Baby Boom generation spans 18 birth years from 1946 to 1964

[justasking111]

Reading elsewhere, baby boomers are accused of being the most selfish generation. Re: childcare, financial help, for their children.

Well as a baby boomer, I can tell you our parents were not interested in our children and going back another generation my mother and fathers parents were not interested in helping out.

I think you have to go back to the times when you were born, married, bore children and died in the same village. In those times you had the support of mixed generations and an extended family. Today we and our offspring are flung around the country and globe.

I was born in 52.
Having grandchildren was one of the highlights of my parents life.
They didn’t do much in the way of evening babysitting but helped out loads during the day.
Mum was down every day when my third was born with special needs. She accompanied me to every health appointment and operation he had
But then we all live within two miles of each other and still do...so that helps.

I’ve been very lucky haven’t I?

We’ve all had a close bond in my family.

As a baby boomer, we have paid deposits on houses, looked after grandchildren, whilst still having children at home. It does upset me when we are accused of being the most selfish generation in history.

I'm a boomer too. My dm wasn't too much involved when my dc arrived, although she might have more to do with my dsis's dd. Having said that, I live 50 miles away from where she lived, and my dsis just lived a few miles away. I had no help whatsoever with my dc, and just had to suck it up. My oldest went to boarding school when he was 11, as I had no one to keep an eye on him and he was rapidly going off track. I couldn't trust him to come home on his own from school and stay there til I got home at about 5.00. It was hard, and as a result I try to help as much as possible with my dgc.

My DM was horrified when I got pregnant, hung up when I told her saying she had to think about it. When DS was six weeks old and OH away on business I had tonsillitis asked her for help, nope she was too busy. I never forgot how she reacted to being a grandmother so have tried to be a better GM remembering how upset I was. She only lived up the way from us.

My FIL is one of the most selfish people I've ever met - whether that's because he's a baby boomer or just his personality type, who knows, but he does tick all the baby boomer characteristics. It actually helps to see it as due to being a baby boomer as then it's not really his fault as such, he's just a product of his generation.

I’m a millennial (just!). Honestly, why are you letting such a generalisation upset you when you know it is not true in your circumstances?

Because we feel as a generation we're being unfairly stigmatised by people who have actually had every opportunity that we didn't have, but who still manage to feel hard done by. And hopefully they'll get inheritances when we pop off - something that was unheard of previously.

My mum is one of the most selfish people I know. My dad is one of the kindest. If people know people like my mother and base any ideas about baby boomers on her then they would think she was selfish.
She has had most things handed to her. My grandparents helped her massively,paid her rent when she was a single mother, looked after children, paid for holidays etc. This only stopped when she married my dad and he refused to take their money. She then inherited a huge amount of money from them which she has spent on herself and 1 grandchild but not the rest. She stopped working at 55 cause she didn't want to anymore.
My dad is the opposite in many ways but he says that a lot of his generation are very entitled and don't know how lucky they are.
In reality I imagine that it is a personality thing exacerbated by her own situation.

My (boomer generation) parents have been great and supported us both practically and financially when needed. I know I've been lucky. They were born in a different time - a time when women didn't have the opportunities that women do now - a time when property was cheap and jobs plentiful - but that's not their fault! I often see posts on MN about boomer parents who are selfish and unhelpful, but my DPs have never been like that.

I don't think it's helpful to generalise- my mother was born in 1947 and has always had a huge sense of social and familial responsibility, from when she brought up her three younger siblings (one with severe additional needs) after her own mother's premature death, to caring full time for my elderly father until his recent passing. She has always been a tower of strength to me, and beyond generous. She would also have no truck with the narrow-minded NIMBYism her generation are accused of re Brexit etc.

It's not fair or accurate to tar everybody with the same brush.

I think it varies to some extent. My parents are firmly boomer generation. They went to uni without debt, with a grant (not a loan) and for much of their married life a mortgage could be paid on one salary, so mum stayed home with us. Dad has a good final salary pension and both retired before 65.
They certainly believe that my generation has it far easier and that we have everything handed to us on a plate. I had over £30k of debt by the time I finished my professional studies, both partners have to work to meet mortgage costs (and no, we can’t get a cheaper house).
In terms of opportunities for women, my generation has it better, but my baby boomer parents refuse to acknowledge the benefits they had whilst ignoring or minimising the difficulties faced by a different generation.
So, to quote my mother, it’s swings and roundabouts.

I think every generation scorns the one directly above and below it.

Both my parents and in laws have supported us no end. In laws are older so a lot has been financial. My parents have done more practical, my mum has stayed for a week to look after us after each baby.
All are loving but not interfering grandparents.
In laws are comfortable but still live quite frugally. Mum on the other hand went from caring for her sick parents to raising her four children then caring for my disabled dad. She also does lots of childcare for the grandchildren on the doorstep.
We live far away from both sets so manage without help but I regularly meet grandparents with onerous regular childcare burdens, including some who travel long distances every week! Im sure there are grandparents who don't help but they appear to be in the minority round here

I don't think the BB are more selfish than any other generation - just that, maybe, their advantages served to highlight those who have a more self absorbed/entitled attitude.

I can think of parents who fall into young silent generation, baby boomers and generation X who have said or displayed attitudes that I describe as selfish in terms of helping practically and financially and those in all these generations who are the very opposite.

