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?

Same here with MIL re the housing/wages thing. He was the first person to go to university in his family and MIL truly thought he would go back to her (high unemployment, depressed) area that he had worked so hard to get out of and get a job and buy a house for her to live in. With him.

Not only was our house deposit mine (older than DH so had saved) and I don’t think she had any intention of me living there, but he was tied in to going to work for a firm who had funded his degree. In London.

According to MIL he just had to say he’d changed his mind because his mother needed him at “home” and the firm would have let him off the debt!

She sent a text telling him to “ hang his head in shame” when he said it wasn’t happening. 🙄

I agree it’s not a baby boomer thing though, it’s a twat thing.

Hang on. What d'ja say?

What kind of bread is this?!

This stuff is getting really boring. You absolutely can't tar every single person born in the space of 19 years with the same brush.

We are fast returning to Victorian society with an ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots and this has nothing to do with age and everything to do with opportunity. Some boomers had no opportunities and have lived in poverty all their lives, the same applies to some people in every generation.

There are endless posts by people who have bought houses with help from their boomer parents so lots of evidence of how selfish and uncaring we all are.

It was from a rustic loaf.

Baby boomer here. No golden pension. No state pension for another 5yrs. Can't get employment, too old. No state handouts. I have to rely on Dh for money. How am I entitled OP? Please stop grouping us all under the same umbrella. We're not all gloating, sipping pimms/cocktails in the sun.

Poor work history due to looking after seriously mentally affected Dd. She's 35 now. Looked after mother with early-onset Alzheimer's for 7 yrs. I know I'm not alone. But please stop whipping up divisions in society. Each generation benefits from govt schemes that the taxpayer funds.

I think I was born just at the right time - 1972, so neither a boomer nor a millennial. Is there a term for us? What are the stereotypes? I got a free university education, I was able to travel multiple times, I haven't suffered too much discrimination, I bought my house for next-to-nothing by today's standards. I think my age group were the really lucky ones.

I identify a lot more with the millennials, even though I hate avocado. I think they have it a lot harder than the boomers, mostly because of housing costs.

Honeydragon Not even tiger bread? That's appalling.

I'm glad you exited the store. I recommend Morrisons instead. £1.56 (I initially typed £156!) for multiple avocados, and you'll have change from a fiver to get a loaf of bread.

groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/product/Morrisons-Wonky-Avocados/373161011

namechanger I’ve heard “Thatcher’s children”! DH was born then and has been told he had it easy and is grabby.

He actually agrees 😄

Would someone care to confirm what generation you call baby boomer?
In my view it's those children born just as the war ended 1945-50?

My parents were born within this era and their whole outlook is completely at odds to their own parents and me.

They and their friends seem completely oblivious to what's now happening in the UK with regards to housing, pensions etc etc their attitude is "I'm alright jack" and constantly bring up the fact that interest rates were once 15% but seem to forget the damn house was only the same price as a modern nice car!!

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers

Pps are right and OP is being VU to invite us to slag off a whole demographic group.
However, I can relate to her frustration at wilfully ignorant criticism from my elders. I've had various people born in the 1930s and 40s get quite worked up about us middle-aged people living so far out of town, paying too much for houses, not staying in couples for life, using the car too much, et cetera.
Because they're my elders, and some of them are my husband's relatives, I can't just tell them they're being unreasonable. If I'm clever I can get them to entertain me by talking about their youth in Spain, when mattresses were made of wool, knocker-upper was still a job, and the ground floors of blocks of flats were occupied by animals which were let out every morning to be taken by a shepherd to graze in the local pastures. It's amazing, the changes they've lived through.
However, I can't always get them onto that train of thought, because often they're enjoying themselves far too much moaning about my generation and everything we're doing wrong.

I think it's situational rather than generational.

My OH lived at home until he was 45 (born in 1966), so saved up loads for a large house deposit and has never gone without anything, still has mum and dad alive and with plenty of money.

I'm a wee bit older than him, divorced, brought up five children alone on part time work so no savings, no 'extra' to put into a pension, renting, left home at 17.

