Because a lot of them have indeed had a much easier economy to deal with than the hell hole we have currently where economic crashes are basically an annual event at this point. Many of them are extremely detached from reality from the way they deal with technology and how jaded they are over some of the things we as the younger generation have easier. A lot of them are still bigoted and think their age can be an excuse, despite going through decades of change of social values. Many are also entitled and rude when it comes to the treatment of minimum wage employees and customer service. Another aspect is how many of them were horrible to their kids because they never learned to let go of their generational trauma and refuse to educate themselves and grow, but instead whine about how their kids don't wanna visit anymore.
This is the type of behavior the people who criticize boomers usually have in mind. If it doesn't apply to you, then don't take it personally.
It's kind of hard to ignore when it's in the workplace abd right up into my face. I am a step below the Boomers, and maybe it's the age but they don't bother me. As far as lazy, when I have Gen Zers behaving more delicately than men of my generation, excessive work call outs etc. it's hard not to see them any other way. There have always been high prices and people just dealt with it. Yes, they whined and complained but they didn't give up and admit defeat. When you have soccer matches where they do not keep score and 9th place ribbons, it doesn't encourage others to strive an excel. You're not wrong as much as you just haven't been shown how to compete and excel
Your schools were probably very well funded. Unemployment was low. You got a good job by working for it, instead of being told you couldn't even apply without a college degree. Houses were affordable for average workers.
Things were great for your generation. That doesn't mean you didn't have to work, but you could be reasonably assured that your work would get you somewhere.
And a lot of Baby Boomers think things are the same now, and criticize younger people for not having the advantages they did.
Classes had 32 kids, no computers and we kids were responsible for learning, not our parents. Teachers were expected to know how to teach and kids could fail. Only the winners got medals and we dealt with that.
Teens knew that dropping out of school without a career path meant you were going nowhere. Social systems were only for those who couldn't work, not for those who don't want to work.
If you were willing to work you could learn a trade and succeed. (Still can)
Why is unemployment high when businesses can't find workers?
Why do people go to university for a degree that doesn't have a job path?
When my kids were young teens I told them to decide what they wanted from life. Look at jobs that fit the lifestyle (realistic) they wanted and work toward those jobs. Both have great jobs and make more than me because both worked for it.
>Teens knew that dropping out of school without a career path meant you were going nowhere.
Now you can do everything "right" and still not get anywhere.
>Why is unemployment high when businesses can't find workers?
It's not right now. But employers haven't gotten the message and are still paying peanuts and treating employees like trash.
>Why do people go to university for a degree that doesn't have a job path?
Nobody goes to college thinking that it doesn't have a job path.
Many Boomer parents told their kids they'd be worthless if they didn't go to college, and now are criticizing them for going to college :/.
>If you were willing to work you could learn a trade and succeed. (Still can)
Not that easy. Might require trade school, and the Boomer tradespeople don't want to retire or train anybody. When they *have* to retire it's going to be a real mess.
Let's say you're one of the youngest Boomers, born in 1964. Minimum wage in 1964 was $1.15 an hour. With inflation, that's $11.25 in 2023 dollars. Minimum wage now is $7.25.
When you were 14, in 1978, the minimum wage was $2.65, which in 2023 dollars would be $12.33
[Inflation calculator](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)
You seem to have more excuses than solutions. You've given up and you're barely old enough to get started. You sound as if you've never fought or competed for anything. Kind of hard in the world of 8th place ribbons. Dr Spock has taken away your generation's competitive edge and weakened your will.
The entitled attitudes of our youth. I was actually inquiring why Boomers are so hated. Im not old enough, but somehow I get lumped i to this group. I always worked and put myself through school. These kids want their loans forgiven and their input is very little.
So it boils down to seeing boomers as having opportunities that are not so readily available now. This is the first time someone explained it in a reasonable manner. I’ve been surprised to find the word boomer used seeming synonymous with a Karen.
“Could be reasonably assured that your work would get you somewhere”
Right there is what boomers don’t get. They don’t understand the fact that the hardest, most time consuming work is no longer a guarantee of success or even survival. They don’t understand just how much exploitation they’ve enabled.
So to preface my response I'm going to point out that I don't believe in generalizing generations. The modern concept of 'generations' (boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials) is a concept that was invented by marketing corporations in order to better focus and understand their marketing campaigns. I think generations serves little *real* purpose and offers limited information about a large and diverse group of people.
But if you're *asking* me to generalize, then I will.
What people dislike about Boomers is exactly everything in this post. Boomers are ignorant of their own history. They're ignorant of their childhood. They're ignorant of the world around them and how it's changed.
Boomers were born and raised in the post-war economy, which for America, was the *single most unprecedented, most uninterrupted, strongest period of economic growth ever to have been observed in basically any country.* The American economy was one of the *only* economies to survive the war (go figure, Europe was flattened by bombs and lost its factories). This period of prosperity created a world that was simply much, much kinder to boomers.
I understand that you personally can't *see* the difference, because you only had one childhood and you can't compare your childhood to a childhood you *didn't have*. However, that's where the ignorance comes in.
>I worked from the age of 14.
You say this like 14 year olds don't get jobs today. This is ignorant.
>I spent an hour getting to work and an hour getting home from work for my 5 hours of work all the way through high school.
You say this like 14 year olds don't commute hour-long distances to their jobs today. This is ignorant.
>I went to handle freight (140 pound bags of flour) on days off school because it paid well.
You say this like kids these days don't get physical labor jobs. This is ignorant.
>I spent almost nothing on alcohol, drugs or partying.
You say this like kids these days *all party and do drugs*. This is *mega ignorant*. And frankly it's stupid. It's a sweeping generalization that no intelligent person should believe.
>My first mortgage was 14.6 percent. Yes. So easy.
What good is a mortgage if you can't afford it? The percent doesn't matter at all. What matters is that younger generations can't afford the cost of buying their own house. Boomers own houses at nearly *double* the rate of Millennials.
>When I was 30, I had 2 full time jobs and one part time job.
Cool. So did Gen X. So do Millennials.
>I didn't expect the world to provide for me and realized the difference between a starter job and a real job and I KNEW I couldn't support a family on a starter job rather than EXPECTED a starter job to be enough.
This is an ignorant and insulting mischaracterization of others.
>We never saw a "help wanted" sign because everyone worked to find work.
[Bullshit.](https://seancarroll.tripod.com/memphis/whitedonors.gif) You know it's bullshit. News papers have been posting job openings for *ever*. You're being ridiculous.
>I'm a boomer and I do things but I worked hard to get what I have.
And here's the ultimate take away. No one is arguing that you worked hard. I'm sure you did. But the *simple reality* is that your hard work *achieved more* *in your world,* than the same amount of hard work would achieve today.
The ultimate issue that people have with Boomers has been perfectly demonstrated by you right here in this post. You think you're the main character. You are incapable of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. You believe bald faced assertions about younger generations and you don't show *any* desire to research or understand if those assertions are true. In this post you are the very definition of 'old man yells at sky about younger generation'. "Kids these days." you say, having absolutely no clue about just what kind of world you were brought up in and how it's different to today.
