Boomer Hate

[jonathansmith]

My boomer dad paid for his mistresses to go to college but I, his son, got kicked out of the house and never got a dime. My dad is a lawyer and made millions and I couldn't get student loans because the government doesn't give you student loans if your parents make that kind of money. He tells people he went bankrupt putting me through college though because he doesn't want to feel shamed.

[Jkmsyytttllmhgccf]

The worst thing about living now is the constant, very sloppy gaslighting, it's rubbing salt into the wound

[zacharyhockett]

Being born in the mid 90s has been like coming into a party and then watching it rapidly spiral out of control.

[redpandarampage]

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." I think lots of boomer hate comes from the fact that boomers did the complete opposite of this. They were perhaps one of the most privileged and spoiled generations ever, yet pulled the ladder up after themselves and handed younger generations a world that is burning down in more different ways than you can count (e.g. environmental destruction, housing crisis, are just 2 things on the long list). And they have the gall to throw tantrums when younger generations try to either improve things or call out the boomers. They've dominated the political sphere for a long time now, both in govt positions and voting demographics, and have constantly voted to further harm newer generations. I know current young generations in the west have excellent standards of living, and have lots to be thankful for when looking at poorer nations- sure they may be a bit spoiled today, but they will struggle a lot with basic things like affording a house and starting a family because of the boomers. Nowhere near the level of luxury the boomers had, and as I said, today's young have been handed a world on fire.

[phis.]

Baby Boomers put their kids in daycare because both parents wanted to work, Millenials put their kids in daycare because both Parents HAVE to work.

[ninjaswordtothehead]

I don't hate them because they had great opportunities.

I hate them because of their massive hypocrisy as well as their complete inability to recognize that things have changed.

[SamGuthrie]

David, this is spot on. Another thing that I think contributed to the Boomer's self-centered behavior is how their parents babied them. The Boomers' parents lived through legitimately difficult and harrowing times with the Great Depression and WW2. I think once they survived those hard times, and saw the prosperity that was beginning, especially in the US, they decided to splurge and spoil their children - whom they saw as a miraculous continuation and a generation that they didn't know for sure would even come about.

I'm Gen X, but I saw this clearly in how my grandparents treated my father, who's a poster child for the Boomers. They had him right after WW2 ended. They gave him everything he ever wanted and continually made excuses for his bad behavior. If you take a generation that was largely raised that way by their parents, and you place them in the most economically prosperous time for the middle class in human history - it's no surprise that it's created self-absorbed entitled monsters.

[meregaming]

We're starting to figure out exactly how much they fucked around and left us to find out.

[Crash]

Boomers, the "Me Generation, " became the "Gimme Generation" and is now becoming the "Take Care of Me Generation." Will the younger generation provide? Can they even provide? Trillions upon trillions in national debt won't end well.

[spnked]

Boomers broke the intergenerational contract. They weren't the first generation to do it, nor will they be the last, but no generation before them has tramped on it to such a spectacular degree. There has never been such a proliferation and concentration of wealth in all of history like there was in post-war North America, and in a single generation, it was squandered. Granted, the circumstances of the post-war world and the rapid development of paradigm-shifting technology played their part in this, but at the end of the day, a great deal of the blame can be laid at the feet of the culture boomers chose to create and propagate.
I'd be curious to see how scholars 100 or 200 years from now will look back upon the boomers.

[josephvlogsdon]

I actually have a lot to say about this, so bear with me. My father was born on January 23rd, 1955. I was born on January 23rd, 1995. My father is exactly forty years older than me, but just recently, I’ve been thinking about how different my life has been. By the time my father was my age, he had already secured a job, married my mother, and had his first child. I, on the other hand, still feel like a kid. Financial security and marriage seem like impossible dreams. I think many people in the millennial generation feel the same way. I don’t hate baby boomers, but many of them fail to realize how lucky they were. They grew up in the 1950s, a time of financial and moral prosperity. My grandparents also married young, but they grew up in the 1930s, a time of financial ruin. Several of their siblings didn’t make it to adulthood. They had it rough, but they wanted to make a better future for their children. Baby boomers grew up in front of the television, watching wholesome shows like the Andy Griffith Show and Leave it to Beaver. They were taught moral lessons, most of which didn’t sink into their minds. In the mid sixties, America had reached the very pinnacle of economic and cultural prosperity, but the older baby boomers, the ones born in the mid to late forties, decided to burn it all down in 1967. After all, why not? There wasn’t time to think about such things during the Great Depression. People were too busy trying to survive, but the ubiquity of prosperity brought avarice, and with avarice comes ingratitude, ultimately leading to degradation. The boomers killed any hope of prosperity for their children, instead choosing to give into their primordial whims. Again, this is a judgment against a generation, not individuals. My parents were lucky, but they are upstanding, decent people who have been married for over forty years. As a whole, however, baby boomers are the most spoiled generation in history.

