BoomersBeingFools is for images, videos, and stories of baby boomers and elders behaving in an obnoxious, entitled, or otherwise foolish manner. Paired with r/BoomersBeingBros
Has anyone noticed that they have a simple, childish view of the world? For example, they get really upset when Millenials say we can't afford to buy houses. They will stomp their feet and angrily insist that if you work really hard, you are guaranteed wealth and success because that's how America works so these Millenials aren't working hard enough.
I'll tell you a story. One of my Boomer coworkers got robbed, and she admitted that she never locks her house "because you don't need to lock your house in a small town." She hasn't started locking her house since. She thinks it must someone from a big city who robbed her, because people in small towns don't do stuff like that.
One day she asked me, "Why are people gay? Don't they know they're not supposed to be doing that cuz God says not to? I know! They don't read the Bible or go to church, so they don't know they're not supposed to be gay. If they went to church, then they'd know and they wouldn't be gay."
She likes to ask me why "people ain't doing what they supposed to be doing and don't they know what they supposed to be doing?"
God, I feel I'm dealing with a toddler.
Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed.
Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Can confirm. My Boomer thinks everything is simple and straightforward. They're always offering their advice on how to handle a situation and it's always this "Firm Hand Shake" kind of thing that was pie-in-the-sky even 50 years ago.
Problem with the IRS? Just go down to the office (without an appointment) and work it out!
Health insurance refusing to pay for needed treatment? Just give 'em a call, talk to a supervisor. Bob's your uncle!
Same goes for political issues. Abortion? Don't get pregnant! Gun violence? Don't go out! Food prices? Grow a garden!
Every problem is easy to fix and it's my fault for not seeing such an obvious solution. I can't talk to them about any issues I have because it's always my fault for being in them.
lol, one of my bosses literally said firm hand shake is all you should need. Or course he's able to retire
Dude, my mom is a dental hygienist and she literally believes you can "get by" with just a smile.
Well that’s just good marketing
Infuriating. Bro, im LITERALLY out here starving. Lay off. My mom works remote and doesnt even have to pay rent because she for the past 3ish years lives in her multimillionaire, long term bf's EXTRA cabin. Yup. He has 2. And she makes like 3 figures a year. Fucking snobby. Hes even trying to buy up as many nearby properties around him as he can because he "doesnt like neighbors."
Out👏Of👏Touch👏
I on the otherhand havent had a haircut in about 3 years. My birthday was a week ago and i didnt get a present. My gift was losing her health insurance. Im so tired of this timeline, my life, and struggling. UGH. Just a smile? Fr? What a joke.
Oh god, my father is firmly Gen-X but dropped the garden comment yesterday during our get-together. My parents moved out of the suburbs and bought a small plot to do hobby farming about a decade ago.
Yes, people can grow a small tomato plant or something in their suburban yards… if their soil is good.
He actually stopped to think about that (credit due, he’s willing to take new information and admits he’s not the brightest guy/sees all the angles right away). Then started ranting about big construction companies and developers not considering soil quality in their suburban developments.
I just called that a win.
Not to boomer, but you can grow a tomato plant in a pot with a bag of garden soil.
The problem is that a handful of produce isn’t going to offset the cost of inflation in any meaningful way.
The trick is not to grow tomatoes, rather avocados.
Then you step it up and begin to grow your own coffee beans.
No more paying for avocado on toast or Starbucks!
Add a winning smile and firm handshake, and you’re on the path to multi-property ownership and early retirement.
It’s not exactly the same, but I bought an espresso machine and now instead of paying $8 for coffee every day, I spend $20 on a bag of beans every two weeks. As a true caffeine addict, It has actually given me a noticeable increase in in my savings haha
As a Gen Xer, I think we're waiting for
Our parents to just fucking die already
You to tell us firmly they weren't the gods they said they were, and that things are fucked because of the toxic ideology they chained us all too. But also that it's not too late. It's not the doom they're now insisting it is.