He cannot comprehend anyone not having savings, not being able to afford to retire, or buy food or a new car. I haven't got a bean, work a NMW job and will have practically zero pension.

Not age, just life.

Namechanger we are Generation X.
Ocelot shhh we have been going under the radar so far

I agree that we have done alright for ourselves. However I feel there are downsides too:

We benefited from the ability to enter the workplace on an equal footing that out Boomer mothers fought for. But this did mean that house prices came to reflect a dual income, and went through the roof

We were the first generation to see the idea of a job for life disappear. My Boomer Dad did the same job for 28 years. My OH and I have never held the same job for more than three.

We are also the 'sandwich generation' that is caring for young children and elderly infirm parents at the same time.

This is a nasty ageist thread. Just imagine if those being derided and criticised were defined on the basis of ethnicity. Very MN to be deeply unpleasant to those over 53 and mainly 60+. OP I expect your
DM worked just as hard as you when her children were younger, she would have had less educational and work opportunities than you and would have faced more of a struggle to go to Uni. My sons may not be able to afford a house now but when DH and I die they will have a good inheritance, my parents were from the war generation and left nothing. Please think about how you would feel if you were criticised on the basis of what some people of your age were like and stop this offensive unpleasantness.

OP
I agree this intergenerational warfare serves no one but those who actually hold the power and resources in society.
Being a working woman in 60's and 70's was not a great place and the effects go right through to pension age
www.telegraph.co.uk/money/special-reports/the-married-women-getting-30p-a-week-pension---despite-50-years/

Each generation faces different challenges house prices v the decline of heavy industry; access to higher education v job insecurity etc.

The free bus pass thing gets me. Over 65's need a free pass? Gimme a break. Under 30's need it more.

Was this post deliberately put out to cause annoyance on a Monday. Op get over yourself and stop lumping a whole generation into one stereotype. That sort of thinking is how racism starts. It is lazy thinking. Your problem has many causes, I am not one of them. Neither will I stoop to criticising your generation

I'm 57 and a baby boomer, it's 1945-64.
That's a Hugh amount of time with much so much social changing in that you can't bung us all in one category.
We don't all have big pensions,a lot of us didn't go to university and life was definitely harder for women.
I was a young adult in the Thatcher years(enough said).I expect some people did well but I don't think many of us had expectations of owning a house .Early boomers stayed at home until married,younger boomer women could get jobs,lived in crowded shared flats.
No we didn't spend a lot of money on gadgets/coffee because there was non.Same with not sitting on the floor eating lentils,lentil were exotic but we did have split peas!
We didn't skip from boomers to millennials ,we had generation X too who like all generations,including millerials are a mixed bunch.

Millennials is a much cuter term than the moniker Slacker Generation .... given to those who reached adulthood through the nineties.

Although there may be something in this assumption what with us dicking about on the internet on a Monday afternoon

My parents are of the so called baby boomers generation. Their lives were a lot harder than mine. They don't have a big house, amazing pensions etc. They are now reasonably comfortable in retirement. Not rich just they can afford the odd holiday. It's not right to generalise. No doubt people will be incorrectly generalizing about the subsequent generations.

Interesting that GenX are somehow avoiding any blame yet it’s mostly of that generation currently in control of the media, govt and banks ....... hang on a minute....

You're welcome to my (unused) bus pass, halfwit. I'll swap it for your young body and unlined face any time you want. Just let me know when you're ready for the handover.

Interesting that GenX are somehow avoiding any blame yet it’s mostly of that generation currently in control of the media, govt and banks ....... hang on a minute....

We gave you 90s pop music and films. Basically we’re immune from criticism

I’m gen X and yes, we seem to have slid under the radar. I think there’s a massive range of ‘how we ended up’ as well so we aren’t seen as one monolithic block. Maybe as the boomers die off the ire will be directed at us??

Its the ones ( any generation) that do not admit to lots of financial help that make me cross - they like people to think it was all them, but really it wasn't, or they had a council house cheap and was able to move out before the prices went crazy. you never get the truth from some folk.

The more cars off the road the better, in general principle though, Halfwitpicker.

Targeting this group over any other makes sense in terms of take-up.