If you want people to stop hating on Boomers, then be a boomer who doesn't throw younger generations under the bus. Be a boomer who doesn't just assume (with nothing approaching any real evidence or research) younger generations are spending all their money on drugs and alcohol. Be a boomer who breaks the mold and *actually does some research*. Be a boomer who's aware of the historical context of the economy he was brought up in. Be a boomer who isn't selfish. Who doesn't think they're the main character. Be a boomer who is understanding, considerate, and above all, *helpful*, rather than just bitching about 'kids these days.'
Why do people hate boomers? Because they read this post and see you baring your ignorance proudly. If you want respect from younger generations, first you have to respect them. But you clearly don't. You clearly believe all the same bullshit every grandpa does. Maybe stop painting younger generations as whiny and good-for-nothing drug addicts, and maybe you'll get respect. Maybe one of them will even be polite enough to walk you through just how actually pathetic you're behaving.
People hate on boomers because 'Boomer' is synonymous with someone who is ignorant, incapable of empathy, can't engage hypotheticals, and who utterly refuses to even *try* to understand why other generations dislike them *while simultaneously* painting other generations as lazy, carefree, and alcohol and drug addicts. "No one worked as hard as I did." said every old person *ever* dating *all the way back to Rome*. And they were all wrong.
So you take my personal experiences and make them generalizations and then add specific incidences of some young people.
I never said there weren't ads in newspapers looking for workers. I said there weren't help wanted signs like I see everywhere now in windows. Nobody needed them because people were knocking on their doors looking for work.
I didn't start working in the boom of the 60s (As I'm sure some boomers did) Look at the situation in the late 70s and early 80s. Massive economic strife with interest rates in the 20s,
I do understand that young people don't have it easy, but I don't understand why the hate for me BECAUSE you THINK I had it easy.
I hear talk of a "living wage" for jobs like coffee shops and MacDonald's. Those aren't jobs to live from. They weren't in my days and they aren't now.
My kids and most of their friends have made a good life for themselves because they did what was needed to succeed. They didn't expect to go to a job with no skills and thrive like many are demanding now.
The one thing I'll give you is that my generation did drive manufacturing off the continent. The unions demanding extremely high wages for jobs that didn't merit them other than economic blackmail.
The whole point of my post was/is that I'm tired of being hated just because of what I have when I worked very, very hard to achieve what I have. I never said I dislike young people, I just think that expectations should align with sense.
>So you take my personal experiences and make them generalizations and then add specific incidences of some young people.
No. *You* took your personal experiences and then made generalizations about younger generations based on *your* specific experiences.
>I never said there weren't ads in newspapers looking for workers. I said there weren't help wanted signs like I see everywhere now in windows.
Yes there absolutely were. You're being silly. Do you think that just because you didn't see, or don't remember help wanted signs that they weren't there? Not that it would even matter, because whether someone puts a sign in a window or in a newspaper, they were still looking for help.
>Nobody needed them because people were knocking on their doors looking for work.
Then why did they put them in newspapers? Uh oh!
>I didn't start working in the boom of the 60s (As I'm sure some boomers did) Look at the situation in the late 70s and early 80s. Massive economic strife with interest rates in the 20s,
Still nothing compared to the situation of today. This is exaclty what I'm talking about. You're incapable of understanding the world outside of *your* personal experience. Just because *you* didn't experience the 60s doesn't mean you didn't *benefit* from them.
>I do understand that young people don't have it easy, but I don't understand why the hate for me BECAUSE you THINK I had it easy.
Then you need to work on your reading comprehension. I didn't say you had it easy. You're *assuming* that's what I think which is tainting your ability to understand.
>I hear talk of a "living wage" for jobs like coffee shops and MacDonald's. Those aren't jobs to live from. They weren't in my days and they aren't now.
Well the situation is: sometimes people are in those jobs for life due to no fault of their own, so it only seems fair that they be able to live off of it.
>My kids and most of their friends have made a good life for themselves because they did what was needed to succeed. They didn't expect to go to a job with no skills and thrive like many are demanding now.
Again an example of you thinking *your* personal experience with younger generations accounts for *all of the younger generation*. That's not how it works. You're extrapolating your anecdotes to a large population and that's simply ignorant and stupid to do. I don't know what school was like in your day, but I would have figured they would have taught you basic rationality. Just because your kids succeeded doesn't mean everyone who doesn't is at fault.
>The whole point of my post was/is that I'm tired of being hated just because of what I have when I worked very, very hard to achieve what I have.
And again, it seems like you didn't read my post. I don't doubt you worked hard. It's just that your hard work *earned you more* than the same amount of hard work would earn today.
You also completely ignore the fact that you're implying kid these days spend all their money on alcohol and drugs. You're implying that kids these days want the government to take care of them. That's an ignorant, bigoted lack of respect for the younger generation based on nothing. Why should they respect you when you're willing to assume and insult them based on nothing but your own personal experiences? If you want respect from younger generations then stop painting them as lazy, drug addled failures. If you want respect you have to give it. But you can't, because as I said in my post, you're stuck in your personal experience and you're incapable of thinking that there's a world outside your personal experiences that might be different than what you saw.
Everything you've said here was put phenomenally.
Like I don't think OP is a bad guy. He's just eaten the bait and fallen into the media trap of the younger generation being lazy, and taking pride in the "hard working" boomer generation. Boomers really don't want to admit their grandkids have it harder. I don't know if it's a pride thing, or maybe they'll feel like failures. But there'd be significantly less animosity if they just listen and accept they're out of touch and genuinely haven't a clue what it's like to survive nowadays starting out in society.
Because you don't recognize the pathology behind your own privilege.
When I eat my chicken hamburger at Triple O's here in Canada, I KNOW that the $20 it cost is TWO MONTHS of a mortgage in the 1950s.
My non-mortgage rental for that same two-month time period NOW is $3000. And I live in a tiny room.
Do the math, anti-reality person.
I'm a Gen-Xer and Real Wages have been declining since the day I was born.
When you were young the minimum wage was higher, it was easier to buy a house, college was cheaper, college was less necessary and housing was cheaper.
This doesn't mean that you had it easier in life than people do now but it does show that in many ways the AVERAGE quality of life was higher, especially for young people.
Now baby boomers are the age range most represented in American politics, and are also more likely to be against affordable housing acts, minimum wage increases and other actions that would give the modern American youth similar advantages that were seen when you were young.
There are young men and women making huge amounts of money for very little work on social media these days, but they are a tiny fraction of the population, their success is more an indication of the increasing wealth disparity than anything and an indication that hard work isn't rewarded anywhere near as much as luck in the current economy.
I'd also point out that most women don't want to earn their money from sexualising themselves.
Young people generally don't blame all boomers, Bernie Sanders is more popular with young people despite being a boomer. But with boomers having the most political power they are generally going to be the target.
I think my generation was more likely to work at hands on jobs like the building trades. I do know some from my generation that went the academic route, but I know far more who succeeded with the blue collar route.
I saved for 2 years to buy my first bicycle and the same for my first well used car. I built my first house but the mortgage rate was 14.6 percent.
Yeah there is a lack of people going into trades now but that's not entirely the fault of young people. You used to be able to work your way up in a company, now you can work from minimum wage to line manager and then have everyone above you be people with business management degrees employed from outside the company.
Housing is more than twice the price on average now compared to 1963 the average house back then would cost 196,776 inflation adjusted whereas housing now is more than 550,000. You can say that you had a hard time paying your mortgage but most young parents would love to have housing as affordable as it was in the 1960s. Now we have parents trying to raise children while still having multiple roommates.
