Why so much Boomer hate among the young these days?
January 10, 2023
Most bloggers my age have received random blog comments from strangers that express hatred and resentment toward the Baby Boomer generation. Usually the complaint (ok, the whine) is that we took everything and left nothing for them.
What?
How ridiculous.
My response to Boomer hate goes something like this:
I laugh to myself at how stupid it makes the commenter appear.
I’m curious about the warped lens through which they view history. Their ignorance of historical fact.
I wonder how this commenter became so whiny and entitled.
And then, I usually delete the message from the moderation panel.
But not always.
Sometimes I allow Boomer hate to go up, and then I comment on the comment.
So. In my wildest dreams I wouldn’t think of insulting my parents’ generation, The Greatest Generation. It would never occur to me. I see the many contributions they made to society and to America. And yet, many of these younger people target that generation, too, for the sins of that era.
And I certainly have nothing critical to say about my illiterate grandparents, who left Sicily for a better life.
What is wrong with these young people?
If they spent their time making a better life for themselves instead of complaining, they might not feel quite so resentful. Or, do they want everything handed to them? Is that the source of Boomer hate?
Of course, those of us who know anything understand that Boomers have worked hard their entire lives. Just as the Greatest Generation did. They really did want a better world and they worked toward one, too. It wasn’t just lip service. They engaged. Who do they think pushed forward the best ideas of the 20th century? Boomers did that.
In fact, we thought we’d made permanent societal changes in the areas of civil rights, women’s rights and peace.
We were wrong. And we are heartbroken about it. But it wasn’t for lack of engagement in those issues.
We didn’t realize how deeply embedded evil is in our political system and government. That the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned against really WAS out to destroy a reasonable way of life. Yes, Ike was a Republican, back when it actually meant something. When it was an ideology and not a party of crackpots.
These young people resent that we are now drawing retirement … from a system we contributed to for decades! As if we have no right to it. It’s crazy thinking.
What they don’t thank about is that one day it will be their turn. They can’t look that far ahead.
So, if you are a millenial or other young person who wants to comment here, feel free. I moderate comments and if it’s uncivilized I will delete it instantly. But if you want to add to the discussion? You are very welcome.
It just makes me so sad. I think the problem is that they have never wanted for anything. They haven’t had to work. And when you’re not scrambling to find your next meal, you can complain about how it gets to you. Sadly too late for us, they will realize just what they’ve been given!
I hope (in a way) that you do get civil comments from millennials because I would love to see their opinions on these questions. I think some of this behavior comes from the ability they’ve had all their conscious lives to be as snarky as they wanted to be under the cloak of Internet invisibility. They can bully with impunity and without consequences. But – I think this way, too: they may feel Social Security won’t be there for them. They know their college educated parents (if they had college educated parents) probably got that education without going into debt for life. They have to deal with home and rent prices that are out of sight. They resent this. We can all agree this does NOT justify bad behavior. But there is an increasing undercurrent of anger in our society that frightens me.
My great grandfather died in 1941 leaving my great grandmother with two young children. He had only paid into SS for a few years and wages were so low, I always guesstimated he probably paid in less than $100. My great grandmother who never worked a paid job, raised her kids by doing ironing, laundry and cleaning. She collected SS (something like $25/mo) until she died in 1983. My grandparents, likewise, paid in a pittance compared to the monthly checks they received, until 2004. Was the system broken from the beginning? I say yes. I remember paying huge chunks of my pay, from age 16 btw, while listening to my grandfather complain they should be getting more money. As a youngin’, it made me angry, so to a certain point, I understand some of the anger. Did previous generations work hard? Absolutely! Did Boomers work hard? Absolutely! I think the breakdown is often in how Boomers have been portrayed in the media as the “chosen” generation who were worshipped and could do no wrong. And Boomers were so busy trying to be cool and stay young, we never demanded the respect from younger generations that we deserve.
Unlike European countries where there are often programs to help people who are struggling or need help, the U.S. provides minimal help. Just think about how long-term care is paid for in this country. The U.S. has a “pull yourself up by bootstraps” philosophy, which is difficult for some people to achieve. Think college tuition. Then, add to that how corporations decided in the 1980s that shareholder profits were their most important goal so retail workers, such as those working at Starbucks, were required to work 30-35 hours a week with no benefits. Also sending manufacturing overseas because labor is cheaper there. These policies make it difficult for younger generations to get ahead. Of course, boomers shouldn’t be blamed. While some boomers participated in these decisions, the blame should be placed, in my opinion, on corporate and government institutions. We can, and should, do better.
