Hello, it’s me again! I wanted to reach out and discuss something that I have seen quite a bit of lately – boomer bashing. This is where the younger folks (obviously younger than retirees) are having quite a bit of fun with making fun of us “boomers” as they love to call us. Yes, I’m firmly in the middle of the baby boom generation, and proud of it. Did we have it easier than the generation growing up today? It’s possible, yes. We did have some things better than the generation X kids of today, as they are dealing with an economy that pretty much sucks. My question is, what did I do to cause the current sucky economy?

When I grew up mostly in the 1960’s, the Vietnam War was still going strong though and we were pretty scared and confused by all of that. Adults tried not to discuss it around us, but we knew something wasn’t good about that war since we knew relatives that were over there fighting, and in some cases family that even lost their lives in the jungles of Southeast Asia. For what reason? That’s the confusing part, nobody could explain to me why that was happening! After all, the “commies” were halfway around the world, there was little chance they were going to make it to the good ol’ United States any time soon. Yes, in some ways we had it pretty good, being from a generation that had a booming economy right after WWII which was probably the best time ever to be living in the good ol’ USA.

Things are quite different today, for sure. I have two children myself, one is in the Millenial generation and the other is a Gen-Z baby. They have totally different personalities, and it’s hard to tell whether their life choices were determined by an economy that was bad, or just simple fate. My son joined the Marines right out of high school, most likely because he didn’t want to go to college and simply saw it as a way to get some skills as well as see the world. That worked out pretty well for him I believe, even though he went to Iraq which was at the tail end of the war over there. He came home with some life experience, for sure. My daughter is now in college, after going through some jobs that she found out wern’t quite right for her such as trying the CNA route and also training for being an esthetitian. The most telling sign that my daughter is caught in the current economic quagmire is that she lives at home with my wife and I, unable to afford the incredibly high rent that exists in this country right now. That’s especially true in South Florida, by the way!

So back to my point about the boomer bashing – is it more about the economy, or about something that us boomers do or have that pisses the younger generation off? Perhaps I should ask my kids…on second thought, I can get much more info from the internet here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BoomersBeingFools/

I have been reading these posts for a while now, and sometimes I actually agree with the complaints about us boomers. Other times though, and even generally, it sounds like they are complaining about a very specific subset of boomers which I personally don’t belong to. Many complaints are about how boomers are so entitled, judgemental, and hateful towards others in general. That doesn’t describe myself or my family in any way, since I have two sisters who are also both boomers. We don’t feel entitled, and in fact do everything we can to help out the younger generation where possible. Also, there is quite a bit of politics around the hate as well, which I won’t address here for a second since it’s not something I care to be a part of. Is there a segement of boomers that are prone to explaining in great detail how wrong the kids of today are? Probably so, but that was pretty common when I was a kid, too. That is just human nature I think. Giving advice to someone is supposed to come from a good place, not a way to say “you are all idiots” – which I would never say to anyone as a group at least. Individuals? Sure, there are idiots out there, but calling an entire group of people idiots isn’t ever accurate or helpful in my opinion.

Another theory is that when things are bad, people complain, right? Where better to complain than on the internet, since there are sooo many ways to do it, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and of course, Reddit. I must admit I’m on social media myself probably more than I ever have been before, but not nearly as much as my kids and their peers. I’m pretty sure I would be right there complaining along with the younger crowd today if I was in their shoes. Maybe it’s just a way to vent, which in most cases is pretty harmless. But since there’s not much I can do about the economy, or inflation for that matter, I guess I will just continue to observe and hope that this trend dies down at some point.

I’m open to suggestions as to what possible action would help – leave a comment if you have any! Thanks for listening to my rant.