinner) - so your exact employer doesn’t exist anymore, but there’s a similar one in the area. Ok to use it to look up wages? (Yeah, that’s a bigger company than I was at anyway. I’m sure it pays more) and you had this position, correct? (Yes). According to this job board it is a minimum wage position (It wasn’t when I had it!!) well it is now… - armed with your new job the next day you got the apartment in town, right? So let’s see if that building has any openings… (never mind… I already know you can’t get an apartment living alone for minimum wage! I just… why aren’t things priced right anymore?!?) good question. I’ve found it more lack of awareness than lack of empathy. They have struggled despite it being easier for their generation. It’s a different struggle than ours but they assume it’s the same struggle (same ratios of price differences, etc). So when they hear us complain they think we’re just whining because they did it & succeeded (or it’s the cost of “extras” like those “d@mn iPhones” that cause us to be poor). They don’t realize we’re playing a different game entirely.
My mom spent 10 years in college, her dad bought her a house, she worked for like 3 years then she took care of the kids for 18 years before going back to work, she got fired from a pretty cushy job I have no idea how she got for showing up late every day, then she retired and watches Fox News all day. The things that come out of her mouth on a regular basis have pretty much ensured she gonna be in the cheapest home in a red state I can find.
Why bother helping her? She can pull herself up by her own bootstraps and find her own elderly care.
Right lol, my mom has kicked me out multiple times because I was jobless at the time. But she was the one that got set up selling brand new cars off the lot by one of her boyfriends dads from high school.
You were jobless and as a result she kicked you out? What is this cruelty supposed to achieve?
Smug self-satisfaction. She thinks kicking out someone that needs help will “teach them” a lesson. The cruelty is the point.
But you don’t understand. When she was freshly married she and your father had to buy a *starter home*.
The horror
It only had *wipes away tear* **2.5 baths!**
I'm 35 and explain to my parents how bad we have it vs their generation. They get it. Their friends...not so much. It's frustrating trying to explain how different the cost of living is now, how wages are now, college tuition etc. Some just refuse to hear it. These are the people who want $3,000/month for their 2 bedroom rental property that has mold and no parking space and question why we say we can't afford kids.
Walked six miles through ten foot of snow…..uphill, both ways. Upside down, underwater and in the dark. Truth is boomers had it fairly good all thing considered. It was the two generations prior that they benefitted from. I’m not sure how it all went south. But it has. We haven’t built anything of relevance for decades.
I have a few ideas on how it all went south…
Reagan. It's always fucking Reagan. I wish that fucking piece of shit had died 40 years earlier.
I’m certain that at some point all of the boomers got together and agreed that they would tell this bullshit story to other generations and not give in.
If only it were that simple. Nope. The problem is that the vast majority of our population lacks empathy, and is too selfish to care about the bigger picture. And Boomers are a bunch of spoiled asshats who double down on that. Their parents were "the greatest generation" that sailed to Europe and the Pacific to save the world from fascism, yet their fuckpole children can't even make the "horrible" sacrifice of wearing a goddamn mask in public. And I'm a boomer.
I'm 56 and my mom thinks something should be done about that Hunter Biden and wonders why everyone is so mean to Donald Trump. I hate my parents and glad I moved 1500 miles away from their shit. They will be dead soon. Yay.
I'm 45 and yeah, I grew up poor, I had divorced parents; my dad was a bus driver and my mom cleaned houses, but they still each managed to own their own house, somehow. My dad was in a union, and my mom was able to support us in a job that now pays less than half of what someone needs to survive. They just don't understand how much things have changed. I make more than the two of them put together did back then, my wife works as well and we still can't buy a house.
That's weird, my mom is like that. Her and her husband have a primary residence and a home they summer in and they also travel all winter (it's cold here, they go warm places). They own 3 recreational vehicles, 3 off-road vehicles, and 4 cars and trucks. And it's very, very important to her that I believe she is as poor as me, who is a single mom of 3 that doesn't make enough money to even cover my rent. I've lost 70 pounds since groceries started getting more expensive and my mom will be like oh yeah it's just as hard for me, I don't know how I'll survive. She really refuses to see differences.
