To think the baby boomer generation appears on another planet

[IncaAztec]

This weeks corkers from my DM (age 65). Have left me wondering about the baby boomer generation.

-Accusing me of taking from the state as we receive free infant school meals (?)
-Informing me how busy she is (with WI and history club all in one week). I told her to ask my friend who has 3 kids & 3 jobs before she tried that one.

Anyone else with any baby boomer comments to share?

YANBU. We aren’t one great homogeneous group living with our heads buried in the sand and unable/unwilling to envisage the life of younger generations.

I’m nearly 60. I live in a rented one bed housing association flat. I am divorced, have been homeless and my income defines me as living in poverty. I will never own a home and am very much aware that many people Of this generation wont own their own home either. Yes there are ignorant, unaware baby boomers who make sweeping generations just as OP illustrates, members of this generation who do likewise.

@mightybucks But boomers took those advantages, used them up, then reused to pass them on because they wanted the best benefits for themselves rather than passing them on.

What the actual hell are you talking about? What? Every person individually refused to pass them on? I am sick to death of this divisional shite. Can't you see this is a divide and rule tactic by Tories so that you take your eye off who is really stealing the money.

Utter rubbish.•

Oh really? Can you please me direct me to this parallel reality where boomers actually did anything meaningful about younger people having increasingly expensive and hard lives?

Because the reality I live in seems to be stuffed full of sixty somethings who have never done a minuscule fraction of fuck all about it but expect to be worshipped like idols just because the younger generations aren’t diseased or starving (yet).

The millennials have pretty much inherited the baby boomer grudge though, from their parents generation x. Generation X were certainly the This be the Verse generation. Why aren’t the Millenials complaining about the wasted 40 years spent trying to appropriate blame and deny culpability for the failings affecting the young? We’re we all to busy trying to keep up with technology we forgot to keep an eye on those in charge?

Basing ridiculous negative assumptions entirely on the age of a large number of people is no better than doing the same thing based on their colour, or sexuality, or gender.

Not everybody in the baby boomer generation got the chance to go to university or get well paid jobs, you know. Baby boomers include those children of the Windrush who are now being threatened with deportation or denied healthcare; they include miners who lost their jobs under Thatcher; there are plenty of baby boomers relying on food banks because despite working a fulltime wage, they cannot afford to eat; and looking at the pavements of the city centre quite a few of those ex-army beggars also belong to that generation.

I'm going to politely suggest it is you, MightyMucks who is living in a parallel reality, if such a thing exists.

This is divisive shit, stirred up by those in power, whose interests lie in keeping us at each other's throats.

There are spoilt, selfish boomers, just as there are molly coddled, entitled millennials. People of all ages can be cunts, what a shocker!

Instead of indulging in this useless inter generational sniping, we should be asking ourselves why we can't have affordable housing AND decent maternity leave, free university AND equal pay.

Look at the money being spent on the Royal wedding. There's a few bob lying around somewhere, that's for sure. But we are all too busy fighting to question how it's being spent.

I was born in 1960. I made sound choices and had pur children late enough for them to be millenials. One has a first from Oxford the other is about to go to Cambridge. DH and I have both worked and continue to work incredibly hard. Our pensions should be good because we invested in them early.

We recall 15% interest rates, a Britain that was bankrupt in the late 70's, very few people going to uni, many many friends having no ch or indoor bog. We also remember many many people in negative equity in the early 1990s and how hard it was to get a graduate job in the 1980s.

Our DC are millenials. We accept we were very lucky and continue to be. But so are our DC who will want for nothing because it is being passed on. Oh, and they both have jobs and like work.

Born in 1960 and most my age didn't get to university or travel . But by now have paid their 30 year morgages / put their kids through college so if they can afford a cruise or a new car good for them.
Hate someone saying their mil never worked a day in her life. Presume she worked rearing your dh or else ignored and neglected him.
This sort of talk gets on my nerves. Everyone is born when they're born and tries their best at that stage. My grandparents born around 1910 never though my dm would put 8 children through university and travel the world to visit them. That would have been unheard of in rural lreland in the 30s. But it was just her doing her best in her day. We need to respect each generation and be grateful for what we have.

Well said junebirthdaygirl

I hate all this generalization that is going on.

My DM and DF are baby boomers, they both voted remain and they both understand how hard it is for young people these days to get on the property ladder.

I am considered to be a millennial. I am 29 and whilst I did vote remain I don't consider myself to be a 'snowflake'. I am sick to death of that word, I work hard but I do also understand that it was also difficult in my parents day.

All this stereotyping is awful.