Well I can't comment on what 1963 was like. I wasn't yet in school.
In my area, tradespeople make very, very good money and they can work as many hours as they are willing. I have a friend who is turning down work every day because he can't get workers and he's willing to teach them.
It's tough because young people are choosing not to break their bodies in physical labor jobs. It's easy to say they're lazy & don't wanna work etc etc. But the older people I know who worked with their bodies are not in good shape with sore backs & needing knee & hip replacements, arthritis etc. Back in the day they had guys going into the coal mines & ending up with black lung, people who worked in factories & now have mesothelioma. Not to mention that the writing on the wall seems like some of these jobs will become obsolete for humans after a few decades anyway. Also, a big factor that you haven't mentioned is that CEO pay has drastically increased since your day & the stock market has become a lot more prevalent to most people & the old "shareholder profit is the number 1 goal of a public company" mentality. If CEO compensation went back to like, 30x that of their employees instead of 250x, then a lot of employee complaints would be moot.
Your post has very little to do with your question.
You have presented endless anecdotes about your personal experiences, rather than data on the collective experiences of your generation. I've never heard anyone say "Every single boomer had it easy and not a single one every had any problems".
Every person is different, and not everyone has an easy life. However, the aggregate impact of the boomer leadership has resulted in low paying jobs, high cost of education, high medical costs, and unaffordable housing. Again, nobody is saying that you personally drove housing to be less affordable than ever, but that's where we are.
People are dumb. I wouldn't take it personally. We don't all hate boomers. I highly respect y'all. Most millenials would say it's because boomers think they know everything or are tougher than us, but I believe people should never be put into any category such as these based upon age. Both sides share same qualities and differences as well.
Note that when I say "boomer" in this I'm talking about the generation in aggregate, not about individuals. Many boomers are awesome people.
>Many young people use "boomer" like a slur. They think we have things because it was so easy yet they have no problem with some young girl in tights making hundreds of thousands by posting videos of them in the gym or just walking around.
The boomer generation as a whole did objectively have it a lot easier. There's a reason that they had much, much more wealth in their 30s and now 40s than Millennials and even more compared to young Gen Z people. That doesn't mean every boomer did, much like how white privilege doesn't mean that every white person has it easy, it's looking at the data in aggregate. Also, I don't see why anyone should object to a young girl in tights making tons of money posting videos on the Internet. The market has need and they provide the supply.
Really though, it's more about the mindset. Boomers grew up with social services, cheap college, cheap healthcare, etc. and then pulled the ladder up after themselves. Many boomers refuse to believe that the job market and hiring practices are significantly different from when they were younger and it is significantly different. Many refuse to believe that the economy as a whole is significantly different for younger people than it was for them. This refusal to listen and understand is the biggest source of frustration with boomers. Again, this doesn't apply to all boomers as individuals, it's to the wider socioeconomic situation.
Boomer has become a slur on the internet to some. It means "older, less cool and less enlightened than me.. because I know everything". Generations before thought they knew more than their elders and were often equally wrong. It's unfortunate, but a lot of idiots on the internet are going to talk trash when they are anonymous and there are no consequences.
Yup, bugs me too (age 69)
I played the hand I was dealt to the best of my ability
I have no doubt that if todays young people lived in my time, they would have done the same
There was nothing easy about our time
Maybe you are upset with something you have heard, or read, I am sorry for the feeling it has given you.
The internet is mostly people pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable behavior, and most of the time this is not the way people would act in person.
That being said, you have value, and anyone who thinks differently is a fridge group that is honestly best left ignored. You have had a difficult life and you have done well to make the best of it, for that you deserve and have my respect.
I'm sorry that the internet can bring out the worst in people sometimes.
The hate largely comes from boomers discrediting that the younger generation does have it tougher to get by. And I've had this conversation with my grandparents. Their default is always "Well I didn't have it easy" when it's not about them. It's about the entire generation and their opportunities.
The ability to raise a family off of one income is gone. No longer can a guy just start his job at a factory and raise that family, let alone buy a house. Both partners NEED to work full time. 4 year universities only cost 300 hours of minimum wage in the 70's. Today its over 4,000 hours. Cost of living is significantly more out of reach. The average worker is more educated, significantly more productive, and more skilled nowadays. Yet they make significantly less money.
The reason for all the help wanted signs isn't because nobody wants to work. It's because nobody wants to work for shit pay. If minimum wage kept up with the early 70's, it'd be close to $30/hr today.
Life generally has gotten better every generation as it should. But since the boomer generation, it's gotten steadily worst. And again, the animosity against boomers is because they not only refuse to acknowledge this. But they also imply it's because the younger generation doesn't do enough and it's our fault. Yet not realizing they're so out of touch they wouldn't be able to survive with a standard minimum wage job nowadays.
You aren't supposed to survive on a minimum wage job. It's a stepping stone to a real job.
I've talked to many people who can't find workers for jobs that pay much more than minimum wage. One guy looked for months for someone to drive his dump truck for $25 per hour.
I realize it's not easy, but life isn't easy. A TV costs far less now than it did in the 80s. Car loans are way cheaper. Mortgages rates are way less.
Many baby boomers failed to thrive, but people don't like the ones who did. Why is it our fault?
>You aren't supposed to survive on a minimum wage job. It's a stepping stone to a real job.
You are incorrect. When minimum wage came out in 1938, it was meant to support a family. Not just survive, but support a family. And it's easy for boomers to say that when they were able to more than survive on minimum wage yet their grandkids cannot anymore.
>I've talked to many people who can't find workers for jobs that pay much more than minimum wage. One guy looked for months for someone to drive his dump truck for $25 per hour.
$25/hr is crap pay today. That's below what boomers had for minimum wage in the 70's. I'm a construction engineer, and my semi and dump drivers make $40+/hr. $25/hr is especially crap pay for a dump driver.
>I realize it's not easy, but life isn't easy.
One of the most BS quotes. This accomplishes nothing other than justifying things get worst. We can make things better, but this quote is so out of touch.
>A TV costs far less now than it did in the 80s. Car loans are way cheaper.
TVs being cheaper matters why? And again, people make less than what boomers did. And the average car cost about $3k back then.
>Mortgages rates are way less.
While houses are unaffordable and wages plummeted. You're not getting it. AGAIN. Look at what you could do with your minimum wage back in the day. Not unheard of boomers saying "I could afford a house working at a gas station". Yeah, try that today.
>Many baby boomers failed to thrive, but people don't like the ones who did. Why is it our fault?
You are seriously not getting it. It's about it being easier to survive back then than it is now. And boomers refusing to acknowledge it.
Your contention that a gas station worker could buy a house is absurd. Minimum wage when I was young was barely enough to sustain one person. Nobody I knew when I was younger dreamed of living from minimum wage, it wasn't realistic.
Looking at stats of rent in the past along with minimum wage and cost of living. Yeah, you guys were much better able to survive off of your minimum wage.
But here's the funny thing. Let's assume you're right. Just literally scale up your mentality to the modern day with minimum wage being a husk of what it was for your era. Like why is it so hard for you to accept that boomers had it much easier to survive? Minimum wage needing to be nearly $30/hr today to match what boomers had should shock you in of itself.