Like I said in another post, we're quite a bit more accepting and flexible in mindset. It's just that we wrestle with intense anxiety due to how we were expected to carry our parents' flag despite the systemic decay. They didn't tolerate us disagreeing with them or their perceived perfection. They hated us for failing to thrive inside their broken game because they thought it made them look bad.
I think deep down it makes us feel like we're committing treason just to say they were wrong about basically everything.
I mentioned to my mom that my friend invited me on a trip but I was disappointed I can't afford it. Her response was "oh, I think you can." Oh, okay, now that you've said I can, I must be able to. Thank you for that. All my financial problems are solved.
And….if you did go, you’d get the “younguns today spend their money on trips, lattes and avocado toast. No WONDER they can’t buy a home.
exactly. our world sucks because of their greed.
You put it on your credit card then pay for the statement out of your 401k. Think! /s
Well, back in her day, if you wanted to go on a trip, you could just hitchhike there and sleep on some stranger's couch! You didn't need any money! /s
You joke but that’s exactly how things were. I’ve heard plenty of stories from people about how an uncle of theirs drifted around the country, finding jobs he could work for a day or two for cash under the table so he could afford a motel room, etc.
Those stories also tend to include “oh, then he decided to settle down, found an office job just by cold-calling places or showing up with a resume, worked 25 years and now is a VP/executive at that same company, owns a couple of homes, etc.”
I know life wasn’t like that for everyone, but damn if life didn’t sound like it was a lot easier for someone of moderate intelligence and a good work ethic to get “everything they need” in life.
The thing that always sticks out to me is that 50-60 years ago, every city's downtown core had a couple of home-grown department stores and hotels. Each of them hired their own staff- janitors, maids, security guards, night watchmen, maintenance folks, etc. The wages they offered had to be at least a little competitive because that drifter of an uncle could walk from one to the next, seeing who offered the best hours and pay.
Today all of the department stores and nearly all of the hotels are nationwide chains, the support staff is inevitably pawned off to 'Security Solutions of America' or 'CleanerCorp, Inc.,' and the wages and conditions are rock-bottom because it's all under the same corporate ownership.
the department stores are mostly 3 companies: macy's, target, walmart. the hotels, while there are many brands of them, are almost all owned by 3 companies: IHG, hilton, and marriott.
Honestly, I was only half joking. I know people did that back then from seeing serial killer documentaries, of all things. I found myself asking, how could you afford to hike across Asia with only $5 in your pocket? How did you get food? How did you afford a plane ticket home? Did they have rich parents back home sending them money?
It's always lies. I'm 40 years old and have parents with the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality. They have gotten much better and are starting to atleast show signs of understanding the current world. But every time I've talked about "not being able to make it on 16$/hr as a single person" or explain the inability to buy a home currently, I am always told these stories of how "this mutual acquaintance makes the same and they get by just fine" and I usually end up finding out that person has a trust fund, has had multiple six figure inheritances, or had free rent from just literally being given a house by a family member, it's always something like that. My mom talks about how when she needed more money and wasn't making it in the late 90s how she "pulled her hair up after work and waited tables after her day job to get by" and she's been telling that story for years. Except I was there, for 3 months in 99 she worked one extra 4 hour shift at a restraunt for drinking money. She leaves out the fact that she had an office job paying 20$/hr (the equivalent of 37$/hr currently) and we lived in an apartment that cost 500$, had good credit, and in the years previously she was able to save because she had a friend who inherited rental properties who let her stay in one for 200$ a month. She never mentions all that, and she ended up getting back together with my more well off step-dad a few months after the whole "working 2 jobs" made her miserable and she tapped out. Both my parents barely made it until they remarried to people making wayy more then they did and then retired 2 decades early, now they stand on what their partners built and act like they have it all figured out. It was very frustrating to hear all that preaching when I was literally working 80 hours a week and living in an extended stay hotel a few years ago.
