Young People Hate Baby Boomers

[iarwain]

I've been hearing more recently about how the younger generations hate baby boomers. This is not a big surprise, most generations have problems with their parents, and rebel against them to some extent. But I am surprised at the intensity of this hate for some, I mean they HATE us (I'm a boomer myself). I've heard some say that they wish we would die already, and that we are "clogging up the hospitals and nursing homes".

The Baby Boomers were a large generation, leaving behind a smaller generation. So things thrived for us economically, but they feel we have used up all the resources and left nothing for the next generation. Boomers were responsible for ramping up the Counterculture, so a LOT of problems have come from that, although that doesn't seem to be what the kids are complaining about.

I can't protest that Boomers are innocent in all this, as we are sinful humans of course. But the Millennials will have their chance at controlling the money and the government. Have you been aware of this hate for elders? Are we deserving of it?

Millennials' extreme hatred for Baby Boomers is totally unjustified

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...ny-gen-xers-and-millennials-hate-baby-boomers

 

[mama2one]

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[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Okay Boomer.

 

[mama2one]

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[Maria Billingsley]

I've been hearing more recently about how the younger generations hate baby boomers. This is not a big surprise, most generations have problems with their parents, and rebel against them to some extent. But I am surprised at the intensity of this hate for some, I mean they HATE us (I'm a boomer myself). I've heard some say that they wish we would die already, and that we are "clogging up the hospitals and nursing homes".

The Baby Boomers were a large generation, leaving behind a smaller generation. So things thrived for us economically, but they feel we have used up all the resources and left nothing for the next generation. Boomers were responsible for ramping up the Counterculture, so a LOT of problems have come from that, although that doesn't seem to be what the kids are complaining about.

I can't protest that Boomers are innocent in all this, as we are sinful humans of course. But the Millennials will have their chance at controlling the money and the government. Have you been aware of this hate for elders? Are we deserving of it?

Millennials' extreme hatred for Baby Boomers is totally unjustified

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...ny-gen-xers-and-millennials-hate-baby-boomers

Honestly I think it is a plot to get back at a generation lucky enough to be born during the economic boom. Jealousy will get them nowhere. Next..yawn..
....Ok my rant is over.
I am lucky enough to have children who respect me.

 

[Rescued One]

We can oppose someone else's mistaken viewpoint without hating the people deceived by what they say, correct?

"Some say the world will end in fire, some in ice..."

 

[public hermit]

Have you been aware of this hate for elders?

I just read the Cuozzo article. He basically argues that younger generations hate boomers because millennials are horrible at everything. Lol.

For years now, millennials have been hammered by older generations. It's no wonder they really don't like the oldest of the bunch. But I don't think any of this is new. It's as old as sin, I'm sure.

 

[angelsaroundme]

Hate and discord are the devil's song
He plays his melody all day long

 

[RDKirk]

The United States ended WWII with absolute global economic and industrial supremacy. American Boomers were born at a particularly golden period which was unprecedented for any nation in history...and will probably never be repeated.

But...we did practically nothing with it expect spend it. Practically all of the greatest technical and social advances of our time were actually done by the War Generation. In a number of ways, we've gone backward compared to our elders.

So while much of the ire of Millennials is just age-old intergenerational squabbling, I'd agree that the American Boomer generation didn't do our due diligence in making our world better. Ironically, the Millennials were a very obedient generation, compared to us. They did exactly what we told them was necessary to succeed, to get the cheese at the end of the rat race. But then someone took away the cheese...how did we let that happen? Worse, a lot of Boomers still don't recognize that it happened.

We were so cool in the 60s. Something happened to us in the late 70s into the 80s. It seems like the Challenger explosion was the harbinger of the end of our hopes and intentions.

 

[public hermit]

It seems like the Challenger explosion was the harbinger of the end of our hopes and intentions.

That's an interesting choice for the harbinger. Why that particular event?

 

[RDKirk]

That's an interesting choice for the harbinger. Why that particular event?