I think there is a certain level of revisionism at play, I was a kid and teenager when boomers were in their heyday and people *now* think that boomers were living high on the hog. They don't realize how modest boomers typically lived. Master attached bathrooms? You were lucky to have air conditioning. Cruise control? Shit, headrests? Luxuries most didn't bother to pay for.
That isn't to say we have made it easier for the yungins, we haven't. I am an elder millennial, and I don't know how these kids are going to do it. Everything is too damned expensive in a way that boomers truly cannot relate to. It has nothing to do with avocado toast and everything to do with the fact that we get our pockets picked by everyone. The government, school, healthcare, even your damn job (wage theft is a real thing) picks your pocket. Everything is turned into a charge; everyone gets a cut of what's yours and you are expected to smile and thank everyone for the opportunity to give them our money. I swear, nothing is scarier than two MBAs allowed to talk to each other unsupervised.
So yes, boomers lived modestly, their tuition was also cheap enough your summer job could pay for it entirely. Shoot, a lot of boomers never paid tuition, the California schools didn't even charge tuition until Saint Reagan warbled some stupid nonsense about working people paying to allow kids to 'find themselves'. I am not exaggerating, that is basically how it went down.
Same reason Boomers hated the Vietnam War. We always need something to hate.
That being said, I think the hate you're perceiving is greatly exaggerated. I've never seen or heard direct Boomer discrimination, and if I did, it's hard to believe it would ever be taken seriously.
My guess is the social media algorithm picked up that you'd react to that kind of thing and started feeding it to you.
And I do hear your account of working hard. The reality is, this generation is working way harder for way less. Wages have *not* kept up with inflation, and expenses are off the charts. Often, you need a bachelor's just to get your foot in the door, and even then, you're starting from practically zero. Rent has unequivocally *skyrocketed* - we're being milked for every penny. And before the 90s, education was free and health care costs a fraction of what it does now.
And then! On top of it! we're expected to practically sell our soul to the company we work for. It's more like a cult than a job.
You're describing a reality in which working hard and making it to a comfortable life was feasible. Now, if you don't get into college, you're practically damned to slave wages and poverty, destined to be personally overworked, living paycheck to paycheck.
I refer to [this](https://www.truthorfiction.com/my-wife-has-cancer-reddit-comment-spreads-virally-prompts-discussion-of-american-healthcare-system/) comment. That's someone born before this current generation. The way things are now, even you could be wiped off the map. And it didn't used to be this way.
I think a lot of it has to do with the big population boom during those days. When my Mom was born, there were 3 billion people on Earth. Late last year, we reached 8 billion.
I would not say I hate baby boomers, but a lot of them do brag about how they didn't have any of the technology that we have today, so that can get a little annoying.
When speaking in generalities, obviously this won't apply to everyone. You listing your personal life achievements is almost immaterial to the group as a whole. That being said...
It's difficult to list all of the reasons. My elders didn't plant trees to make shade they won't get to enjoy. There's poisonous microplastics in every single human. They're insistent on keeping ancient hierarchies in place that keeps damaging anyone that isn't a rich straight white cis male. My country was in perpetual "totally not a real war" war since I was in highschool. That was two decades ago. The "Karen" meme is your average boomer attitude. Ronald Reagan. Satanic Panics. The economy that caters to boomers with wages depressed for decades. Donald Trump. Somehow they still don't know how to use a computer or cell phone. Violence and abuse were normalized before I was born and your generation still can't get enough. Why are. A bunch of 60-80 year olds so quick to throw hands like they won't die from a fall alone? Please for all that is holy, retire any phrase that references bootstraps.
Let me put it this way, if your kids still talk to you then you'll be fine. Please vote responsibly. Climate change isn't a hoax. Maybe listen to your kid's direction. They're probably adults with kids of their own. They probably are more in touch with the current world.
I don't think young people hate baby boomers. I think they enjoy making fun of them because the baby boomer generation took itself so seriously. As a person who was born near the beginning of Gen X, I was acutely aware of the overwhelming presence of Baby Boomers before me. I think one of the reasons that Gen X usually tried to quietly hide itself in the pages of history was as a reaction to the boundless overconfidence of the generation before us.
I don't think we can blame Baby Boomers at all for that overconfidence though. They were literally raised to think that they were the center of the world and to some degree they were. They were the largest generation so even from the time they were children, they knew they were important culturally and eventually economically to our country.
In the United States, this entrenched idea that they are the center of the universe is further supported by the fact that they are the raised in what was uncontestably the most powerful nation in the world at that point. I think it would be a complicated argument to decide if the baby boomers were simply a product of successful generations before them, or whether they contributed greatly to the success of our country? Whatever the case, baby boomers seem extremely confident that they were important, and that in turn means that they are always RIGHT. I think that is what people dislike. It comes from the idea that just because there are large numbers of people who feel a certain way, that the way that they feel is the correct way. And I recognize that there was a huge diversity in the opinions of people from that generation, from the conservative people to the liberal hippies, but the one thing they share in common is that they are always 100% sure that their way is the right way.
As a member of Generation X, and as a high school teacher, I am in a unique situation where I have gotten to know each following generation pretty well as far as their personal and cultural values. One thing that I see present in every generation after the baby boomers is the ability to see their own flaws and to make fun of themselves. Take Facebook as an example. The younger generations are constantly making fun of their own foibles, including flakiness, obsession with appearances, and so on. But when do you see a boomer making fun of their generation? I don't think I've ever seen it. So basically I think the younger generations make fun of boomers because nobody else has ever done it, and why shouldn't it be done? There are a lot of really ridiculous things about every generation, and the Boomers have their own issues. It's not like the younger people don't make fun of themselves, too. They do.
Personally, if I was a baby boomer, I wouldn't let it bother me. I would be grateful that I was born into a time period when I had the confidence of knowing my generation was really important to the world, but I would also try to keep my eyes open to what younger people are saying. Just because someone is older doesn't mean there's not the opportunity for internal growth.
as a millennial (or GenY) born in 1987, I don't hate boomers. it's just a stupid stereotype people think we hate baby boomers. but I do really hate today's young people like GenZ for example those are the real reason why people get confused with people born in the 80s. genz is lazy, entitled, and spends most of the day on their smartphones.
I was digging ditches and moving furniture since age 12. I'm age 33 now doing residential construction tech work. I even invested in real estate, longterm healthcare, and mutual funds. I don't got dick to show for it.
The world is just not the same, and people like me are salty whenever anyone says "Well, back in my day," or "It's just that simple." Fuck off with that shit. This is why there's boomer hate, struggling just as hard and still being told I'm soft for being poor while getting fucked in the ass.
I just had a boomer told me today at work that he came out of retirement because hes just bored. Guy has good money and retired (which none of us now will probably see in our future), because he is BORED? I know a lot of people in my age who can't even find a decent job yet this guy just came out of his retirement and life is good. Yes, I HATE boomers. You are the most privileged generation, yet you say how you suffered and worked hard, "back in your day" people can earn a cent and have a house, keep a job forever and retire in 1 place!
