generational gap ('millennials vs. baby boomers')

Musician4Jesus · Feb 24, 2019

The two small groups I go to at my church, most of them are in in their late 50's and/or early-to-mid 60's.

It's extremely difficult for baby boomers to relate to the struggles that millennials are dealing with. When they were our age (age range is early to mid 20's to mid 30's) they weren't dealing with the issues we are. Here's a list that compares and contrasts:

Them:

Cost of living was lower
Housing was affordable

It was actually feasible to have a family from a financial standpoint
Obesity was very low; healthy food that wasn't loaded with preservatives was affordable

They could get a decent paying job and a college education wasn't required to get said job. If they choose to go to college it was affordable.

Us (Millennials)

Cost of living is ridiculous.

Housing is exorbitant (and keeps getting more expensive). Many of us who are in our 30's are living with our parents because cost-of-living is so high we can't afford to live on our own. To make this more fun, half the time it's cheaper to buy a house than it is to rent an apartment (which to me is flat out ridiculous, to me it should be the other way around).

Many of us are putting off having kids or forgoing having them altogether. The reason is simple-we can't afford to have them. Many of us are struggling just to provide for OUR OWN needs; it's not fair to the kid when you can't afford to provide for said child. It also to me makes no sense to have more kids than you can afford to provide for; yes God provides, but he also wants us to be good stewards of the resources he's given us. Having more kids than you can afford to raise is NOT doing that.

The obesity epidemic is basically a pandemic, however it's worse in North America and Canada in comparison to other countries. We're told to eat healthy, but the cost of buying real food that isn't loaded with preservatives is ridiculous (where I live it's not uncommon to pay $5-$9 for a loaf of bread that doesn't have a laundry list of preservatives).

We have to go into debt to pay for the cost of college; and that education doesn't give us practical, hands-on experience training in the job. Add to that there are loads of people who have a degree who are still stuck taking part-time jobs and underpaid/underemployed (or both) because the economy right now sucks. Supposedly unemployment is at an all time low, but a lot of people who are employed are underemployed and underpaid (or both).

hedrick · Feb 24, 2019

I'm a baby boomer, though older than the ones you're talking about. I'm only too aware of the problems you mention. There are plenty of us.

eleos1954 · Feb 24, 2019

Musician4Jesus said:
The two small groups I go to at my church, most of them are in in their late 50's and/or early-to-mid 60's.

It's extremely difficult for baby boomers to relate to the struggles that millennials are dealing with. When they were our age (age range is early to mid 20's to mid 30's) they weren't dealing with the issues we are. Here's a list that compares and contrasts:

Them:

Cost of living was lower
Housing was affordable

It was actually feasible to have a family from a financial standpoint
Obesity was very low; healthy food that wasn't loaded with preservatives was affordable

They could get a decent paying job and a college education wasn't required to get said job. If they choose to go to college it was affordable.

Us (Millennials)

Cost of living is ridiculous.

Housing is exorbitant (and keeps getting more expensive). Many of us who are in our 30's are living with our parents because cost-of-living is so high we can't afford to live on our own. To make this more fun, half the time it's cheaper to buy a house than it is to rent an apartment (which to me is flat out ridiculous, to me it should be the other way around).

Many of us are putting off having kids or forgoing having them altogether. The reason is simple-we can't afford to have them. Many of us are struggling just to provide for OUR OWN needs; it's not fair to the kid when you can't afford to provide for said child. It also to me makes no sense to have more kids than you can afford to provide for; yes God provides, but he also wants us to be good stewards of the resources he's given us. Having more kids than you can afford to raise is NOT doing that.

The obesity epidemic is basically a pandemic, however it's worse in North America and Canada in comparison to other countries. We're told to eat healthy, but the cost of buying real food that isn't loaded with preservatives is ridiculous (where I live it's not uncommon to pay $5-$9 for a loaf of bread that doesn't have a laundry list of preservatives).

