Boomer parents

[Freesamples]

Anyone else got a boomer for a parent that a) has no idea how the world currently works and b) loves to put the boot in and c) is absolutely delusional about how much things cost.

me, I love to sniff out a bargain, crowning glory the summer hols I’ve booked for me, dh and dcs. 4 star+ AI, 2 adults 2 kids, package £2k and in summer holidays. Absolute belter. All to be met with a chorus of how expensive that is and how much we’re over paying and how they’d spend no more than £1k on holidays for us (in the mid early 00s). Plus, don’t want to go there, they hate brits, it’s too hot. (All places we went as kids btw)

it can’t be just me

And your point is? What are you trying to achieve by starting this argument with me? 🙄

P.S says the poster that puts emojis on their posts!

Sorry fast moving thread yes. Some boomers may remember this from their childhood none were adults in the '50s.

DM ( born 1949) remembers not having fridge and her mother trying to keep the millk cold in the summer but as a young child.

My mother was near to Liverpool and she lived like this (boomer). Getting a place with an indoor toilet was a huge luxury!

I think people think that’s Victorian living, they don’t realise how far we’ve come in the last five or so decades. Central heating in most homes is a pretty new concept.

My 'boomer' mother took me to Greenham Common and taught me about Feminism.

My 'Boomer' father demonstrated that men should be as much involved in the bringing up of children and domestic life as women.

I thank my Boomer parents.

And they had a tough upbringing in the post-war years.

My mother's father died in Asia after VE day as a member of the fleet air arm before VJ day. Her mother quickly remarried another officer and went to live in East Africa and left her with her grandmother.

My father's father was a Japanese POW for much of the war, came back a very damaged man and my father was shunted off to boarding school from a very young age.

Given that, they have been brilliant parents who have worked very hard to overcome the shit that was thrown at them as children.

I begrudge them nothing. And I love them very much (they divorced years ago, so much of their upbringing made for a bad marriage, but they're good parents).

But they would be machines with a mangle, or twin tubs in the 60s and 70s

Automatic washing machines only started becoming mainstream in the late 70s.

I use laughing emojis myself which my teens mock me for so the emojis don't bother me, but I'm not whining about a generation am I 🤷‍♀️

Interesting. My mother has never mentioned having a fridge. I don't know if they had one or not. I must ask. I know my mother grew up very poor and I suspect her mother had to do the hard yards with washing. I need to ask my mother about some of these things. The only time my mother has talked about washing by hand was when the (always old and never new) washing machine she had when I was a baby in the 70s died and it was two weeks before she got another one. I also remember, in the 80s, her once having a hard time when her twin tub had the separate spinner die.

@Tatare so well put. My parents were a little too old to be boomers. But gosh the trauma and inherited trauma of their childhoods. World events really socked it to them.

I know closed minds across all generations.

Let's hope they leave you biting in their will

And so what? What are you trying to achieve by starting an argument with me?

Anyway your replies to me are pointless! I won’t be replying anymore to your ridiculous comments on my posts! They hold no weight behind them! I seriously don’t have time to play ‘I use this emoji what generation am I?’ Games with you! Come back when you have a realistic argument to put across because you’re just being pathetic and wasting my time 🤣

I'm nearly a boomer, born late 1960s. So a Gen X, which seems much less used as an insult, although maybe this will change.
Using boomer as an insult is ageist and assumes that this is a homogeneous group which as many PP have said, isn't true.
My view on the baby boomers is that many had a pretty tough early life, but the improvement in standard of living and healthcare in their lifetime has been amazing and probably won't ever be experienced again, and that makes me a little envious!

Nearly as pathetic as moaning about your parents for being "boomers"

You have a nice weekend now!

Two of my best friends only had outside toilets and no bath when I was at primary school in the 60s They had metal tubs too bathe in oncee a week, put in front of the fire and filled with warm water (well I did too at one point, but that was when we moved into a new house and before my dad put a bathroom in). My godmother used to come round to our house every Sunday to have a bath, as she too, only had an outside toilet.

Jeeze, I sound old. But this is why boomers tell those stories. Because we can barely believe it ourselves.

@Wentie Please stop perpetuating this myth about all boomers having fabulous gold-plated pensions.

Compulsory work pensions were only introduced in 2018 - yes, six years ago. For a huge number of those born 1945-63, they did not get ANY work pension. The only pension they have is the state pension.

Yes, there are some - typically public sector or blue chip company employees - IBM, M&S etc - who have good pensions but for the millions and millions of people working small company manual & administrative jobs, they have no private pension at all. Literally nothing.

I'm last year of the boomers and I have exactly the same as most today - a private DC pension consisting of whatever I could afford to put in plus 3% from my employer. Nothing gold-plated about it. Sadly.