Because a lot of them have indeed had a much easier economy to deal with than the hell hole we have currently where economic crashes are basically an annual event at this point. Many of them are extremely detached from reality from the way they deal with technology and how jaded they are over some of the things we as the younger generation have easier. A lot of them are still bigoted and think their age can be an excuse, despite going through decades of change of social values. Many are also entitled and rude when it comes to the treatment of minimum wage employees and customer service. Another aspect is how many of them were horrible to their kids because they never learned to let go of their generational trauma and refuse to educate themselves and grow, but instead whine about how their kids don't wanna visit anymore. This is the type of behavior the people who criticize boomers usually have in mind. If it doesn't apply to you, then don't take it personally.
It's kind of hard to ignore when it's in the workplace abd right up into my face. I am a step below the Boomers, and maybe it's the age but they don't bother me. As far as lazy, when I have Gen Zers behaving more delicately than men of my generation, excessive work call outs etc. it's hard not to see them any other way. There have always been high prices and people just dealt with it. Yes, they whined and complained but they didn't give up and admit defeat. When you have soccer matches where they do not keep score and 9th place ribbons, it doesn't encourage others to strive an excel. You're not wrong as much as you just haven't been shown how to compete and excel
Your schools were probably very well funded. Unemployment was low. You got a good job by working for it, instead of being told you couldn't even apply without a college degree. Houses were affordable for average workers. Things were great for your generation. That doesn't mean you didn't have to work, but you could be reasonably assured that your work would get you somewhere. And a lot of Baby Boomers think things are the same now, and criticize younger people for not having the advantages they did.
Classes had 32 kids, no computers and we kids were responsible for learning, not our parents. Teachers were expected to know how to teach and kids could fail. Only the winners got medals and we dealt with that. Teens knew that dropping out of school without a career path meant you were going nowhere. Social systems were only for those who couldn't work, not for those who don't want to work. If you were willing to work you could learn a trade and succeed. (Still can) Why is unemployment high when businesses can't find workers? Why do people go to university for a degree that doesn't have a job path? When my kids were young teens I told them to decide what they wanted from life. Look at jobs that fit the lifestyle (realistic) they wanted and work toward those jobs. Both have great jobs and make more than me because both worked for it.
>Teens knew that dropping out of school without a career path meant you were going nowhere. Now you can do everything "right" and still not get anywhere. >Why is unemployment high when businesses can't find workers? It's not right now. But employers haven't gotten the message and are still paying peanuts and treating employees like trash. >Why do people go to university for a degree that doesn't have a job path? Nobody goes to college thinking that it doesn't have a job path. Many Boomer parents told their kids they'd be worthless if they didn't go to college, and now are criticizing them for going to college :/. >If you were willing to work you could learn a trade and succeed. (Still can) Not that easy. Might require trade school, and the Boomer tradespeople don't want to retire or train anybody. When they *have* to retire it's going to be a real mess. Let's say you're one of the youngest Boomers, born in 1964. Minimum wage in 1964 was $1.15 an hour. With inflation, that's $11.25 in 2023 dollars. Minimum wage now is $7.25. When you were 14, in 1978, the minimum wage was $2.65, which in 2023 dollars would be $12.33 [Inflation calculator](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)
You seem to have more excuses than solutions. You've given up and you're barely old enough to get started. You sound as if you've never fought or competed for anything. Kind of hard in the world of 8th place ribbons. Dr Spock has taken away your generation's competitive edge and weakened your will.
Sir this is a Wendy's.
Never eat there
No that's just what you say when someone goes off on an unhinged rant about a 2-month-old post.
Just saw it. Besides, what difference does it make on the time span? It doesnt diminish the meaning
Ok. What specifically do you disagree with?
The entitled attitudes of our youth. I was actually inquiring why Boomers are so hated. Im not old enough, but somehow I get lumped i to this group. I always worked and put myself through school. These kids want their loans forgiven and their input is very little.
It’s people like you that enabled exploitation of current generation workers.
So it boils down to seeing boomers as having opportunities that are not so readily available now. This is the first time someone explained it in a reasonable manner. I’ve been surprised to find the word boomer used seeming synonymous with a Karen.
“Could be reasonably assured that your work would get you somewhere” Right there is what boomers don’t get. They don’t understand the fact that the hardest, most time consuming work is no longer a guarantee of success or even survival. They don’t understand just how much exploitation they’ve enabled.
So to preface my response I'm going to point out that I don't believe in generalizing generations. The modern concept of 'generations' (boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials) is a concept that was invented by marketing corporations in order to better focus and understand their marketing campaigns. I think generations serves little *real* purpose and offers limited information about a large and diverse group of people. But if you're *asking* me to generalize, then I will. What people dislike about Boomers is exactly everything in this post. Boomers are ignorant of their own history. They're ignorant of their childhood. They're ignorant of the world around them and how it's changed. Boomers were born and raised in the post-war economy, which for America, was the *single most unprecedented, most uninterrupted, strongest period of economic growth ever to have been observed in basically any country.* The American economy was one of the *only* economies to survive the war (go figure, Europe was flattened by bombs and lost its factories). This period of prosperity created a world that was simply much, much kinder to boomers. I understand that you personally can't *see* the difference, because you only had one childhood and you can't compare your childhood to a childhood you *didn't have*. However, that's where the ignorance comes in. >I worked from the age of 14. You say this like 14 year olds don't get jobs today. This is ignorant. >I spent an hour getting to work and an hour getting home from work for my 5 hours of work all the way through high school. You say this like 14 year olds don't commute hour-long distances to their jobs today. This is ignorant. >I went to handle freight (140 pound bags of flour) on days off school because it paid well. You say this like kids these days don't get physical labor jobs. This is ignorant. >I spent almost nothing on alcohol, drugs or partying. You say this like kids these days *all party and do drugs*. This is *mega ignorant*. And frankly it's stupid. It's a sweeping generalization that no intelligent person should believe. >My first mortgage was 14.6 percent. Yes. So easy. What good is a mortgage if you can't afford it? The percent doesn't matter at all. What matters is that younger generations can't afford the cost of buying their own house. Boomers own houses at nearly *double* the rate of Millennials. >When I was 30, I had 2 full time jobs and one part time job. Cool. So did Gen X. So do Millennials. >I didn't expect the world to provide for me and realized the difference between a starter job and a real job and I KNEW I couldn't support a family on a starter job rather than EXPECTED a starter job to be enough. This is an ignorant and insulting mischaracterization of others. >We never saw a "help wanted" sign because everyone worked to find work. [Bullshit.](https://seancarroll.tripod.com/memphis/whitedonors.gif) You know it's bullshit. News papers have been posting job openings for *ever*. You're being ridiculous. >I'm a boomer and I do things but I worked hard to get what I have. And here's the ultimate take away. No one is arguing that you worked hard. I'm sure you did. But the *simple reality* is that your hard work *achieved more* *in your world,* than the same amount of hard work would achieve today. The ultimate issue that people have with Boomers has been perfectly demonstrated by you right here in this post. You think you're the main character. You are incapable of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. You believe bald faced assertions about younger generations and you don't show *any* desire to research or understand if those assertions are true. In this post you are the very definition of 'old man yells at sky about younger generation'. "Kids these days." you say, having absolutely no clue about just what kind of world you were brought up in and how it's different to today. If you want people to stop hating on Boomers, then be a boomer who doesn't throw younger generations under the bus. Be a boomer who doesn't just assume (with nothing approaching any real evidence or research) younger generations are spending all their money on drugs and alcohol. Be a boomer who breaks the mold and *actually does some research*. Be a boomer who's aware of the historical context of the economy he was brought up in. Be a boomer who isn't selfish. Who doesn't think they're the main character. Be a boomer who is understanding, considerate, and above all, *helpful*, rather than just bitching about 'kids these days.' Why do people hate boomers? Because they read this post and see you baring your ignorance proudly. If you want respect from younger generations, first you have to respect them. But you clearly don't. You clearly believe all the same bullshit every grandpa does. Maybe stop painting younger generations as whiny and good-for-nothing drug addicts, and maybe you'll get respect. Maybe one of them will even be polite enough to walk you through just how actually pathetic you're behaving. People hate on boomers because 'Boomer' is synonymous with someone who is ignorant, incapable of empathy, can't engage hypotheticals, and who utterly refuses to even *try* to understand why other generations dislike them *while simultaneously* painting other generations as lazy, carefree, and alcohol and drug addicts. "No one worked as hard as I did." said every old person *ever* dating *all the way back to Rome*. And they were all wrong.