I don't know why but boomer women seem to be the biggest idiots in regards to safety, i think it's simply just the entitlement that was ingrained in that generation since infancy
For white boomer women, absolutely
That reminded me of when I was a little kid and didn't understand money. I saw my mom buy things at the store and get money back in change. And because I didn't yet understand the concept of money, I didn't know why she didn't just buy whatever she wanted with a $5 bill and still get money back.
I used to see my parents get money from the ATM and wondered why they couldn’t just get as much money from that machine as they wanted whenever they needed it.
This is my mom’s response when my sister says she can barely afford to take care of herself, so how would she afford a kid. My boomer mom is desperate for more grandkids, so she’s acting like wish upon a star math will suddenly make everything workout fine.
Because they're the only generation in history that got life handed to them easy on such a massive scale. I'm not saying that every boomer had an easy life. But more of them than any other generation did. They were raised by people who had experienced war and deprivation and who wanted to give their children a better life. They lived their golden years during (relative) economic stability and prosperity, at a time when education and housing were affordable. They didn't have to fight for basic needs, they didn't have to work 3 jobs just to pay rent. They got everything they wanted and instead of preserving something for the next generation, they pulled up the ladder behind them.
Edit: the amount of boomers replying to this comment to tell me about how their generation went to war is interesting. Although most of them were too young for Vietnam and those who were drafted were a tiny minority in this numerous generation. Same with telling me about hippies and civil rights - that was mostly their parents and the early boomers; those born in the late 50s and 60s just got to enjoy the fruits of their work.
My mom and dad made a combined income of 200k a YEAR (not adjusted for inflation this is in 90s money) my mom got 3 months off a year as a teacher and got an allowance of 10k a year from her mom. They bought 3 homes.
*SCREAMS*
Let me guess: all you got from them is some advice about bootstraps.
Bootstraps. Are you my father? I am so tired of hearing that phrase
Boomer: back in my day I had to flip burgers to get by in college. That job paid for my college, my house, and my car.
Also Boomers: flipping burgers should not provide a livable wage.
What everyone seems to forget is that the expression “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” was meant as satire. It’s literally an impossible thing to do, and was originally meant to demonstrate that we all need support from the greater community.
Tell them their wires are crossed.
The saying about bootstraps was originally a sarcastic criticism from the early 19 hundreds.
It was meant to say the situation was absurd since everyone knew that pulling on your boots was not going to help you get up.
Its common usage changed in the first decades of the 20th century, but its original meaning is the real facy: the suggestion is absurd and stupid.
They don’t even understand the idiom they’re using. The original intention is sarcastic; you can’t pull yourself up by the bootstraps. It’s impossible. They’re literally trying to tell you to do the impossible, and don’t even realize it, which makes it a kind of perfect idiom when taken as a whole, but in an unintended way.
They forget that eventually bootstraps break. Or you're issued cheap ones to begin with.
Please inform them that the bootstraps phase was originally meant “somehting that is not possible to do”
Likewise “the customer is always right” has a second part which is “in matters of taste.” There’s a qualifier. It doesn’t mean the customer gets to do whatever they want
It’s a super dumb phrase because pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, in the literal sense, is impossible. You can just pull on your shoes laces and fucking float. It’s the dumbest phrase in the universe.
I'll also guess: her success was completely brought about by "working really hard" and no one ever gave her anything ever.
Now it's "work hard", probably too hard and you'll be lucky if you're not completely homeless. And I do mean lucky.
Ignorance and the lack of curiosity is a major trait that 95% of boomers have.
I got "work hard and you'll be ok in life.... btw I decided we're spending all of your potential inheritance money cuz fuck it"
Like sure, enjoy your hard earned dollars. But to say that blatantly to me is a bit rude.
