Do Baby Boomers Realize How Much The Youth Hate Them?

From greedy policies that cut opportunities to the rise of FOX News, Millennials and Gen Z are fed up with the aftermath of Boomers.

When I was young, dinners were a major portion of family time. It was my dad’s time to lecture the family on how the world worked, according to him. I didn’t always agree, but I did always listen.

There were many topics he would cover. Sometimes, it was why conservatives were right about the rise of too many regulations. Other times, it was why it’s a bad idea to push kids who hate school to attend college.

And then, there was the talk about the Baby Boomers.

You see, my dad was part of the later half of the Baby Boomer generation — and boy did he fucking hate that first half. Calling them collectively “the Locust Generation,” he’d rant about how they took all the resources from him and my generation and then pulled up the ladder after them.

This was a staple talk in my youth. When I was young, I didn’t pay much mind to it. These days, I hear it echoed everywhere when I go online.

Author’s Note: For fuck’s sake, I didn’t say all Boomers are like this. Feel free to unsubscribe if you are so butthurt about a generational divide I brought up. Don’t shoot the messenger.

The longer I’m alive, the more I keep thinking about my dad’s grievances and how Millennials often echo them.

Millennials have a lot of reason to hate the Boomer generation as a whole, though we all know that not all Boomers are the to blame. Part of it is envy. Millennials never had the easy time Boomers did as youth and never will. Part of it is us, as a collective, wondering how they could rob the youth.

You see, we’re not dumb. We know that there were several policy shifts that made Boomers wealthy while leaving us to suffer:

• Boomers in power tripled the price of housing and also slashed budgets for mental health, education, and public health. Why? Because it helped industry out and they thought it wasn’t necessary. Their kids now can’t afford college or psych help.
• In the past, the older generation would promote the younger, and that stopped with most Boomers. There are people sitting in middle management for decades.
• Boomer policies are what ended pensions and many of the workers’ rights that the generation prior fought for. As a voting block, the majority of Boomers continue to vote against workers’ rights and the benefit of their own children.
• It was a Congress filled with Baby Boomers that passed Citizens United. This legalized bribery in America, pretty much.
• The generation also habitually cut taxes to them, all while burdening their kids with the bill. Vox did a whole article on how the Boomer generation bankrupted America.
• Let’s not forget that many Boomers also espouse racist, anti-gay, anti-trans rhetoric and also support FOX News. For people like me, this is pretty unforgivable.

As a Millennial, it’s pretty hard to ignore how much the chips are stacked against us. We look at all the opportunities Boomers had (college that could be funded with a part-time job, a $10,000 home) and feel hurt that we’ll never see that in our lifetimes.

Perhaps the most infuriating part of all this is that so many Boomers call Millennials and Gen Z “entitled.”

Growing up, we were all told to “work hard and you’ll do well.” That often came with the corollary, “Go to college, get an education, and you’ll get a great job, a home, and a spouse. It’ll be great.”

As a generation, we all tried to do that. Guess what happened? We’re the first generation to be unable to afford to live on our own. We cannot afford rent in major cities. Many of us can’t even afford to have kids Boomers keep clamoring for.

The Boomer reaction to this has been nothing short of gutting. So many of us end up hearing trite, insulting, and condescending remarks like:

• “Millennials are so lazy. Why aren’t you willing to work your way up the ladder?” Because we can’t afford to eat, you fuckwads. If we can’t afford basic needs, work is not going to be on our mind. Moreover, the system you left us with does not reward hard work the way it used to, remember?
• “Eat less avocado toast.” I assure you, a slice of avocado slathered on bread is not what is keeping us broke. Rising costs of rent, gas, childcare, and education are.
• “You’re so entitled.” Entitled to what? Basic needs? Yeah, you grew up with that and were able to start from zero. Most of us started from -$40,000. We are not the same.
• “Millennials are such sensitive snowflakes.” Wait, aren’t YOU the generation of parents that demanded that we all get trophies? Kids didn’t ask for that. You did. Also, pardon us for not tolerating disrespect.

Talk about adding insult to injury, right? It’s little shock that Millennials often end up waving their parents away with an, “Okay, Boomer.”

The generational friction between Boomers and Millennials has become palpable at times.

The resentment that Millennials often (but not always) feel towards their parents is hard to explain. We all love our parents and know it’s not all Boomers. However, we can’t help but feel robbed by our older generation.

The funny thing is that many Millennials grow up noticing a looming problem with the economy or policies. When we’d ask teachers what will happen when chickens come home to roost, teachers would click their tongues, shrug, and say, “That’s for you to fix.”

As a generation, Millennials find themselves asking their parents, “How can you do this to your kids? Worse, how can you continue to support the pillaging of your children knowing what it’s doing to this country? Look at what a mess you’re leaving us!”

They don’t hate the individuals of the Baby Boomer generation, but it’s undeniable that there is serious friction there. I personally know a lot of Millennials who don’t want to work with Boomers because of how poorly Boomers treated them in the past.

The legacy of Baby Boomers is going to be one that will be reviled in the future.

Boomers will be known as the generation that was born with everything, wanted more, and then robbed the cradle to feed the grave. Much like the carpet baggers of the post-Civil War Era, they’ll be seen as money-hungry opportunists.

It’s mindblowing to see the generation that heralded in civil rights turn into the straight-laced conservatives ready to horde wealth like dragons and use slurs. But, here we are. As a Millennial, it breaks my heart to know my dad was right about his generation.