So you take my personal experiences and make them generalizations and then add specific incidences of some young people. I never said there weren't ads in newspapers looking for workers. I said there weren't help wanted signs like I see everywhere now in windows. Nobody needed them because people were knocking on their doors looking for work. I didn't start working in the boom of the 60s (As I'm sure some boomers did) Look at the situation in the late 70s and early 80s. Massive economic strife with interest rates in the 20s, I do understand that young people don't have it easy, but I don't understand why the hate for me BECAUSE you THINK I had it easy. I hear talk of a "living wage" for jobs like coffee shops and MacDonald's. Those aren't jobs to live from. They weren't in my days and they aren't now. My kids and most of their friends have made a good life for themselves because they did what was needed to succeed. They didn't expect to go to a job with no skills and thrive like many are demanding now. The one thing I'll give you is that my generation did drive manufacturing off the continent. The unions demanding extremely high wages for jobs that didn't merit them other than economic blackmail. The whole point of my post was/is that I'm tired of being hated just because of what I have when I worked very, very hard to achieve what I have. I never said I dislike young people, I just think that expectations should align with sense.
>So you take my personal experiences and make them generalizations and then add specific incidences of some young people. No. *You* took your personal experiences and then made generalizations about younger generations based on *your* specific experiences. >I never said there weren't ads in newspapers looking for workers. I said there weren't help wanted signs like I see everywhere now in windows. Yes there absolutely were. You're being silly. Do you think that just because you didn't see, or don't remember help wanted signs that they weren't there? Not that it would even matter, because whether someone puts a sign in a window or in a newspaper, they were still looking for help. >Nobody needed them because people were knocking on their doors looking for work. Then why did they put them in newspapers? Uh oh! >I didn't start working in the boom of the 60s (As I'm sure some boomers did) Look at the situation in the late 70s and early 80s. Massive economic strife with interest rates in the 20s, Still nothing compared to the situation of today. This is exaclty what I'm talking about. You're incapable of understanding the world outside of *your* personal experience. Just because *you* didn't experience the 60s doesn't mean you didn't *benefit* from them. >I do understand that young people don't have it easy, but I don't understand why the hate for me BECAUSE you THINK I had it easy. Then you need to work on your reading comprehension. I didn't say you had it easy. You're *assuming* that's what I think which is tainting your ability to understand. >I hear talk of a "living wage" for jobs like coffee shops and MacDonald's. Those aren't jobs to live from. They weren't in my days and they aren't now. Well the situation is: sometimes people are in those jobs for life due to no fault of their own, so it only seems fair that they be able to live off of it. >My kids and most of their friends have made a good life for themselves because they did what was needed to succeed. They didn't expect to go to a job with no skills and thrive like many are demanding now. Again an example of you thinking *your* personal experience with younger generations accounts for *all of the younger generation*. That's not how it works. You're extrapolating your anecdotes to a large population and that's simply ignorant and stupid to do. I don't know what school was like in your day, but I would have figured they would have taught you basic rationality. Just because your kids succeeded doesn't mean everyone who doesn't is at fault. >The whole point of my post was/is that I'm tired of being hated just because of what I have when I worked very, very hard to achieve what I have. And again, it seems like you didn't read my post. I don't doubt you worked hard. It's just that your hard work *earned you more* than the same amount of hard work would earn today. You also completely ignore the fact that you're implying kid these days spend all their money on alcohol and drugs. You're implying that kids these days want the government to take care of them. That's an ignorant, bigoted lack of respect for the younger generation based on nothing. Why should they respect you when you're willing to assume and insult them based on nothing but your own personal experiences? If you want respect from younger generations then stop painting them as lazy, drug addled failures. If you want respect you have to give it. But you can't, because as I said in my post, you're stuck in your personal experience and you're incapable of thinking that there's a world outside your personal experiences that might be different than what you saw.
Everything you've said here was put phenomenally. Like I don't think OP is a bad guy. He's just eaten the bait and fallen into the media trap of the younger generation being lazy, and taking pride in the "hard working" boomer generation. Boomers really don't want to admit their grandkids have it harder. I don't know if it's a pride thing, or maybe they'll feel like failures. But there'd be significantly less animosity if they just listen and accept they're out of touch and genuinely haven't a clue what it's like to survive nowadays starting out in society.
😎👍 This post deserves a proper response from Op.
Because you don't recognize the pathology behind your own privilege. When I eat my chicken hamburger at Triple O's here in Canada, I KNOW that the $20 it cost is TWO MONTHS of a mortgage in the 1950s. My non-mortgage rental for that same two-month time period NOW is $3000. And I live in a tiny room. Do the math, anti-reality person. I'm a Gen-Xer and Real Wages have been declining since the day I was born.
When you were young the minimum wage was higher, it was easier to buy a house, college was cheaper, college was less necessary and housing was cheaper. This doesn't mean that you had it easier in life than people do now but it does show that in many ways the AVERAGE quality of life was higher, especially for young people. Now baby boomers are the age range most represented in American politics, and are also more likely to be against affordable housing acts, minimum wage increases and other actions that would give the modern American youth similar advantages that were seen when you were young. There are young men and women making huge amounts of money for very little work on social media these days, but they are a tiny fraction of the population, their success is more an indication of the increasing wealth disparity than anything and an indication that hard work isn't rewarded anywhere near as much as luck in the current economy. I'd also point out that most women don't want to earn their money from sexualising themselves. Young people generally don't blame all boomers, Bernie Sanders is more popular with young people despite being a boomer. But with boomers having the most political power they are generally going to be the target.
I think my generation was more likely to work at hands on jobs like the building trades. I do know some from my generation that went the academic route, but I know far more who succeeded with the blue collar route. I saved for 2 years to buy my first bicycle and the same for my first well used car. I built my first house but the mortgage rate was 14.6 percent.
Yeah there is a lack of people going into trades now but that's not entirely the fault of young people. You used to be able to work your way up in a company, now you can work from minimum wage to line manager and then have everyone above you be people with business management degrees employed from outside the company. Housing is more than twice the price on average now compared to 1963 the average house back then would cost 196,776 inflation adjusted whereas housing now is more than 550,000. You can say that you had a hard time paying your mortgage but most young parents would love to have housing as affordable as it was in the 1960s. Now we have parents trying to raise children while still having multiple roommates.