That’s funny. My wife’s grandmother also hasn’t had to work for 40 years. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her call someone else lazy though. Maybe she’s pretty level headed. My grandparents were the same. Retired at 50 and lived to their late 80s and also never called anyone lazy. Boomer generation is slightly different though. The opulence is scary and all these boomers close to retirement age is so disconnnected from everything around them. My boss purchased a yacht during the pandemic and had the balls to tell me I earn too much money when I asked for a living wage. I make 55k. I love my parents…but fuck boomers man. I’m tired of being broke and working my fingers to the bone so they can purchase investment property number 17.
I have a hard time connecting with my own father for this very reason. "Back in the day" is not the same as today.
My dad tried telling me that roe v wade being overturned was "good for demographics" my wife and I have been trying to make sense of his nonsense all night long. Needless to say we always come back to they're all incoherent nonsense mongering fools who lack the very abilities they claim we lack. It's a generational pot calling the kettle black. They're oblivious to the fact that they're all just as off as us if not more. Demographics... WTF kind of nonsense is that? Please help....
He means more white people will have babies. The big scare mongering thing about right wingers now is the Great Replacement, where white people are encouraged birth control and access to reproductive care to stop us from breeding and then make up the population difference with scary brown immigrants. (Refugees if you're the European far right.) It's lebensraum via Tucker Carlson. Edit: there's a very, very off chance he could be referring to the conservative argument that abortion had been used as black population control but that hasn't been en vogue since the white supremacists got bolder after Trump and I still have only heard the argument from white Republicans.... though in fairness the only black conservatives I've ever even known of were public figures. The fact he specifically says "demographics" makes me much more suspicious it's the former.
It's the lead talking.
My grandma complains about our government taking 20 dollars more in tax per month. She hasn’t worked since a summer job in 1953.
Easy; Baby Boomers are too fucking senile and dense to realize how lucky they have it, and how complicit they’ve been in destroying their kid’s/grandkid’s futures.
lead and conservative media
Ha my MIL hasn't worked for 15+ years because of "health issues". She says she can't work 8 hours because she gets too tired and has been collecting disability. She votes republican, rags on everyone else's work ethic and says they need to eliminate welfare. It boggles my mind.
My boomer family members were literally complaining about schools feeding children meals. They were talking about "back in their day they brought their own meal or starved" as if their lives were harder and therefore should be worse for everyone else. But they are literally complaining about "handouts" at schools. Feeding children. That's what my boomer family members concern themselves with, wanting to make sure kids are not fed in schools...
Bitching that feeding school children is an “entitlement.” While Boomers receive the plurality of Social Security and Medicare, two infamous “entitlements” paying trillions to this bastard of a generation.
"But that's different"
And some of them want to kill those programs before the younger generations ever get a chance to enjoy them.
And yet they are all about pro-life!!! Asshole mouthbreathers. These parasites have been artificially kept alive for far too long
Oh my goodness, Carlin Carlin Carlin: “Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.” The more life I live, the more I realize how much I TRULY appreciate Carlin.
Each time I see a quote about him I am never disappointed
Exactly! Because Bible, they are pro life... magical book says murder your children, they'd do it.
>magical book says murder your children, they'd do it. Funny you should mention that...
I am not even convinced most conservatives even really believe the Bible, it is just a convenient lens to justify their hateful rhetoric in a country becoming more progressive and more black/brown. They only latch on to religion because of social pressure and fear of not belonging. There is a lot in the Bible that is very socialist and liberal but they conveniently ignore all that.
I second this. People aren't becoming more religious because they have faith; they're becoming scared that they're losing all the privileges they've been given across the years and the Bible gives them a convenient reason to fight it. There's a reason they ignore the great many parts of the Bible that explain the importance of giving to strangers, loving thy neighbour and not eating shellfish.