So please, stop talking through your hat.

🥱

Well actually I would argue that that generation with its co- morbidities are limiting access to younger generations.
I observe my parents generation, retired, making health a full time hobby. I'm 46 and waiting just like my mum's 80 something friends for a uterine cancer treatment. I'm in the queue beside them.
They might get another few years, I might have a younger more aggressive form. It's a tough call if we bring on age judgements.
Try getting a GP appointment when you have to be on the school run at 8:30am, you are up against my mum with her quick dial. But she's not even grateful, just entitled.
If everyone is entitled to a knee operation and we make no discrimination on age is that why the 40 something at work has to wait so long. I actually just think my shuffling fil is just bored. His initial heart surgery 17 years ago was the game changer and gave him 10 brilliant years, the last five have not been great.

I use boomer as a generational marker, as much as gen X, gen z, millennial, etc. I've also heard millennial used in insulting ways. I don't mean any insult by it, it's just a cohort.

We really need to accept that each cohort is made up of individuals with unique experiences (some shared but experienced differently to each other). Everyone has their own challenges. We'd be so much better off if we could just acknowledge the challenges each other faces.

My parents are boomers who are now facing the challenge of aging without much support. That's got to be pretty scary in it's own way. I can't relate to that at this stage but they can't relate to a lot of my life. So much better if we can just try to understand each other though.

I have to say, both of my parents have excellent pensions and are living a very comfortable retirement, but why would that make me angry? They worked hard and took advantage of what was offered. They certainly don't do judging of younger generations. They know that their generation was disadvantaged and advantaged in many different ways.

They're just people living the lives that were handed to them, for good and bad.

If you're parents are dicks @Freesamples that's more about them as individuals than a 'generation'.

I did say as an adult. I remeber a " back in time" show and the kids thought the '50s and '60s were brilliant so much freedom etc, but the mother could hardly believe the extent of the back breaking labour involved in keeping everyone clean and fed. I think boomers were lucky as young adults and parents to benefit from property prices based on a single wage in the presence of labour saving devices. Think Samantha Stevens in bewitched or the mother in the wonder years. That does look like a pretty nice life.

wow you are a piece of work. Your access is also being limited by obese people, alcoholics, drug addicts,people with lots of children, and people like me who WFH and can call at 8.30 and don't have a school run. But you clearly appear to detest your parents. Ship them off to Dignitas.

Erm, you do know that an 87 year old isn't actually a baby boomer, though?

I thought you said he was planning to pay for his knee operation? So how is he preventing others having access to surgery?

If he needs the op, then he's in a lot of pain. And yes, if course he's shuffling. Arthritis is a horrible chronic pain. Why shouldn't he pay to be free of it? And mobility isn't just about walking. Far from it. Our knees have to operate smoothly to do the simplest of things, like sit down, stand up, walk upstairs, bend over, walk from the moving room to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

Jeeze.

ETA that older people are often put to the back of the queue for some surgeries, and sometimes not treated at all

I don't think it matters. That poster just hates older people.

Gosh! That's some anger.

Why shouldn't your/my parents generation use the NHS?

My parents as individuals have very different attitudes towards life and health, my father, in his 80's has private health care, runs marathons, scuba dives and climbs mountains. He bothers his doctor little.

My mother, also in her 80's seems to have a HC appointment every other week. Much of her problems are lifestyle related, and she loves to talk about it! Do I think, 'shove over mother, make way for the young uns and die quietly'?

No! Because she's still a human being who deserves to have her cataracts and varicose veins and arthritic toes sorted out so that old age is doable rather than a fucking slog of ever-increasing pain and decrepitude.

I've got some gynea problems at the moment, should I be shoved aside because it's difficult and unpleasant but I've passed my childbearing years and am no longer 'relevant'?

My parents didn't have a washing machine until I was born (2nd child), had only a b/w TV until late 80s to save on the cost of a colour licence, paid 15% and more on their mortgage (that they'd had to save up to get 20% deposit). Never ate out, because it was too expensive, never went to things you paid for entry, clothes were home made, second hand or market, holidays were a rarity until they found a farm we could stay on for £50 a week, then we went there every year.

Presents were practical, handmade or second hand. They didn't lie in at the weekend or holidays because they had things to do.

Anything needed had to be carefully considered as to if they could manage without, and how much they could afford to spend. If something broke, if they couldn't mend it, then they did without.

Every expense was considered, and if there was a big expense then cut backs were made in other ways. I remember going to bed with the light to save on electricity and heating was reserved for only the coldest months. Putting it on before November or after March was done very occasionally.

DM spent most of her spare time cooking and cleaning. Df spent his spare time doing DIY round the house.it was rare to see them sitting down just doing something for themselves. Even watching TV they'd be doing something else.

I think I'd rather have my life.