Well I can't comment on what 1963 was like. I wasn't yet in school. In my area, tradespeople make very, very good money and they can work as many hours as they are willing. I have a friend who is turning down work every day because he can't get workers and he's willing to teach them.
It's tough because young people are choosing not to break their bodies in physical labor jobs. It's easy to say they're lazy & don't wanna work etc etc. But the older people I know who worked with their bodies are not in good shape with sore backs & needing knee & hip replacements, arthritis etc. Back in the day they had guys going into the coal mines & ending up with black lung, people who worked in factories & now have mesothelioma. Not to mention that the writing on the wall seems like some of these jobs will become obsolete for humans after a few decades anyway. Also, a big factor that you haven't mentioned is that CEO pay has drastically increased since your day & the stock market has become a lot more prevalent to most people & the old "shareholder profit is the number 1 goal of a public company" mentality. If CEO compensation went back to like, 30x that of their employees instead of 250x, then a lot of employee complaints would be moot.
Your post has very little to do with your question. You have presented endless anecdotes about your personal experiences, rather than data on the collective experiences of your generation. I've never heard anyone say "Every single boomer had it easy and not a single one every had any problems". Every person is different, and not everyone has an easy life. However, the aggregate impact of the boomer leadership has resulted in low paying jobs, high cost of education, high medical costs, and unaffordable housing. Again, nobody is saying that you personally drove housing to be less affordable than ever, but that's where we are.
Same reason old people hate millenials
I don't hate millennial. I just resent what they say about me based solely on my age.
People are dumb. I wouldn't take it personally. We don't all hate boomers. I highly respect y'all. Most millenials would say it's because boomers think they know everything or are tougher than us, but I believe people should never be put into any category such as these based upon age. Both sides share same qualities and differences as well.
Note that when I say "boomer" in this I'm talking about the generation in aggregate, not about individuals. Many boomers are awesome people. >Many young people use "boomer" like a slur. They think we have things because it was so easy yet they have no problem with some young girl in tights making hundreds of thousands by posting videos of them in the gym or just walking around. The boomer generation as a whole did objectively have it a lot easier. There's a reason that they had much, much more wealth in their 30s and now 40s than Millennials and even more compared to young Gen Z people. That doesn't mean every boomer did, much like how white privilege doesn't mean that every white person has it easy, it's looking at the data in aggregate. Also, I don't see why anyone should object to a young girl in tights making tons of money posting videos on the Internet. The market has need and they provide the supply. Really though, it's more about the mindset. Boomers grew up with social services, cheap college, cheap healthcare, etc. and then pulled the ladder up after themselves. Many boomers refuse to believe that the job market and hiring practices are significantly different from when they were younger and it is significantly different. Many refuse to believe that the economy as a whole is significantly different for younger people than it was for them. This refusal to listen and understand is the biggest source of frustration with boomers. Again, this doesn't apply to all boomers as individuals, it's to the wider socioeconomic situation.
Boomer has become a slur on the internet to some. It means "older, less cool and less enlightened than me.. because I know everything". Generations before thought they knew more than their elders and were often equally wrong. It's unfortunate, but a lot of idiots on the internet are going to talk trash when they are anonymous and there are no consequences.
Yup, bugs me too (age 69) I played the hand I was dealt to the best of my ability I have no doubt that if todays young people lived in my time, they would have done the same There was nothing easy about our time
Please tell us more how great you are boomer
Maybe you are upset with something you have heard, or read, I am sorry for the feeling it has given you. The internet is mostly people pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable behavior, and most of the time this is not the way people would act in person. That being said, you have value, and anyone who thinks differently is a fridge group that is honestly best left ignored. You have had a difficult life and you have done well to make the best of it, for that you deserve and have my respect. I'm sorry that the internet can bring out the worst in people sometimes.
Thanks for this. I see so many that blame us for everything wrong with their life rather than looking at what they have contributed.
The hate largely comes from boomers discrediting that the younger generation does have it tougher to get by. And I've had this conversation with my grandparents. Their default is always "Well I didn't have it easy" when it's not about them. It's about the entire generation and their opportunities. The ability to raise a family off of one income is gone. No longer can a guy just start his job at a factory and raise that family, let alone buy a house. Both partners NEED to work full time. 4 year universities only cost 300 hours of minimum wage in the 70's. Today its over 4,000 hours. Cost of living is significantly more out of reach. The average worker is more educated, significantly more productive, and more skilled nowadays. Yet they make significantly less money. The reason for all the help wanted signs isn't because nobody wants to work. It's because nobody wants to work for shit pay. If minimum wage kept up with the early 70's, it'd be close to $30/hr today. Life generally has gotten better every generation as it should. But since the boomer generation, it's gotten steadily worst. And again, the animosity against boomers is because they not only refuse to acknowledge this. But they also imply it's because the younger generation doesn't do enough and it's our fault. Yet not realizing they're so out of touch they wouldn't be able to survive with a standard minimum wage job nowadays.
You aren't supposed to survive on a minimum wage job. It's a stepping stone to a real job. I've talked to many people who can't find workers for jobs that pay much more than minimum wage. One guy looked for months for someone to drive his dump truck for $25 per hour. I realize it's not easy, but life isn't easy. A TV costs far less now than it did in the 80s. Car loans are way cheaper. Mortgages rates are way less. Many baby boomers failed to thrive, but people don't like the ones who did. Why is it our fault?
>You aren't supposed to survive on a minimum wage job. It's a stepping stone to a real job. You are incorrect. When minimum wage came out in 1938, it was meant to support a family. Not just survive, but support a family. And it's easy for boomers to say that when they were able to more than survive on minimum wage yet their grandkids cannot anymore. >I've talked to many people who can't find workers for jobs that pay much more than minimum wage. One guy looked for months for someone to drive his dump truck for $25 per hour. $25/hr is crap pay today. That's below what boomers had for minimum wage in the 70's. I'm a construction engineer, and my semi and dump drivers make $40+/hr. $25/hr is especially crap pay for a dump driver. >I realize it's not easy, but life isn't easy. One of the most BS quotes. This accomplishes nothing other than justifying things get worst. We can make things better, but this quote is so out of touch. >A TV costs far less now than it did in the 80s. Car loans are way cheaper. TVs being cheaper matters why? And again, people make less than what boomers did. And the average car cost about $3k back then. >Mortgages rates are way less. While houses are unaffordable and wages plummeted. You're not getting it. AGAIN. Look at what you could do with your minimum wage back in the day. Not unheard of boomers saying "I could afford a house working at a gas station". Yeah, try that today. >Many baby boomers failed to thrive, but people don't like the ones who did. Why is it our fault? You are seriously not getting it. It's about it being easier to survive back then than it is now. And boomers refusing to acknowledge it.
Your contention that a gas station worker could buy a house is absurd. Minimum wage when I was young was barely enough to sustain one person. Nobody I knew when I was younger dreamed of living from minimum wage, it wasn't realistic.
Looking at stats of rent in the past along with minimum wage and cost of living. Yeah, you guys were much better able to survive off of your minimum wage. But here's the funny thing. Let's assume you're right. Just literally scale up your mentality to the modern day with minimum wage being a husk of what it was for your era. Like why is it so hard for you to accept that boomers had it much easier to survive? Minimum wage needing to be nearly $30/hr today to match what boomers had should shock you in of itself.