Interesting take. The problem is that someone has to pay. Businesses or taxpayers. Free college tuition sounds great but in reality it is a pathway to even more debt. However, the cost of education today is ridiculous, just like the cost of hospital and medical care and even a cup of Starbucks. We are used to paying a certain amount for laptops and phones based on the cost of overseas labor. Because we have labor protection, manufacturing here would mean raising the price on these even more. I have no answers, but I see the dilemma.
As the mom of two millennials, many I’ve met are impressive. There are always a few who spoil the pot. But given the bad behavior of certain leaders and their followers on social media it’s no wonder trolls feel emboldened to spout off irrationally.
As a millennial, I can maybe give some insight here.
When the boomers were young, a college education was affordable by working summers. I know this, because both of my parents did just that.
This is not and has never been an option for my generation. For us, you either have parents wealthy enough to drop the 10s of thousands of dollars a bachelors costs, or you go into debt for it. Debt that is not ever ever going away either, since our lovely boomer politicians made sure we would be on the hook for every red cent.
When Boomers were young, housing was plentiful and affordable. You could use your cheap educations to get nice stable jobs with retirements and pensions, buy a little starter home, and get things going.
My generation is waiting on waitlists for the chance to spend half to two thirds of their monthly incomes to rent from boomer slumlords.
Your generation will be the last to enjoy social security. It’s been insolvent since the 70s, but the boomer generation just decided to keep kicking that can until we arrive at today. The program is now being swelled to levels it has never seen before or is prepared to accommodate by a legion of boomers who will kick around to enjoy 30 more years of sucking every penny out of entitlements before they belly up.
And lastly, the boomer generation has never found a war they didn’t want to fight. They same people that marched against Vietnam were happy to send kids my age to die in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years, only to come home and find that the same boomers who sent them to lose a war and ruined the economy several times over are still just happy as clams, telling us that our expensive toast is the reason we will be poor forever, and not the systematic looting of the US by human history’s most entitled generation.
That is a very facile interpretation of history that is not entirely accurate. Like, defined pension plans did not exist for Boomers. That was the generation before. Also those who wanted a better life did not settle for a factory job with a nice pension. I don’t know ANYONE in my generation who did that, although I do know some in my graduating class did. But most had greater ambitions and worked to make them happen.
I won’t take it point by point, which I could. But I will only say this: Those who want a different or better world need to do what many Boomers did and that is work to make it a reality. We can argue how well we succeeded, that’s totally a mixed bag, but no one spent any time whining about the situation. They tried to change it in positive ways. You can look at it any way you like, but that doesn’t mean it’s factual. NO generation had it easy and for different reasons. Some just worked to get what they wanted. You won’t find a sympathetic ear, here, and my life did not go anywhere near how you describe. I made it far better than that. But that’s key: I made it. I didn’t expect it to be handed to me by my parents’ generation.
Boomer here. College back in the day was less expensive than now, but wages were far lower too. So I put myself through college by working a full-time day job, going to college at night and cleaning offices (including toilets and urinals) on the weekends. I graduated with honors though sometimes I studied at stop lights. As for plentiful housing — I afforded my apartment by sharing it with a roommate who reminded me of Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attraction. Heaven help any guy who broke up with her! I sometimes wondered if I should hide the kitchen knives at night, but felt that being a female, I was probably safe. I worked mind-numbing civil service jobs then branched out to private industry only to be met with the high-tech downturn when outsourcing jobs overseas ripped my retirement out from under my feet. My retirement has been funded from loved ones dying and my inheriting. While I’m grateful, I’m also sad. Life has been hard, but I never dreamed of blaming the generations before me. Life simply is hard. Either you are up for the challenges or you are not. Clearly you are not.
I think the resentment towards baby boomers comes from resentment of the short-sighted policies that do not focus on infrastructure that will benefit future generations but entitlements that will benefit the current generation that the younger generation will be paying into– knowing they will not receive the same benefits. Social security being underfunded has been known for years, yet the House and Senate with average ages being 57 and 65– do not see these as pressing or relevant problems and will cater to the weight of who got them elected.
Similarly, from Bill Keller in 2012: “In 1962, we were laying down the foundations of prosperity. About 32 cents of every federal dollar, excluding interest payments, was spent on investments, only 14 percent on entitlements. In the mid-70s the lines crossed. Today we spend less than 15 cents on investment and 46 cents on entitlements. And it gets worse. By 2030, when the last of us boomers have surged onto the Social Security rolls, entitlements will consume 61 cents of every federal dollar, starving our already neglected investment and leaving us, in the words of the study, with “a less-skilled work force, lower rates of job creation, and an infrastructure unfit for a 21st-century economy.””