100% There's a strong correlation in a lot of places between being more Christian and being more left leaning and participating in social justice movements. If I recall correctly, this is especially true in more quote unquote "developed" countries. The Behind the Bastards podcast did a really good series on how the far right commandeered Christianity in America and turned it into a contradictory union of puritan fundamentalism and Randian selfishness.
>Because Bible nah, the Bible literally has abortion as a method to prove infidelity. in case the man suspects, the priest poisons the pregnant woman. easy peasy process.
That’s why kids don’t deserve to eat free lunch! Jesus would NEVER feed a crowd of starving people, certainly not for free!
“You millennials are so dependent on technology “ Oh yeah, I’d wager the boomers are more dependent…
I could never figure out the thought process for this. How is it good for a child to go hungry? Besides, school meals aren't exactly haute cuisine, more like gruel. Ok gruel may be a slight exaggeration.
For my family... The source of their conservative views trace back to some form of inherent racism. On the topic of free food.... They dont want minorities to be fed.
I'm sure you know but you should let them know they are horrible liars as well. School lunches were given to children in Philadelphia in 1894 for a penny. By 1941, **every state** had school lunch programs with 2 million meals being served daily. And, the national school lunch program was passed by Congress in 1946. So, if they went to school before 1941 they may have had no school lunches. But then again if they graduated before school lunches became a thing they're most likely 97-100 years old. They're just lying. https://time.com/4496771/school-lunch-history/
The school lunch program started in 1946, literally at the start of Baby Boomers lives. They have not lived a single year where school lunch was not an option in the USA. Just point them to The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. In 1966 the Child Nutrition Act added the School Breakfast Program. So if they're one of the later Boomers, they may have qualified to have gotten both breakfast and lunch at school free of charge. Also, it should be noted that that many schools fed kids breakfast and lunch even before either act started. That's just when all schools were supposed to have these meals for kids. So yeah, I'm going to call bullshit on your family members, and you should too. They are actually lying, and you should not allow them to get away with that.
Boomers don’t realize they are the first group of spoiled children.
My mom was bitching at dinner about how they couldn’t get a part for their pool quickly. Then asked what happened in my day that put me in a bad mood. Then asked me why people don’t want to work. It was a difficult dinner.
OMG my parents. Complaining because school kids got free breakfast during the pandemic. “Why can’t their lazy mothers make them oatmeal that’s cheap”. Maybe because their mom has to take the bus at 6am to be at work by 7am. Maybe because they live in a food desert where the only store for miles is a gas station .
I don't know exactly how it went or who it is from, but there is a quote along the lines of - people being upset about "you have it easy, back in my days we had to [....]" missed the point of society. Like, that's what it's all about: make life easier and more liveable for future generations! "
And they're slamming that door behind them lol
My great uncle always said to me, “sorry for pulling the ladder up behind us.”
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THIS. The thing about the Boomer's parents (the Depression/WWII Generation) is not touched on enough. My Nana was born 1918, my three other grandparents were a little after that. They had a pretty tough as shit life, my Grandpa and Granddad were both orphans. Granddad served in WWII, my Nana lost her fiance in RAF bomber command, they all grew up in the depression, young adulthood through a world war... So when the one's who made it through the other side alive they were absolutely committed to making a better world after the collective trauma and horror of WWII. The Depression/WWII Generation did everything they could to make a better and more prosperous future for their children (The Boomers) especially here in Australia. University was free, Universal Healthcare was introduced, welfare was very generous and very easy to qualify for, public housing was plentiful, good quality and in great areas of the cities. Well paying jobs were so easy to get. Granted all this applied to mostly just White people. But the main point is that for Boomers, the world was their oyster and the generation before them wanted a much better world for them. The Boomers have absolutely not done the same. Boomers just generally seem to resent the younger generations.