We have to go into debt to pay for the cost of college; and that education doesn't give us practical, hands-on experience training in the job. Add to that there are loads of people who have a degree who are still stuck taking part-time jobs and underpaid/underemployed (or both) because the economy right now sucks. Supposedly unemployment is at an all time low, but a lot of people who are employed are underemployed and underpaid (or both).

well ... cheer up .... when you get older then for many the income goes down and you're either too old and/or not in good health and can't get a job ... or do a job.

Life is getting more and more difficult for everybody ... it's the world and the way it is. We all muddle through financially best we can until the Lord comes back.

Try and focus on what you do have instead of what you don't have. Do the best you can.

Many a lot worse off than us Americans ... MANY.

Paidiske · Feb 24, 2019

I'm not a millennial - more on the cusp of Gen X/Gen Y - but I also find the generation gap difficult. For me it's more about differences in parenting, patterns of family life, that sort of thing; but the judgement can be difficult to deal with at times.

Is it the judgement that particularly bothers you, OP?

alsughasoughaiuyfygh · Feb 24, 2019

timothyu · Feb 24, 2019

It's never easy for any young person. Today it is even worse with a sense of self entitlement instilled in their thinking. The boomers had been brainwashed to believe in happily ever afters. We soon learned that was a lie. I'm not sure why jobs are a problem today as with all the boomers who once struggled to find jobs that were not there for an influx of individuals, are now leaving the workforce and leaving a quarter the amount of people to fill the positions. Perhaps starting at the bottom is no longer a concept. Is 2 weeks holiday a year for years and years still a thing? Perhaps the digital age has replaced the need for workers. Who embraced this technology making it a necessity?

Food and gas are less than what the rate of inflation says they should be, roughly 10x the cost to boomers in the 60's, instead now running about 4-5x. Housing and rent and vehicles are at about the 10x mark. Also the boomers were happy to start with an empty space and fill is as could be afforded. Not sure if the young today wish to start without all the gadgets and furniture. Food is still cheap and healthy if bought in a made from scratch mode rather than processed or take-out. Boomers didn't have the luxury of to the door delivery of a hamburger at double the price either, so I can see this being a problem for youth who think this is normal.

It's all a matter of perspective, but yes there will be those who gouge in their prices or convince us we need what we don't. It is never easy for the young to figure out the game. Perhaps a return to the draft would alleviate some of their concerns and take them back to the day when the boomers had it better..

alsughasoughaiuyfygh · Feb 24, 2019

bekkilyn · Feb 28, 2019

I'm Gen X, but I tend to see that older people have more of a sense of entitlement than Millennials along with very little understanding that times have changed and that what seemed to work for them when they were in their 20's and 30's don't work the same way nowadays. They've left the younger generations with a huge mess of their own doing and feeling no sense of responsibility for the destruction they have caused or any desire to clean it up. And then they call Millennials lazy.

So if Millennials don't want to (or can't) follow in those exact same footsteps, well then good on them, even if it causes the older generations to have a severe case of sour grapes.

joshua 1 9 · Mar 10, 2019

Musician4Jesus said:
half the time it's cheaper to buy a house than it is to rent an apartment (which to me is flat out ridiculous, to me it should be the other way around).

Not "ridiculous" at all. IF you buy a house you still have to pay for taxes, insurance, repairs and the list goes on and on. All of that is included in the cost of rent. The average cost of upkeep on a house is $1500 a year. Plus people who rent have been known to do a lot of damage that cost money to repair.

mama2one · Mar 10, 2019

where we live, there are older houses that would be affordable for single people or young families starting out

however, many young people don't want to buy "fixer ups"
instead a lot of these are being bought by flippers

if young people are willing to paint, fix up a house, they can get one for a decent price

we did, for our first house
bought an older home and we painted it ourselves inside and outside and made other improvements
couple yrs later, we sold it ourselves (to save commission)

Paidiske · Mar 10, 2019

I think that kind of reply kind of misses the point, though, Christine.

Husband and I also bought a small, older house that desperately needed work for our first house. Twelve years after we bought it, we sold it for twice what we had paid; yet lower income earners' wages hadn't doubled in that time...