Well said Mooneyes, Junebirthdaygirl and HateTheDF. The government have wasted the money and it's great for them to play us all off against each other.

I do not think some young people appreciate how some of the older lot went without in order to afford stuff. (went without quite a lot of things in some cases. )

I don't think some of the older lot understand that even if the younger people did without in the same way they did, a mortgage is still out of reach.

ODFO with the ageist stereotyping.

Morally virtuous???😂😂😂😂😂ODFO you spoilt entitled whinger

How anyone who loathes that Tory government who came to power in 1979, and stayed in power for ever can be termed morally virtuous is unreal. Comments like that make me wish of never bothered fighting for a safer world at Greenham Common.

Because look at the attitude of the spoilt little brats who benefited from it.

And why am l grouped with people born in the 40’s? My generation is actually Gen Jones. They have a totally different profile to those ‘evil’ Boomers

So no one would accept a thread on Mumsnet which bashed a group based on race or gender or sexual orientation etc but clearly older people are ripe for a slagging off on here yet AGAIN.
Just FOTTFSOF.

Your DM is either an idiot or totally naive OP. It's nothing to do with being a baby boomer. I know that all infants get free school meals because I'm relatively well informed.

I'm 62, and would be still be working full-time if not for ill-health. I still work 24 hours pw, and we have no outside help with the house or garden.

I'd love enough free time to go to WI or history group. As for regarding that as busy, words fail me. I've had days at work where I scarcely have time to go for a pee.

This baby boomer rubbish is generate by the hateful Momentum political group, they are doing it to create division.

Many so-called ‘boomers’ did not go to university, worked from a young age and many did not have children which is why they are better off.

Seeing the attitude of the entitled generation makes me glad I never had any.

Most of the boomers I know, including myself, had a very tough start, lived in unheated slum flats to get through uni, couldn’t afford to go abroad ( no cheap airlines or package holidays when we were young), paid 15% interest rates on their mortgages when they eventually saved up enough to get one, and now hand over all their savings to their kids as mortgage deposits to get their kids on the property ladder. I’ve given my entire pension lump sum to mine.
My first car was a wreck that had to be hit with a brick to start. My DD has a brand new sports car at the age of 28.
We struggled for jobs during the mass unemployment of the 70’s. My DDs have excellent well paid careers and unemployment is currently at a record low.
I was sacked when pregnant. My DDs will get a year of maternity leave if required.
It’s very easy to criticise my generation. Try living our lives - I think you’d change your mind.

You’ve been had, OP. The generational conflict is stirred up by the media and those in power.

It’s much, much easier to have people your age annoyed at their grandparents than it is to have them look up and see he realnsoirce of the problem. Which is a small slice of the richest and most powerful systemically asset stripping the UK, and changing employment and housing to benefit them, rather than working people.

The problem is not your gran. She probably worked from 14 and experienced far more hardship than you do.

The problem is big businesses paying such shit wages that the taxpayer has to tip them up with tax credits. It’s zero hour contracts being used as a default rather than as the niche ‘student holidays’ sort of job they used to be. It’s PFI, it’s our tax code not being tightened so that amazon et al can pay peanuts. It’s deliberate land banking by house builders that restricts supply and drives up prices. It’s the same ruling families in place since 1066. It’s a systematic keeping down of the bulk of the populace so that a very few can be rich beyond anything g you can imagine.

Now imagine a world where we have capitalism, just with a few checks and balances, decent employment laws and a bit of fairness. Business can still boom, the rich can still be rich, but we’ve reformed our tax code to make them pay a fair amount. Wealth is no longer squirrelled offshore but circulating. Decent housing is built by the state and profits ploughed back in. Wages are slowly increased with tax credits phased out gradually so there is no big poverty shock.

Or just keep on at baby boomers. And ignore all that, and sleepwalk into servitude.

I was born late Gen X and I think we had the best deal: comfortable, technology-free childhoods, free uni education, house prices low just as we were buying, and the real possibility of a pension one day (albeit a crappy one). Now we have the houses along with the frivolous lattes and avocado on toast.

We’re the ones who should be bashed

I too am so tired of this nonsense about baby boomers. Ageist crap. The real issue is the increasing gap between rich and poor, whatever generation they are.
Baby boomers, immigrants, benefit scroungers - whatever red herring you are diverted to - the real issue is the wealth remaining increasingly in the hands of the few.
There is no trickle down effect. There are a minuscule amount of jobs created, and then mainly precarious, zero contract or prospect-less.
So they create hate groups in the media, so that attention is diverted to blaming whatever group it is..
Wake up! They are now dismantling out precious NHS for profit.