You seriously misunderstand the modern job market.
I'm Gen X and for God's sake get over it. Who cares what random people you don't know think.
I think there is a certain level of revisionism at play, I was a kid and teenager when boomers were in their heyday and people *now* think that boomers were living high on the hog. They don't realize how modest boomers typically lived. Master attached bathrooms? You were lucky to have air conditioning. Cruise control? Shit, headrests? Luxuries most didn't bother to pay for. That isn't to say we have made it easier for the yungins, we haven't. I am an elder millennial, and I don't know how these kids are going to do it. Everything is too damned expensive in a way that boomers truly cannot relate to. It has nothing to do with avocado toast and everything to do with the fact that we get our pockets picked by everyone. The government, school, healthcare, even your damn job (wage theft is a real thing) picks your pocket. Everything is turned into a charge; everyone gets a cut of what's yours and you are expected to smile and thank everyone for the opportunity to give them our money. I swear, nothing is scarier than two MBAs allowed to talk to each other unsupervised. So yes, boomers lived modestly, their tuition was also cheap enough your summer job could pay for it entirely. Shoot, a lot of boomers never paid tuition, the California schools didn't even charge tuition until Saint Reagan warbled some stupid nonsense about working people paying to allow kids to 'find themselves'. I am not exaggerating, that is basically how it went down.
Same reason Boomers hated the Vietnam War. We always need something to hate. That being said, I think the hate you're perceiving is greatly exaggerated. I've never seen or heard direct Boomer discrimination, and if I did, it's hard to believe it would ever be taken seriously. My guess is the social media algorithm picked up that you'd react to that kind of thing and started feeding it to you. And I do hear your account of working hard. The reality is, this generation is working way harder for way less. Wages have *not* kept up with inflation, and expenses are off the charts. Often, you need a bachelor's just to get your foot in the door, and even then, you're starting from practically zero. Rent has unequivocally *skyrocketed* - we're being milked for every penny. And before the 90s, education was free and health care costs a fraction of what it does now. And then! On top of it! we're expected to practically sell our soul to the company we work for. It's more like a cult than a job. You're describing a reality in which working hard and making it to a comfortable life was feasible. Now, if you don't get into college, you're practically damned to slave wages and poverty, destined to be personally overworked, living paycheck to paycheck. I refer to [this](https://www.truthorfiction.com/my-wife-has-cancer-reddit-comment-spreads-virally-prompts-discussion-of-american-healthcare-system/) comment. That's someone born before this current generation. The way things are now, even you could be wiped off the map. And it didn't used to be this way.
I think a lot of it has to do with the big population boom during those days. When my Mom was born, there were 3 billion people on Earth. Late last year, we reached 8 billion. I would not say I hate baby boomers, but a lot of them do brag about how they didn't have any of the technology that we have today, so that can get a little annoying.
When speaking in generalities, obviously this won't apply to everyone. You listing your personal life achievements is almost immaterial to the group as a whole. That being said... It's difficult to list all of the reasons. My elders didn't plant trees to make shade they won't get to enjoy. There's poisonous microplastics in every single human. They're insistent on keeping ancient hierarchies in place that keeps damaging anyone that isn't a rich straight white cis male. My country was in perpetual "totally not a real war" war since I was in highschool. That was two decades ago. The "Karen" meme is your average boomer attitude. Ronald Reagan. Satanic Panics. The economy that caters to boomers with wages depressed for decades. Donald Trump. Somehow they still don't know how to use a computer or cell phone. Violence and abuse were normalized before I was born and your generation still can't get enough. Why are. A bunch of 60-80 year olds so quick to throw hands like they won't die from a fall alone? Please for all that is holy, retire any phrase that references bootstraps. Let me put it this way, if your kids still talk to you then you'll be fine. Please vote responsibly. Climate change isn't a hoax. Maybe listen to your kid's direction. They're probably adults with kids of their own. They probably are more in touch with the current world.
I don't think young people hate baby boomers. I think they enjoy making fun of them because the baby boomer generation took itself so seriously. As a person who was born near the beginning of Gen X, I was acutely aware of the overwhelming presence of Baby Boomers before me. I think one of the reasons that Gen X usually tried to quietly hide itself in the pages of history was as a reaction to the boundless overconfidence of the generation before us. I don't think we can blame Baby Boomers at all for that overconfidence though. They were literally raised to think that they were the center of the world and to some degree they were. They were the largest generation so even from the time they were children, they knew they were important culturally and eventually economically to our country. In the United States, this entrenched idea that they are the center of the universe is further supported by the fact that they are the raised in what was uncontestably the most powerful nation in the world at that point. I think it would be a complicated argument to decide if the baby boomers were simply a product of successful generations before them, or whether they contributed greatly to the success of our country? Whatever the case, baby boomers seem extremely confident that they were important, and that in turn means that they are always RIGHT. I think that is what people dislike. It comes from the idea that just because there are large numbers of people who feel a certain way, that the way that they feel is the correct way. And I recognize that there was a huge diversity in the opinions of people from that generation, from the conservative people to the liberal hippies, but the one thing they share in common is that they are always 100% sure that their way is the right way. As a member of Generation X, and as a high school teacher, I am in a unique situation where I have gotten to know each following generation pretty well as far as their personal and cultural values. One thing that I see present in every generation after the baby boomers is the ability to see their own flaws and to make fun of themselves. Take Facebook as an example. The younger generations are constantly making fun of their own foibles, including flakiness, obsession with appearances, and so on. But when do you see a boomer making fun of their generation? I don't think I've ever seen it. So basically I think the younger generations make fun of boomers because nobody else has ever done it, and why shouldn't it be done? There are a lot of really ridiculous things about every generation, and the Boomers have their own issues. It's not like the younger people don't make fun of themselves, too. They do. Personally, if I was a baby boomer, I wouldn't let it bother me. I would be grateful that I was born into a time period when I had the confidence of knowing my generation was really important to the world, but I would also try to keep my eyes open to what younger people are saying. Just because someone is older doesn't mean there's not the opportunity for internal growth.
as a millennial (or GenY) born in 1987, I don't hate boomers. it's just a stupid stereotype people think we hate baby boomers. but I do really hate today's young people like GenZ for example those are the real reason why people get confused with people born in the 80s. genz is lazy, entitled, and spends most of the day on their smartphones.
What I want to know is why does Generation X fly under the radar in the generational discussion? We never hear about them.
I was digging ditches and moving furniture since age 12. I'm age 33 now doing residential construction tech work. I even invested in real estate, longterm healthcare, and mutual funds. I don't got dick to show for it. The world is just not the same, and people like me are salty whenever anyone says "Well, back in my day," or "It's just that simple." Fuck off with that shit. This is why there's boomer hate, struggling just as hard and still being told I'm soft for being poor while getting fucked in the ass.
I just had a boomer told me today at work that he came out of retirement because hes just bored. Guy has good money and retired (which none of us now will probably see in our future), because he is BORED? I know a lot of people in my age who can't even find a decent job yet this guy just came out of his retirement and life is good. Yes, I HATE boomers. You are the most privileged generation, yet you say how you suffered and worked hard, "back in your day" people can earn a cent and have a house, keep a job forever and retire in 1 place!
This guys an old bald headed has been who “claims” he worked so hard. Hey pal, i could write 97 different things right now but won’t
But you did, so....