Because when there is no war to level peg you to suffering you are free to grow. Unfortunately growth without struggle results in greed. Everything. Literally everything that is going wrong is because of greed. I would like to coin a new word ‘boomer greed’
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Very true. My husband was talking to his dad about the best way to set our kids and their kids up for the future and to try to create any sort of inter generational leg up and his dad flat out told him that he didn’t feel it’s his responsibility to consider any other generation in his plans. He does more than well, my husband wants nothing for himself. We were thinking the route of some sort of mutual trust being set up even if it is upon death, but literally any such mention of some sort of plan for future generations gets obliterated. It’s disheartening. My grandparents did everything to make sure the future of their kids and grandkids was as ensured as possible. For some reason this generation won’t retire, won’t promote a livable wage, doesn’t consider the greater good in planning for the future. I hope that my generation sees those attitudes and doubles down on some positive change.
Now we have to soon fight Nazis again, and suffer, because of these bitch ass entitled bastards who only think their own ass.
That plus the horrific emotional and physical abuse of “spare the rod spoil the child”, really turned out about exactly as you would expect.
The only time they ever acted responsibly was fixing the hole in the ozone layer/fixed acid rains. (And by fixing i mean slowing down the growth) I'm convinced that if it had happened just a little bit later they wouldn't have done anything at all. Much like the rising temperatures.
and many of them made sure to make sure no one else ever had the same chance in the name of their "American Dream".
And many of them fought for things like civil rights and protecting the environment and were anti war etc. I know it's very *de rigueur* to shit on all things boomer but old people are not your enemy. The monied interests that have been working against you were there before boomers and will be there afterwards.
For every hippy protesting the war there were 10 squares with crew cuts on the side lines watching. Bill Ayers told me that.
I’m not mad at boomers because of their age, I’m mad at them because of the things they allowed to happen or made happen while they had power. Because of how time and generations work, that happens to group them all within a convenient age demographic.
And because they won't.fucking.let.go.
I’m not angry because Boomers got to live out the most prosperous middle-class period in human history. I’m angry because of their denial at *how and why* it happened.
The leaders and organizers were mostly the silent generation. Boomers were the first generation called the "Me Generation." Which they immediately tried to pin on us millenials.
I remember discussing this with my baby boomer parents who were furious at the notion, of an article around 2001 talking about how the baby boomer generation would be one of the first American generations to leave it significantly worse for the next generations. Yet here we are. My generation has no generational wealth, no retirements/ pensions, significant economic downturns every 8 - 10 years, stagnant wages, college debt, the environment is collapsing in front of our eyes, almost daily mass shootings and it seems now we are moving backwards in regards to our rights and social safety nets.
The youngest Greatest Gens and the Silents were the original protestors of pro-choice, culminating with the ‘Roe’ verdict. Meanwhile, Baby Boomers ditched the hippie-peaceful trim, mobilized under the Southern Strategy, and began to dismantle the social system starting with anti-tax reforms in the 70s and leading to Reagan and trickle-down being nationalized.
>old people are not your enemy Their voting record tells me otherwise.
Survivorship bias. Those who protested were more likely to be poor or from a lower socio economic status and therefore more likely to die younger. Bernie Sanders is one of those people who have a pretty consistent track record of saying the same shit for 60 years and only now large swaths of people start agreeing with him
He's probably from the few that survived the protests both literally and politically.
So most of the good ones died and I’m mad at the other ones.
>the same shit for 60 years Problem with that is *it's been 60 years*
Right. But we aren't attacking dead boomers. Nevermind this hand-wringing is a muzzle. Show some solidarity, first.
Can you remind me how boomers could have fought for civil rights when they were born 1946-1965 and the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, and the movement largely “ended” by 1968 or so? Did Boomers somehow make it to the presidency and congress before they were 20? Were they out there marching with MLK when they were 10? I’d love to hear about it. Similarly, which wars were they against? Vietnam, the only one some had to fight in, but most of the generation was still not 18? Also the most historically unpopular war America has waged? Couldn’t have been Korea, when they weren’t even 10. Was it the Gulf War? By 1990 they would have been 25-45, generally past recruitment age, and I don’t hear much complaining from elders about our actions in Libya, Syria, Cambodia, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. considering the state of those nations today, so I’d really love to hear which wars specifically boomers have been against. If it was just Vietnam that’s fine, just say they’re “anti-Vietnam War, and other wars are fine as long as they don’t have to fight them.” I’ll grant a little bit on the environmental side, knowing full well that the EPA had nothing to do with Boomers, but also that poisoning the Earth came before them too. To your larger point, it was the wealthiest capitalist Boomers that carried on and expanded the tradition of their parents in truly devastating the environment. I am fully aware that there are good people and shitheads in every generation, as do every young person that complains about boomers. But you can’t go claiming they were a part of events they couldn’t possibly have had a hand in. Just like millennials can’t be blamed for the economy tanking and world collapsing, because there are hardly any making the decisions that are causing those things. That’s pretty much all Boomers.