In regards to housing, millennials face 31 % higher home price to income ratio than boomers did in their 30’s. In regards to wealth concentration when boomers were in their 30’s they held more than 20% of national wealth while similarly aged millennials only have about 3.5 % of national wealth.
Baby boomers are not to blame, but the policies put in place during their time period and government’s reckless use of debt to fund the present at the cost of the future has created resentment among future generations as millennials will be the first generation to experience lower living standards than that of their parents– which is a first in American history. Pulling yourself up from your bootstraps is important, but macroeconomic factors have a huge impact on how far that gets you.
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Most bloggers my age have received random blog comments from strangers that express hatred and resentment toward the Baby Boomer generation. Usually the complaint (ok, the whine) is that we took everything and left nothing for them.
I’ve had a few of those rants come out of the blue. Very strange. I want to urge them to spend their energy on love, not hate.
yes.I don’t know how they find us.
It just makes me so sad. I think the problem is that they have never wanted for anything. They haven’t had to work. And when you’re not scrambling to find your next meal, you can complain about how it gets to you. Sadly too late for us, they will realize just what they’ve been given!
I really worry for the future.
I hope (in a way) that you do get civil comments from millennials because I would love to see their opinions on these questions. I think some of this behavior comes from the ability they’ve had all their conscious lives to be as snarky as they wanted to be under the cloak of Internet invisibility. They can bully with impunity and without consequences. But – I think this way, too: they may feel Social Security won’t be there for them. They know their college educated parents (if they had college educated parents) probably got that education without going into debt for life. They have to deal with home and rent prices that are out of sight. They resent this. We can all agree this does NOT justify bad behavior. But there is an increasing undercurrent of anger in our society that frightens me.
Yes, I also see that undercurrent, alana.
I fear for our future. Very angry and entitled. And now I sound like MY parents. LOL.
Boy do I hear you !
My great grandfather died in 1941 leaving my great grandmother with two young children. He had only paid into SS for a few years and wages were so low, I always guesstimated he probably paid in less than $100. My great grandmother who never worked a paid job, raised her kids by doing ironing, laundry and cleaning. She collected SS (something like $25/mo) until she died in 1983. My grandparents, likewise, paid in a pittance compared to the monthly checks they received, until 2004. Was the system broken from the beginning? I say yes. I remember paying huge chunks of my pay, from age 16 btw, while listening to my grandfather complain they should be getting more money. As a youngin’, it made me angry, so to a certain point, I understand some of the anger. Did previous generations work hard? Absolutely! Did Boomers work hard? Absolutely! I think the breakdown is often in how Boomers have been portrayed in the media as the “chosen” generation who were worshipped and could do no wrong. And Boomers were so busy trying to be cool and stay young, we never demanded the respect from younger generations that we deserve.
Thanks for this point of view. I need to spend some time with it as there’s a lot there!
Unlike European countries where there are often programs to help people who are struggling or need help, the U.S. provides minimal help. Just think about how long-term care is paid for in this country. The U.S. has a “pull yourself up by bootstraps” philosophy, which is difficult for some people to achieve. Think college tuition. Then, add to that how corporations decided in the 1980s that shareholder profits were their most important goal so retail workers, such as those working at Starbucks, were required to work 30-35 hours a week with no benefits. Also sending manufacturing overseas because labor is cheaper there. These policies make it difficult for younger generations to get ahead. Of course, boomers shouldn’t be blamed. While some boomers participated in these decisions, the blame should be placed, in my opinion, on corporate and government institutions. We can, and should, do better.
Interesting take. The problem is that someone has to pay. Businesses or taxpayers. Free college tuition sounds great but in reality it is a pathway to even more debt. However, the cost of education today is ridiculous, just like the cost of hospital and medical care and even a cup of Starbucks. We are used to paying a certain amount for laptops and phones based on the cost of overseas labor. Because we have labor protection, manufacturing here would mean raising the price on these even more. I have no answers, but I see the dilemma.
As the mom of two millennials, many I’ve met are impressive. There are always a few who spoil the pot. But given the bad behavior of certain leaders and their followers on social media it’s no wonder trolls feel emboldened to spout off irrationally.
Yes, I know some awesome millenials, too. But some of the others… I guess it’s just life. Some people are irrational.
I’ve seen those comments in my queue, and I spam them because it appears as if it’s a bot, using the same words over and over again.
Yeah, I think you’re right, Jen.
I had no idea about those comments on blogs, but I’ve seen plenty of insults on social media though!
Insults seem the way of the world, these days.
As a millennial, I can maybe give some insight here.