Or take the apprentice I was talking to recently because he came to the vicarage door looking for emergency relief. For a room in a shared house with others, he was paying per week in rent what I used to pay for a month in a shared house with other students, not quite twenty years ago. But apprentices' wages haven't quadrupled in that twenty years.

The proportion of what people earn that they pay for housing has increased to the point where it's causing significant financial stress on people. (See the graph here for a pretty stark illustration: Here's a look at the widening gap between wages and house prices ). That's a real issue as it pushes more people into effective poverty.

mama2one · Mar 10, 2019

if people save all the money they make while living with their parents, don't buy unnecessary things like expensive cell phones & latest gadgets, don't eat out, etc , they can and will be able to move out from parent's house

work more than one job to save down pymt for house
find one that needs some work/costs less

timothyu · Mar 10, 2019

Paidiske said:
we sold it for twice what we had paid; yet lower income earners' wages hadn't doubled in that time...

Did you feel guilty?

Paidiske · Mar 10, 2019

timothyu said:
Did you feel guilty?

No. I was rather sad recently to find out that the person who bought it knocked the house down, though. If I could have predicted that, we wouldn't have put so much work into fixing it up!

Sketcher · Mar 13, 2019

timothyu said:
I'm not sure why jobs are a problem today as with all the boomers who once struggled to find jobs that were not there for an influx of individuals, are now leaving the workforce and leaving a quarter the amount of people to fill the positions.

Which positions are these, as opposed to the positions that the younger generations have trained for? And are they dying positions that are being outmoded by technology and outsourcing?

timothyu said:
Is 2 weeks holiday a year for years and years still a thing?

At my workplace, if you're starting out, roughly that. But you have to accrue that much time first, and it (until very recently) was accrued on a monthly basis and sick days weren't counted. It was all PTO (Paid Time Off) which could be used for sick time or vacation time. If you'd gotten sick after you had burned your PTO on a vacation, you'd have to submit for FLMA.

timothyu said:
Perhaps the digital age has replaced the need for workers. Who embraced this technology making it a necessity?

Boomers. They developed it, marketed it, profited off of it, and leveraged their businesses to take advantage of it. Same as people in earlier and previous generations.

timothyu said:
Also the boomers were happy to start with an empty space and fill is as could be afforded. Not sure if the young today wish to start without all the gadgets and furniture.

When I first moved out myself, I had no furniture other than my bed, dresser, and bookshelf. I've seen a lot of other young people starting without much furniture, and the furniture they do get, is usually acquired used, either for free or cheap. Sometimes when it's sitting out by the street or next to the dumpster. Many don't have land lines either, no point when they have a cell.

timothyu said:
Food is still cheap and healthy if bought in a made from scratch mode rather than processed or take-out.

In 2005, I could feed myself and keep non-edible necessities stocked for $25-30/week. Now, it's double that, and I have moved away from ramen, canned fruits and vegetables, and hot dogs.

christine40 said:
if people save all the money they make while living with their parents, don't buy unnecessary things like expensive cell phones & latest gadgets, don't eat out, etc , they can and will be able to move out from parent's house

True, but it takes time to get to the point where you can. Social Security will likely not be there for me, I needed to start saving for retirement and after both that and giving I would budget out how much I could spend on rent. Eventually I got there, but it wasn't fast. If I'd had as bad a student loan situation as many in my generation, perhaps I'd still be under their roof.

christine40 said:
find one that needs some work/costs less

Some choose to do that, but you have to put money into it as well.

MariaJLM · Mar 13, 2019

This post is pretty much spot on. The OP hit the nail

christine40 said:
if people save all the money they make while living with their parents, don't buy unnecessary things like expensive cell phones & latest gadgets, don't eat out, etc , they can and will be able to move out from parent's house

work more than one job to save down pymt for house
find one that needs some work/costs less

Well this is an awfully privileged thing to say. I live with my family and still cannot make ends meet. I don't even buy much beyond the necessities either. I also eat pretty much nothing but processed food since it's all I can afford.

timothyu · Mar 13, 2019

Sketcher said:
.