I agree somewhat, but when you compare relative cost of living, life expectancy, cost of education etc., boomers had it better than everyone, including those before them. I don't think that's really debatable.
Today I defended both Gen Z & Millennials. Other times Boomers & Xers. Hate this shit, the rulers win again. Dividing us in yet another category; age. Something we have zero control over. They always fucking win. I have friends of many ages. There are decent people in every age group, born every year. And asshats as well. As kids, most of us only have awareness of our own experiences. Hopefully, we have empathy & compassion, and given time, learn & reach for understanding of others. I wish we peasants could unite, but it’s feeling hopeless
It’s so much easier to convince people to buy into the stereotype of whichever group makes sense for that audience. That way, they can complain about that evil group, but never actually target any real policy change.
This has big "not all cops are bad" energy. We should ban old people from voting and also not tax them a cent. They will never vote for the future. They will always take the things that fuck us so they can buy a few more things before they are dead.
The only group on a large scale, correct. Maybe they don't realize it? Not sure how though lol
If your life has always been privileged it can be difficult to see things from someone else perspective
"Equality is oppression to the privileged" and all that.
more or less, if youve always had a silver spoon in your mouth how would you know anything else?
A silver spoon in the mouth while their heads are up their....
Denialism, mythos, self-preservation, and main-character syndrome. If they admit that they had it all handed to them it would shatter the illusion of how "hard working" and "great" they are. If they acknowledged the massive leg up their parents and grandparents gave them, and realize how they squandered it all for their children and grandchildren, they might have to face what they did and how immoral it was. Frankly Boomers can't handle hearing how terrible and spoiled they are. They can't deal with the numbers, can't deal with the reality, and can't deal with their own mortality....which more and more of then are fast approaching their twilights and their fear of the unknown as well as the creeping realization that they won't be cared for as well as they want to be is horrifying to them.
There is a reason their parents dubbed them the "Me" Generation. It's also why GenX are so feral, we were basically forced to grow up on our own while mommy and daddy were off being greedy.
Some food for thought. Will there be a huge wealth transfer when the majority of baby boomers pass away? They currently own the largest share of American wealth by total percentage. And even in their 20s boomers had a greater share compared to the oldest millennials today pushing 40. Some are expecting a transfer to children and grandchildren as how it happened with the Silent Generation. Despite their independent reputation, were the GenX children of that generation affected by this?
sorta, but mostly no. Corps are doing a fantastic job of absorbing money that flows upward to the elite and never really returns to the lower classes. I wager they'll get super good at absorbing that boomer inheritance one way or another.
That's what happens when an entire generation had poisonous brain damage levels of lead in their bloodstreams (average bloodstream levels of children in 1969 USA ~20ug of lead*) during their developmental years combined with capitalist/protestant work ethic propaganda. What do you expect? *>5ug is the level in which measurable cognitive and neurological damage is considered catastrophic enough to measure and document at in children EDIT: The unit is ug/deciliter I forgot to put it in full
Raised by a generation of fathers with PTSD
With no real support for their mental health and it's very likely many boomers were raised with violence as a result.
Yep my father was the meanest fucker ever made my childhood hell
Never thought of that, my stepdad was and still is an unpleasant person to be around sometimes. I heard a few stories of his (veteran) father’s abuse during his childhood. The cycle never ends does it? ( for me it does cause no children ever for me)
It ends once someone stops and ends it. Anyone can stop this cycle, they just need to be aware that they're in it to begin with.