When the boomers were young, a college education was affordable by working summers. I know this, because both of my parents did just that.
This is not and has never been an option for my generation. For us, you either have parents wealthy enough to drop the 10s of thousands of dollars a bachelors costs, or you go into debt for it. Debt that is not ever ever going away either, since our lovely boomer politicians made sure we would be on the hook for every red cent.
When Boomers were young, housing was plentiful and affordable. You could use your cheap educations to get nice stable jobs with retirements and pensions, buy a little starter home, and get things going.
My generation is waiting on waitlists for the chance to spend half to two thirds of their monthly incomes to rent from boomer slumlords.
Your generation will be the last to enjoy social security. It’s been insolvent since the 70s, but the boomer generation just decided to keep kicking that can until we arrive at today. The program is now being swelled to levels it has never seen before or is prepared to accommodate by a legion of boomers who will kick around to enjoy 30 more years of sucking every penny out of entitlements before they belly up.
And lastly, the boomer generation has never found a war they didn’t want to fight. They same people that marched against Vietnam were happy to send kids my age to die in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years, only to come home and find that the same boomers who sent them to lose a war and ruined the economy several times over are still just happy as clams, telling us that our expensive toast is the reason we will be poor forever, and not the systematic looting of the US by human history’s most entitled generation.
That is a very facile interpretation of history that is not entirely accurate. Like, defined pension plans did not exist for Boomers. That was the generation before. Also those who wanted a better life did not settle for a factory job with a nice pension. I don’t know ANYONE in my generation who did that, although I do know some in my graduating class did. But most had greater ambitions and worked to make them happen.
I won’t take it point by point, which I could. But I will only say this: Those who want a different or better world need to do what many Boomers did and that is work to make it a reality. We can argue how well we succeeded, that’s totally a mixed bag, but no one spent any time whining about the situation. They tried to change it in positive ways. You can look at it any way you like, but that doesn’t mean it’s factual. NO generation had it easy and for different reasons. Some just worked to get what they wanted. You won’t find a sympathetic ear, here, and my life did not go anywhere near how you describe. I made it far better than that. But that’s key: I made it. I didn’t expect it to be handed to me by my parents’ generation.
Boomer here. College back in the day was less expensive than now, but wages were far lower too. So I put myself through college by working a full-time day job, going to college at night and cleaning offices (including toilets and urinals) on the weekends. I graduated with honors though sometimes I studied at stop lights. As for plentiful housing — I afforded my apartment by sharing it with a roommate who reminded me of Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attraction. Heaven help any guy who broke up with her! I sometimes wondered if I should hide the kitchen knives at night, but felt that being a female, I was probably safe. I worked mind-numbing civil service jobs then branched out to private industry only to be met with the high-tech downturn when outsourcing jobs overseas ripped my retirement out from under my feet. My retirement has been funded from loved ones dying and my inheriting. While I’m grateful, I’m also sad. Life has been hard, but I never dreamed of blaming the generations before me. Life simply is hard. Either you are up for the challenges or you are not. Clearly you are not.
Thank you for presenting the actual reality of our generation.
I think the resentment towards baby boomers comes from resentment of the short-sighted policies that do not focus on infrastructure that will benefit future generations but entitlements that will benefit the current generation that the younger generation will be paying into– knowing they will not receive the same benefits. Social security being underfunded has been known for years, yet the House and Senate with average ages being 57 and 65– do not see these as pressing or relevant problems and will cater to the weight of who got them elected.
Similarly, from Bill Keller in 2012: “In 1962, we were laying down the foundations of prosperity. About 32 cents of every federal dollar, excluding interest payments, was spent on investments, only 14 percent on entitlements. In the mid-70s the lines crossed. Today we spend less than 15 cents on investment and 46 cents on entitlements. And it gets worse. By 2030, when the last of us boomers have surged onto the Social Security rolls, entitlements will consume 61 cents of every federal dollar, starving our already neglected investment and leaving us, in the words of the study, with “a less-skilled work force, lower rates of job creation, and an infrastructure unfit for a 21st-century economy.””
In regards to housing, millennials face 31 % higher home price to income ratio than boomers did in their 30’s. In regards to wealth concentration when boomers were in their 30’s they held more than 20% of national wealth while similarly aged millennials only have about 3.5 % of national wealth.
Baby boomers are not to blame, but the policies put in place during their time period and government’s reckless use of debt to fund the present at the cost of the future has created resentment among future generations as millennials will be the first generation to experience lower living standards than that of their parents– which is a first in American history. Pulling yourself up from your bootstraps is important, but macroeconomic factors have a huge impact on how far that gets you.