I guess that was kind of a personal feeling. The shuttle program, started by the War Generation, had essentially just changed hands into the Boomer Generation. Space tech was the American ballgame, and that was a huge emotional shock. We seemed never to have gotten past it.

 

[iarwain]

Ironically, the Millennials were a very obedient generation, compared to us. They did exactly what we told them was necessary to succeed, to get the cheese at the end of the rat race. But then someone took away the cheese...how did we let that happen?

Since the Millennials were a smaller generation following a larger generation, maybe it was inevitable that their standard of living would drop. As you say, we were born at a particularly lucky time.

 

[RDKirk]

Since the Millennials were a smaller generation following a larger generation, maybe it was inevitable that their standard of living would drop. As you say, we were born at a particularly lucky time.

They aren't a smaller generation. The Millennial generation is about the same size as the Boomer generation was at their age. It's the X Generation that is somewhat smaller, and the Z Generation will also be somewhat smaller...but even that difference isn't great.

 

[public hermit]

I guess that was kind of a personal feeling. The shuttle program, started by the War Generation, had essentially just changed hands into the Boomer Generation. Space tech was the American ballgame, and that was a huge emotional shock. We seemed never to have gotten past it.

I see, it was like the symbol that the Boomer Generation dropped the ball. I can understand that.

There is a catch 22 in all this, I think, in that older generations have wanted it to be better for their children, but better meant easier, less struggle. That makes sense, but those who have worked hard naturally look down on those who did not do near as much. We used to do it on the job site. The last thing you wanted to be was a slacker. Everybody took pride in working hard. So, it's like a set up. "Here, things are easier for you. Now, why aren't you doing anything." Lol. That's a bit of a caricature, but I think there is something to it.

 

[apogee]

I'm a Gen X'er but essentially I'd say Millennials don't tend to consider Baby Boomers as being the source of all their woes (apart from by their voting habits, or when they're trying to buy a house), if anything it appears to be the other way round. As an outsider I'd say that there appears to be an extremely aggressive anti-millennial narrative that seems to have infiltrated the thinking of increasing numbers of Baby Boomers, Millennials are caricatured as tide-popping entitled imbeciles, which is frankly as obscene, as it is ridiculous.

I think any real conflict is due to the fact that Millennials are primarily focused on the problems of the present moment and the next 40 years - because they are looking to build a life and have kids, whereas
Boomers are grieving the world of their youth, which was substantively better than the world that they now.

They both agree that things are deteriorating and fast, they seem to disagree on the how and the why.

I'm old enough to remember a time when the most pressing environmental issues, were the hole in the ozone layer, and the imminent threat of acid-rain. Which I don't think anyone really cares much about these days.

Boomers don't seem to care so much about the next 40 years, which i would imagine is frustrating to most Millennials. I'm not sure how true it is, but if they don't really seems to care about the next 40 years, it might be because they know from experience, that the last 40 years turned out to be wildly different from their expectations of it.

 

[dzheremi]

I think this is overblown. I'm an older millennial, basically at the border of it and gen X, so perhaps my view is a bit atypical (since most of the generation is younger than me), but from all I've heard from friends of my age (~36-40), what they're tired of is not Boomers existing so much as continuing to behave in an entitled and/or irresponsible way while simultaneously chiding us for not doing things that they don't seem to understand are not really possible to do anymore, or at least not possible to do with the same expectations of reward as our Boomer detractors had when they were our age (or around our age).

I'm thinking here of memes like this:

 

[Ceallaigh]

For every demographic, there's another demographic that hates them.

 

[apogee]

For every demographic, there's another demographic that hates them.

It's really easy to hate a demographic, because it isn't real.

 

[mama2one]

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[Ignatius the Kiwi]

maybe it's the lack of education & therefore employment opportunities:

https://www.alternet.org/2014/10/su...ve-college-degree-thats-going-cost-everybody/

"two-thirds of Millennials between ages 25 and 32 don’t have a bachelor's degree"

Did a majority of Boomers have college degrees?