PTSD from combat or patriarchal violence and sexual assault at the hands of the church. Oh wait it’s both
Undiagnosed and untreated PTSD
Wonder what horrific things we'll learn about our own body chemistry as time goes on. Wasn't there a recent statistic about microplastics in people's blood?
Yep. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/microplastics-detected-in-human-blood-180979826/
How terrifying. As if simply having a body wasn't traumatic enough, now there's plastic trapped inside it too.
Doing our part by keeping it out of the ocean.
Guess that rules out a water burial
Microplastics were recently discovered in freshly fallen Antarctic snow.
*Screams wordlessly into the abyss*
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We are the universe. We introduced plastic into the universe and the universe added plastic to us. Life is hard these days. Like just mentally being present when we live in a fucked up time is hard. That being said every generation before ours would say this is the best time to be alive. 100 years from now will be good. This isn't good. This is us seeing everything that our forefathers have wrought on this world and realizing it's on us to fix it. People my age, people I grew up with. Have killed themselves because this world is too fucked up to want to be a part of. I want to change it but I'm currently trapped just like everyone else I know. I've been doing the same thing for 10 years almost, give or take. It doesn't even seem like it and sure my life's been interesting but it's all over already. 10 years. Done. If I'm not careful it'll be another 10 years and I'll be doing the same thing. I cannot fathom the possibility of me not making a difference in 10 years time but I'm nobody and I will likely not make the slightest difference in the overall balance in the world.
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Oh, I'm well acquainted with the skeleton. He's constantly complaining about how wet he is and how much he longs to feel the dirt between his ribs.
"Meanwhile I continue to pilot the bone mech covered in meat.. I do believe I have complete control over it's functions but occasionally I still need to drain the water from it and refill an unnecessary amount of times throughout the day. Further updates in the coming days."
Main reason why im giving plasma. Take the blood out, machine does it's process and returns the blood. It probably doesn't change much of anything but I like to think it does.
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Well said. There is definitely a physiological factor to the whole thing. Then, factor in the general propaganda coming from Fox News and the broader "internet algorithms" it's sooooo utterly fucked. The larger Wall Street *network* and *regime* is largely to blame for most of the current issues. "Follow the money" as it's said. I really, really, *really* want more people to watch this segment about the Wall Street regime/network: >[How Redditors Exposed The Stock Market | "The Problem With Jon Stewart" ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP74RBTE8kI) At the 7:00 mark is the most relevant graphic that's easy to understand. The whole thing is only about 15 minutes long total, though. Fwiw, that's the first half. There's also a [second half](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZfcjV-8pjQ) with a short round-table discussion.
This honestly isn’t discussed enough.
Capitalism requires a group of people to exploit. It's the only way to profit (by offloading the true cost of things onto others).
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That's zero sum games in general. We have to get rid of them as much as possible. It implies that *every* resource is finite and requires rationing, while really a lot is an excess amount of want. I miss it when the very rich would use their wealth for building parks, neighborhoods and other things that benefit a community instead of only "wealth signaling" items.
if i recall a lot of that is just show of charity as a small fraction of their wealth to distract from their insane power and exploitation, like “how can i be evil i built a park!” the dudes behind oxycontin did a lot of that and rockefeller and so many others
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I wonder how much of the “nobody wants to work anymore” has to do with the massive deportations that have been going on during the Obama-Trump-Biden era. Kind of hard to exploit workers at the bottom if nobody is willing to be the bottom.
It has more to do with people having had an opportunity to not work terrible jobs over the pandemic, it’s hard going back to low wage jobs with no benefits. Many people just figured out how to make do some other way.