I'm gen X and my brother is a BB - we both think we had significant advantages and have both tried to work out how much money it will take to give our children some of the things we had (no student debt or very little - certainly none by the time we started families, got on the property ladder easily in early-mid twenties etc) with no parental help at all - and it is a lot.

I think it will be interesting to see if Millennials will be looking after elderly parents and their grandchildren so that their DC can work.

No doubt some will and some won't. Some will help financially and some won't. Some will babysit and some wont't. Just like us Baby Boomers.

Every generation has its carers and its self-obsessed. Why do we all have to be lumped into one basket?

More overgeneralization doesn't really help beat others' overgeneralizations. I can see why in the corporate or political world people could say baby boomers in power seem to be greedy and happy to remove the advantages for younger people they had themselves, but that's more to do with power than it has to do with the generation.

My parents are baby boomers. My grandparents did a lot of help to the point I regularly lived with one pair or the other for weeks to months at a time. My maternal grandfather is the only one who kept up regular contact with me after I left home and immigrated away - to him, family was more important than anything. My mother was pretty much the opposite and has literally never even asked to talk to my kids, let alone anything else, and stopped even pretending to care after my grandfather died. I think my parents are incredibly selfish, it was always about them and their image, but I think there are people like that in every generation just as there are carers in all of them. I think the culture around that enabled that has changed a lot in some ways, but not for everyone.

All my grandparents dealt with family moving all over as have families throughout time, that isn't new. The whole family all living together throughout has always been a thing that happens, but also always a rarity.

The issue really is this constant need to put the generations against each other. It creates more division, when we need cohesion. I have very important friendships with people 30+ years older than me - we share the same values, that's more important than our ages.
Plenty of baby boomers are great - I love my mum (as irritating as she can be at times - though I'm sure she would say the same as me!). My grandparents did a lot of childcare, and helped out with my mum's business; I think my mum will be too busy with her hobby and wouldn't expect her to anyway, but I doubt I'll get the same level of help. I don't begrudge that at all - but my grandparents were very involved. There's no financial help but I'd much rather she had everything she needed when she retires and that I didn't see a penny of inheritance, than have her struggle.
I'm a millennial. I have a (massive) mortgage, and I quite like avocado on toast, so am living proof the two aren't mutually exclusive .
I find a lot of people complaining about stuff that people in their late teens / very early 20s are doing, and attributing it to them being millennials (which they are not).
They are adolescents - everyone is a twat when they are an adolescent. It's basically the law. It doesn't mean the generation is fucked - they just haven't grown out of the hormones yet.

It’s a sweeping generalisation, encompassing millions of people, so don’t sweat it OP.

Do you think everyone in generation snowflake, is offended by everything? Of course not

Each generation has different perks and different challenges. And within a generation the people are not homogeneous.

DH and I are millennials with baby boomer parents.

DHs parents are incredibly frugal, especially his Mum. They conceed that in some respects our generation has a tough time. Eg we need 2 incomes to maintain a comparable lifestyle to the one they had at our age with one income, but I'm fairly sure MIL is horrified at the way our generation buys shit shit and more shit.

Both PIL and my parents are very much of the we'll-help-with-the-grandchildren-and-be-super-involved-but-we'll-have-to-fit-you-in-round-our-holidays school of thought. Heck we are just mega grateful for any help.

I have to bite my tongue with DM sometimes as she'll try and make out it was her parents generation that got the good deal with pensions, which may have been true but actually, her generation also have a very comfortable retirement income. I don't begrudge them this, they worked hard. However, we all know that it's not sustainable beyond the BB generation. And that's the sore point.

DM does correctly point out that my generation has better options in terms of returning to the workplace part time, also true.

@Singlenotsingle - well I could say exactly the same about the generalisations made about my age group, couldn't I? That we're all snowflakes who fritter away cash on avocados and have too high expectations about everything.

But it doesn't apply to me, so I don't.

And I'd say there's a lot more scornful stuff in the media about millenials than baby boomers, but that might be my bias showing!

My mum is a baby boomer and she's the least selfish person I know. I'm lucky to have her. Same goes for my MIL.

My parents are baby boomers. (Early ones) they had no practical help from either sets of parents as they never lived close and they worked hard and lived in a few hovels until they could afford their dream home when we were teens. They were lucky that my dads parents were amazing with money and helped them.

My parents are the opposite of selfish, they'd do anything for us and our kids to the point that I doubt they'd say no when they really should! My husbands parents are the same though less practical help as they live further.

They all also help us financially. Our new home will be a combination of equity, a successful business, borrowing from dad and a long term investment maturing from fil.

Our experience is of baby boomers is sharing any good fortune and hard work and paying it forward.

DH and I are right on the tail end of the baby boom so still working. We help our DCs out financially where we can and, when the time comes, will try to help with childcare.

Our parents were all born around 1930, so not part of this "selfish generation" but never helped with children or finances despite ILs being very comfortably off.

It's not down to the year you were born in, it's whether you are selfish or not

I have two children who are millenials. They have worked hard with their partners to get a home and have children. The size of their mortgage is frightening but our mortgage was scary at the time. They have it harder than we did because it takes two salaries to afford to buy a home rather than one.

I also have a centennial coming up to 18, now the stress of his exams and university entrance is so much worse than my millenial DCs I worry about him getting stressed out. I do wonder when he hopes to get his first home what it will cost, what jobs will be available.

We helped our millenials out with deposits and hope to do the same again with our third centennial, but our finances will be tighter by then I think.