My mom’s first car was a corvette and that was just the tip of the luxury car iceberg. she’s now a boomer old lady Cadillac owner. She freaked when I drove her somewhere over the “horrible” sounds my car made. Ma’am, this is an economy car. It doesn’t purr. Same person who doesn’t understand why we don’t eat out all the time or take lots of vacations. Same lady who yelled at me for not being able to get a job in my field straight out of college because COLLEGE DEGREE! I’m 40 and I just finished paying off my student loans.
Comment deleted by user
Whoa. I wish my 3 degrees was getting me $200k in today money. And/or that I could take my piddly two weeks vacation without my job being insanely difficult when I get back and have to catch up. And/or that my parents had anything to give me, although if they did they would give it to my brother instead for who knows what reason.
My boomer parents were left about 5-6 million dollars by my grandmother. They bought money pit houses, because they were chasing the idea that they were “landed gentry” as the liked to say. These massive houses that they’d blow 100k remodeling and not finish. They lost money on every house sale.
They were so broke by the end of it that I had to loan them 12k so they could get a house loan. I charged my father 5% interest and told him if he didn’t pay me back, I’d never speak to him again. To my surprise, he paid the debt.
The bullshit is that over the time they were blowing money on these houses, they lectured me about responsibility with money and always talked about giving me the down payment on a house.
Now that the money is all gone, my niece and nephew could probably used some money for a college fund.
I love my dad, but he’s a selfish moron. He got scammed over and over again by contractors and hangers on.
Comment deleted by user
My mum never earnt more than $50k a year and was raising 5 kids by herself. Bought multiple houses. My husband and I learnt around $200k and couldn't save enough to fight the increase in house prices to even buy a house.
I really think they LIKE watching younger folks struggle with basic needs. Like a version of the Hunger Games.
If my dad is any indication, I think it makes them feel less insecure about the fact that most of their own accomplishment are mediocre at best, and often entirely dependent on other people in their life doing the majority of the heavy-lifting.
I've had this same though. I live around a bunch of old people and a lot of them had their own businesses and talk down on higher ed. They are morons. They def made it in life but would never make it in todays world.
“Hmmph!! These kids today. A PhD? Kid got a PhD? I only ever had a bachelors and I turned out just fine. Arrogant kids. Think they’re all fancy. They just don’t work hard, so they think they need fancy degrees. Lack of work ethic is what it is.
No one NEEDS a PhD. “
-a typical BoomerThis is my ex-FIL, he’s absolutely convinced that his bachelors in engineering is the same thing as my PhD in physics
The only inaccuracy is that they don't even have the bachelor's. Just high school.
The mindset trickles down the generations. Had a discussion with a cousin's son about raising the minimum wage. He thought it was wrong, mentioned working hard, and then allowed that he spent years reaching a job that pays a dollar over the minimum wage being discussed at the time. "It isn't fair." Because It took him years to make that much.
His father had a small side business that he kept going when Son was out of work for like 3 years, son being only employee. Once son landed this job, he didn't want/need income with Dad; Dad happily closed down the business, sigh of relief.
Has no concept of what a leg-up he got. And is pulling the ladder up behind him, at what, 40?
His father's side job was third generation; got the equipment for nothing, lived on it for a couple years when he was younger, until the local market for product contracted significantly, couldn't make a living on it any more. So there's more intergenerational stuff gone on there.
Oh yeah, father got the land that he built his home on for nothing. All in the family.
But bootstraps, individual responsibility, my tax dollars, no such thing as global warming, etc etc etc. I live in redneck heaven, and I mean ReD.
They certainly do.
The glee on my mother’s face when she told my teenager a while back about how we are headed for another great depression and how her father told stories of suicides and loss and pain. It’s like she is excited at the prosoect. My grandpa was haunted by what he saw as a preteen, and was then thrown into a war. He would be HORRIFIED to see his daughter tell his great grandson he is doomed with such joyful delivery My parents have never had to suffer for or fight for anything
And she wonders why neither of us see her very often even though she lives a mile away 🤷🏼♀️
Is your mother religious at all? Because Christianity paints suffering as a good thing.