[mothmanprophet]

Something that has never failed to depress me is how I'm considered unique because my boomer parents are still married. I'm in my 30s, fyi. Whenever I talk about my parents to other people my age, they usually say "Oh, your parents are still together?" with that low-key surprise in their voices. Lord have mercy.

[labordayweekend]

Seems like everything you mention (abortions, day care, divorce) comes down to lack of accountability or responsibility. Living for the moment and refusing to deal with consequences.

[bizzy]

I'm saying this from experience: it doesn't matter how "normal" a divorce process is. Divorce is excruciating for a child in every regard, and they should not have to suffer that if the parents can avoid it.
(Yeah obv there are cases of abuse where divorce is to protect the child, I'm experienced in that too)

[austenl]

I agree with this video essay. I believe the key word for Boomers is 'selfish, ' or colloquial narcissism bordering on sociopathic selfishness. They quickly folded on the idealism of the 60's and transitioned towards a kind of hyper-individualism; a sort of individualism not in contrast to society, or the state, which has long been part of American culture, but an individualism against other individuals including family members and one's children. I think the effects of this attitude on the micro-scale can be found in the economy on the macro-scale with the destruction of unions, an increase in wealth gap, a shift from a manufacturing economy to a squishy service and financial sector workforce, expansion of the drug war/prison system, expansion of interventionist foreign policy, and in the culture generally. Psychologically and philosophically it's important for people in believe in something greater than themselves whether that be religion or the republic each coupled with a tradition of values and principles and are unifying as opposed to divisive; many of these Boomers and many of their offspring are no longer apart of a community like that unfortunately. They've become wholly selfish.

[AudioEpics]

Thank you for talking about the divorce issue. Only when I became an adult and especially when I had kids did I truly realize what the divorce of my parents did to me. How we were suddenly torn away from our lovely home where I used to play with the neighbor's kids in the garden and forced to live in an apartment on a noisy street and how my mom was forced to work so hard to provide for us it eventually led to a chronic illness that still affects her to this day, all because my dad missed feeling butterflies and needed some more adventure in his life. I really hate how people downplay the awfulness of this stuff. How it hollows out kids' faith in people, in relationships, in their own abilities as a spouse or parent. How it rips the joy out of large and important parts of life, how it continues to affect you for the rest of your life. It truly is a horrible, horrible thing and people are still blind to just how bad it is. My brother is still in denial about it but I can see very clearly how it messed up him as well.

[LUX]

Daycare was the worst. Felt like eternity & never accomplished anything everyday while in it.

[christophergrieb]

Bruce Cannon Gibney
A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America.

An entire book based on this subject.

[TheShoguneagle]

The same people that espoused the principles of hard work, education, and peace also ushered in outsourcing, profitizing higher learning, and perpetual war. I don’t think a more hypocritical generation exists... except maybe my own (gen-Y).

[TheDrackOfSpades]

Boomers had it easy, that much is clear,
Millennials now face a giant fear,
Student debt of colossal size,
A mountain of payments, it's no surprise.

Boomers held onto their jobs with pride,
Now millennials have nowhere to reside,
The job market is tough to break,
Gray ceiling stands in our way and we ache.

Wage stagnation leaves us poor,
Even with degrees and knowledge galore,
The gig economy has taken over,
A contract job pays less, it's a sobering sober.

Housing once affordable, is out of reach,
Boomers bought at a time that's a breach,
Inflationary market and demand too high,
For millennials, homeownership is a lullaby.

Boomers were rewarded with pensions, grand,
But now they've retired and money's in demand,
Social security funds strain and break,
Leaving millennials to fend for their own sake.

So, boomers, we ask, what can we do?
To ensure millennials have prospects anew,
Can we work together to bridge this gap?
And avoid leaving hardships on the millennial map, or perhaps we can serve them a dirt nap,
After we stop paying for their welfare and that.