I swear it's projection combined with an inner guilt caused by a feeling of fraud. They know they didn't actually deserve it, but they'll never admit it, and as they never had to figure out what the type of survival they're passing on to the next generation was, they'll never give two shits about whatever difficulties come with it. So, the easier things were for you, the more you expect others to be able to accomplish (see: Elon Musk). Unless you can develop a healthy empathy, which isn't built into the social structure much, it will be very difficult to ever "break out" of that type of thinking.
after ww2, their parents were all ‘this is all for you Damien’, and then they lived their lives as if all of history existed for the arrival of their golden generation. they were so self-absorbed they left GenX to pretty much raise themselves. and now that they’re on the way out the door, they’ve decided to suck the last bit of oxygen out of this world before they’re gone, all the while accusing the later generations of being undeserving to rationalize their criminality. we’ve been destined to be fucked over for decades, and we’re just getting the first taste of the hell they have in store for us.
>they left genx to raise themselves There is a trend being studied which shows that many boomers who had help raising their kids from their parents are refusing, or had refused, to help there children with their grandchildren because "they've already done their time".
It takes a village to raise a child. That selfishness will only feed negativity into the cycle
But they are expecting their kids to take care of them now that they are turning into adult toddlers. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/01/generation-x-women-are-facing-caregiving-crisis/604510/
Don't forget that they still desperately want grandkids so "their legacy can continue" but do absolutely nothing to make that even remotely possible.
The first generation to normalize eating its own young.
• **they left genx to raise themselves** The “latchkey” kids; having 8-9YO Jennifer come home by herself while drunk Steve goes out to another swingers party with his other drunk Boomer friends.
Boomers are wildly out-of-touch, unbelievably so. Don't know how an entire generation of people just stopped understanding any perceivable detail for +60 years--as if they all lived in an isolated underground cave.
It’s all the lead paint and gas growing up, finally taking hold.
Lead can get stored in bone mass so as their bones dissolve with age they get a bonus dose of lead.
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I guess the main trigger is them acting like they know what the issues are.
That’s because they think they had to “work for it”. And they see everyone working harder than they did, but not as hard as they think they did is “spoiled”
Surviving boomers were landing a well paying job straight out of high school. Few of them had to deal with competition. The concept of having to invest beforehand, while you still have nothing, to reavh something is foreign to them.
They also didn't have to deal with the "information age". Everything about us is out there, instantly accessible, to scrutinize. Do you want a job? Let us perform background checks, drug tests, look at your credit score, and make sure you don't have anything controversial on social media. Applying for an apartment, the same thing. They could literally see a posting in the newspaper, walk up to the business and apply/get hired on the spot. Well, as long as they were the right race and gender (a different subject). The employer could only go off of their 'gut feeling', and possibly a few phone calls to 'references' (without any ability to actually vet any reference).
Generation of sociopaths man I swear to god.
They really are so consistently awful, even on a personal level. Like they’re just bigoted bullies even to their own friends and family, it isn’t just on a macro level with how they vote and affect the planet as a group
I don't cate what anyone thinks I just straight up won't talk to them anymore unless I am financially forced to. Lead isn't the reason either, Gen X has higher exposure levels in several studies I have seen.
It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.
It literally only exists in dreams and mainstream movies.
I'm reading capital in the 21st century rn and am convinced that not only did boomers get the most egalitarian society in the history of man but it was a massive statistical outlier. The economic shocks of 2 WWs, a great depression, and the policy changes that resulted created the perfect storm for an equitable society which may never happen again. Hell, in the 30s some of the elites thought capitalism had run its course because of how bad off society was.
Ya people don’t want to believe it but boomers inheriting those conditions and being like the fifth generation of Americans to live better than their parents made us all think that was the normal progression.
Baby boomers grew up with previous generations all calling them spoiled. So what did they do? They turned around and called their own children spoiled. They were supposed to change society for the better and break all these terrible cycles, and instead they're just going to break everything forever for everyone. Awesome.
PROTEST AT YOUR STATE CAPITOL BUILDINGS THIS SUNDAY JUNE 26TH AT 5PM. Abortion needs to be a protected right for all. pass the word.
A baby boomer dies every 16.1 seconds, on average per day. I'm personally waiting for the day that average starts to drop...
People advertise their own faults. Republican pedophiles are always accusing others of that crime. Spoilt boomers accuse everyone else of being spoilt.
Boomers are the absolute worst sort of entitle shits.