In a way (she hasn’t attended church since my childhood but claims to be)
But so was my fabulous grandfather, much more so than my mother, and he’d never ever have thought like that…likely because he and my other grandparents had actually suffered…
Think there is something to this… I noticed the older folk actually do recognize that they had it much better than the younger gen do nowadays but the vibe is like Nelson from the Simpsons where he’ll just point and go “HA HA” because seeing others struggle gives them a sense of being set/security.
And the jobs did not require formal education. They learned on the job, often as members of a union. Lots of factory jobs which would have been considered menial by today’s standards. Great pay and benefits and they’re voting against all of it. They allowed corporations to wipe out unions and move those factory jobs overseas. Yes, I do realize the cost of goods went down and everyone seems to have quickly adopted the excessive version of consumer culture, but we’re paying a larger price for that change which accelerated with their hero Reagan.
The media told them it's the Democrats' fault because Bill Clinton helped open trade with China. Never mind the fact that globalization is just a stage of capitalism, and trade with China was inevitable... just look at this shiny object and keep voting red.
My gramp and my cousin worked 2 jobs and when they retired they have nice nest eggs. Paid off houses and extra money. Now you actually do have to work 3 jobs just to pay your rent
Yep. When I grew up (I’m a millennial) I would hear stories about how older relatives would pickup a second job “to save for a mortgage”/“save to buy a sports car”/etc.. Those relatives cannot comprehend that someone today might need to work two jobs just to pay rent.
My parents did have to do all those things and my brother and I raised ourselves (classic GenX). Yet, many times recently I've had to explain my financial struggles and my young adult kids and just society's in general because my mom is so clueless. I told her she must have forgotten how hard it was for them in their younger years and that working 2-3 jobs isn't even covering THE BASICS. Once I started showing her the cost of food and rent with no change in income for most people she started changing her tune. She was completely shocked at the difference.
Makes me wonder if the world isn't so much as falling apart as it is returning to normalcy. Boomers lived in a golden age that didn't exist before and is unlikely to exist again.
Struggle has been the default setting for milennia.
Unlikely to exist again because they went out of their way to guarantee that it wouldn’t.
Comment deleted by user
They were raised with the belief that “greed is good,” that caring about others is “socialism” and therefore “evil,” and that getting ahead at all costs is all that matters in life.
And boy, does it show in everything they say and do!
If people who hold wealth actually paid an appropriate amount of fucking taxes, never mind corporations, we’d also be in a different place. We also need to reconfigure how the state spends its vast wealth, such as on propping up a genocidal nation while its own people live in the streets.
I saw a great breakdown of the situation:
The Greatest Generation that fought in WW2 looked at the mess that led to that war, along with the Great Depression, and decided to do their best to fix it. They built many of the institutions that led to the liberal world order and that tried to create legal frameworks for dispute resolution along with installing the US as a sort of global cop, sacrificing maximizing profit generation to instead encourage stability.
The Boomers were raised in this new world order while at the same time being taught that they need to be resilient, independent, and to take care of themselves. The problem is that they never realized how much easier the world had become for them thanks to their parents, nor did they realize that the very institutions they constantly try to tear down are the ones that made their life so easy.
It's more than that - they grew up during the most "socialist" era in American history.
Then they decided what they were getting wasn't enough, and gutted those programs for their own short-term economic benefit at the expense of their childrens' futures.
Then they complain that their children can't climb the ladder they just pulled up behind themselves.
Now they complain that we want a return of those same programs they benefitted from, decrying it as "socialism."
It's not that they're just the beneficiaries of a golden era. It's that they actively destroyed it due to their own selfishness.
Pretty much, yeah.
You mean they didn't experience 3 once in a lifetime financial crises during their prime earning years?
Spot on.
They were also paid a living wage.