Thanks for the insight into today's world

mama2one · Mar 13, 2019

MariaJLM said:
Well this is an awfully privileged thing to say. I live with my family and still cannot make ends meet..

how is it a privileged thing to say?
worked my way through college- worked before classes, after classes, on weekends up to 3 jobs at a time

my first car was so rusted, that when a friend rode with me, her foot busted through the floor and caused a hole, lol
like sketcher, had no furniture when I moved into an attic appt, didn't buy any, and slept on the floor with a blanket
shower water had no heat so didn't take a shower that often

didn't want to live with my parents forever so that's why took that attic apt

MariaJLM · Mar 13, 2019

christine40 said:
how is it a privileged thing to say?
worked my way through college- worked before classes, after classes, on weekends up to 3 jobs at a time

my first car was so rusted, that when a friend rode with me, her foot busted through the floor and caused a hole, lol
like sketcher, had no furniture when I moved into an attic appt, didn't buy any, and slept on the floor with a blanket
shower water had no heat so didn't take a shower that often

didn't want to live with my parents forever so that's why took that attic apt, also at one point lived with a group of girls in an old house by the university

lost my job, got kicked out of attic apt, moved back with my parents so was living with them when met husband at another job & got married

did what I could to be independent before getting married
at one job, offered to clean bathrooms after cleaning woman quit (on top of my job) so could make more money for college .....that was NOT fun

My point is that working or whatever doesn't always mean a person can afford the things they need.

IAM815518 · Mar 16, 2019

Musician4Jesus said:
The two small groups I go to at my church, most of them are in in their late 50's and/or early-to-mid 60's.

It's extremely difficult for baby boomers to relate to the struggles that millennials are dealing with. When they were our age (age range is early to mid 20's to mid 30's) they weren't dealing with the issues we are. Here's a list that compares and contrasts:

Them:

Cost of living was lower
Housing was affordable

It was actually feasible to have a family from a financial standpoint
Obesity was very low; healthy food that wasn't loaded with preservatives was affordable

They could get a decent paying job and a college education wasn't required to get said job. If they choose to go to college it was affordable.

Us (Millennials)

Cost of living is ridiculous.

Housing is exorbitant (and keeps getting more expensive). Many of us who are in our 30's are living with our parents because cost-of-living is so high we can't afford to live on our own. To make this more fun, half the time it's cheaper to buy a house than it is to rent an apartment (which to me is flat out ridiculous, to me it should be the other way around).

Many of us are putting off having kids or forgoing having them altogether. The reason is simple-we can't afford to have them. Many of us are struggling just to provide for OUR OWN needs; it's not fair to the kid when you can't afford to provide for said child. It also to me makes no sense to have more kids than you can afford to provide for; yes God provides, but he also wants us to be good stewards of the resources he's given us. Having more kids than you can afford to raise is NOT doing that.

The obesity epidemic is basically a pandemic, however it's worse in North America and Canada in comparison to other countries. We're told to eat healthy, but the cost of buying real food that isn't loaded with preservatives is ridiculous (where I live it's not uncommon to pay $5-$9 for a loaf of bread that doesn't have a laundry list of preservatives).

We have to go into debt to pay for the cost of college; and that education doesn't give us practical, hands-on experience training in the job. Add to that there are loads of people who have a degree who are still stuck taking part-time jobs and underpaid/underemployed (or both) because the economy right now sucks. Supposedly unemployment is at an all time low, but a lot of people who are employed are underemployed and underpaid (or both).

I’m sorry you feel this way. I’m a millennial echo boomer. All my parents are baby boomers, and I’m often bullied by my dad. It’s like I’m the scape goat for my fellow millennials when I’m around him.

But if I were to judge all baby boomers by my biological dads ignorance, then I’d be in the same boat as him.

My mother, also a baby boomer is my best friend. I have many dear Christian friends that are baby boomers, and they’re the most understanding people I know. They learn from me, and I learn from them.

generational gap ('millennials vs. baby boomers')

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