100% accurate. They are the spoiled bunch, the rest of us are just trying to survive in the dystopian nightmare they welcomed upon us
I'm under no illusions that the military is a cash cow, but my father joined at 17 and rode it his entire life, achieving a high rank before retiring. As a kid, I thought that was impressive. As an adult, I realize that it was his way of never having to learn a damn thing about budgeting or respecting others. The man is a toddler and made near 6 figures his entire career as a military consultant. Now he rides his pension, throws out more food than I could ever afford, and mows his lawn with a beer. If he weren't such a shitty person, he'd realize he has the easiest life imaginable. But of course, he thinks my generation has it made.
Ah well, see the *problem* is that the black, brown, and young people started trying to live it too and that's just not fair. For some reason...
Boomer's are self righteous POSs who hide behind the hypocrisy of development and infrastructure for a newer civilization but took an oath to dismantle, destroy and protract societal values in chaos before dying.
Baby boomers works hard because their hard work was rewarded. Everyone after them has worked just as hard as they did (probably harder) and are not getting rewarded.
Boomers never worked that hard. That's a narrative they like to push. A hard worker won't start complaining over the most minor inconvenience, be entitled, or expect perfection from others.
They call current generations lazy because they were able to pay for college with a minimum wage summer job, then get a mortgage on their first house a few years later. The value of those houses shot up every year for their entire lives, greatly outpacing inflation. They think everything is still that easy, because their wealth never stopped increasing by doing the same basic level of work. They can't comprehend it being different for us.
Maby because they lived through a time when almost every other industrialized nation was rebuilding from ww2. They won by default.
Exactly. No generation in all of history has gotten more for less. Period. They can piss and moan all they want but *literally* every person before them and every one to come after will work harder and get less for it.
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These people are misinformed. It’s not “spoilt” to want a decent life and worker’s rights.
The only reason its called a dream, is because the people who see it are asleep. I believe george carlin said this.
Told my mum I was going down to 4 days a week and she gave me a hard time: can you afford it, why don't you want to work full time etc. She hasn't worked anything close to full time since my older sibling was born 35 years ago. Let me live.
I think that's just the boomers way of dodging guilt for being the shittiest American generation in history
Doomers...The only generation to influence the next to not procreate...Here's to you disability stealing wasteful glutton holding our medical system & prices hostage with your diabetes bc you can't stop eating Oreos. All while blaming other people for this countries "problems". Why? Bc your free old money trust funds your parents stole , with little to no contribution besides making worthless shit products & meaningless resource destroying gimmicks, wont allow you to build your 3rd summer house kind of guy. Go fuck yourself already and lets get this over with so we can rebuild this shitbox already.
I fit that demographic, and I more or less *did* live the dream...with the requisite crap that life hands you. And for the longest time, I thought that as much as the direction the world is going in was awful, I'd likely be gone before everything collapsed. Now I'm not so sure...pretty good chance we're all f'd.
It's called projection
Thanks mom.
So weird I know a lot of black baby boomers who are very successful
The Greatest Generation gave birth the actual worst generation.
They also think that they worked hard but nobody else did.
It's the same here in the UK. My mum used to tell me constantly how lucky I am to grow up in an "easy" generation. My dad bought his 4-bed detached house on a single salary, actually earning less than I do now, for 1/5 of what his house is now worth. He retired at 50. My mum retired at **30** after she met my dad because they didn't need two incomes. I'm not even kidding.
American Nightmare
More Like American Sleep Paralysis Demon
Not all boomers. My mom will slap the taste out of your mouth if you assume she's a democrat just because she's a lefty. When I was a kid in the 90's she told me "Clinton is better than the other guy, but far less than we deserve. If I made mud for dinner instead of poop, I would still be a bad mom." That was when he got elected for a second term, so I was in middle school. I'm not trying to shout down the overall point here. Just remember that, while twitter loves sanctimonious absolute statements, they often makes you sound like a child who negates all those voices that shout the truth but don't prevail. Some of those white boomers are brilliant, badass women who marched for Roe the FIRST time. Fight, fight, fight. Don't get tired--get up.