This probably isn’t that new of a thought to most of you all, but another post made me think to share it.
About a year ago my wife and I (both millennials) were taking a long walk and reflecting on some stuff. It occurred to us both that from our early to mid 20s forward it was hard getting good advice from our parents (both Boomers) on life matters. Sure, there’s the usual “they don’t know what the housing market is” stuff, but it seemed like more than that. That’s when we both had the glass shattering conclusion that we have experienced more life than our parents.
We didn’t mean travel. We honestly meant global changes and conflict. Sure, our parents had the Cold War and threats of nuclear annihilation, but it felt like the traumas of the last generation weren’t as frequent, global, and of personal impact. Economic meltdowns, global warming (with local weather events impacting us), 911, COVID… I don’t need to keep going.
So, we came to the conclusion that even though Boomers like to fall back to the “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” mantra, it turns out that they went through their adult lives with relatively little global/national trauma. This obviously can’t stand as a generalization for personal trauma, but on a macrochasm scale Boomers are Summer Children (matured during a time of plenty and ease).
They’re not really “holding onto the money”.
It’s more “they’re holding onto jobs” and refusing to retire, because they never saved for retirement
They have “wealth” because by now a lot of them have paid off cheap mortgages and their home value has skyrocketed.
But they can’t sell and buy a cheaper house because there’s no cheap houses. And if they rent it’s 2x-3x what their mortgage uses to be.
Most Boomers are still a paycheck or two away from losing everything, the difference is it’s their own fault from decades of poor financial decisions and voting habits
I cant disagree here. But in that case, they might need to check their attitude a lot since the boomers I know look down on us milennials a lot more than would be warranted even by their hierarchical thinking.
So?
Boomers hated every generation before them, and every generation after them.
I give zero fucks what the opinion of Boomers as a generation overall is.
Because they’ve shown for decades that their demographic at large are a bunch of lead addled angry assholes with next to no critical thinking skills.
I can understand that most of that is just normal lead poisoning and not their fault, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen to their ramblings just because I understand why they’re nonsensical.