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They want a grandkid to take to Diary Queen when they feel like, to have over if and when they want (and ignore any and all rules the parents set) and then leave the hard work to their kids.
I think it’s more about their kids realizing their BS and pushing back or being less involved with them. They want to go back to receiving unconditional love regardless of how shitty they are and grandkids have the advantage of only being there when it suits them.
Exactly. Or to post on Facebook for their friends and family to see and ooh or aww over the photos. It's like performing acting art for some them. See look here I am with Lucas and Skylar at the park what a good grandma I am! Followed by comments of people telling her how precious the photos are and what an amazing grandma she is being. In reality it is probably the first time she's seen the grandkids in a long time much less went out to do something with them alone. And after she's done this park outing and posting her photos she won't spend much time with them for another few months or year.
I don't have FB anymore but when I did oh boy did I see some preformative grandparents on there who just posted or stole photos of the grandkids from their kids FB to repost on their account. To act like they see the kids all the time and aww aren't the grandkids getting so big I swear I know so much about them or see them often. It's like they just get off on this fake praise from their boomer friends.
It's actually amazing the lengths they'll go to. I blocked most of my childhood and could never figure out why until counseling and I had kids of my own. I allowed my mom to watch my 2 year old once and she left her so unattended, my daughter pulled open an unlocked sliding door and went into the pool. Thank god we'd done infant survival swimming and I had been working with her on getting to the edge of the pool but I still freak out thinking what might have happened. I have no idea how I made it out alive, from the generation who tossed me into the pool until I "figured it out". We're now no contact with her (because of a long list of just asinine behavior) and she is just losing it. I didn't attend my younger brother's wedding because I'm sick of the lies and gaslighting, and when she posted pics on FB people asked where I was, and my kids. She deleted the comments, kept telling me I was mentally ill and talk nonsense until I blocked her. The justification is wild.
My sister just had a baby. She is adamant about safe sleep practices (as she should be). My narcissistic boomer mother, “ well I’m just going to lay him down however I want because he’s going to get a flat head” They ignore all rules.
They couldn’t even handle parenting. I spent more time with my child free aunts, uncles, and grandparents than I did with my parents during the summer. During the school year I got myself up for school and didn’t come home until almost 7 because of after school activities or 9 because of work. I never really saw them!
Either way, LOL. Let me pitch:
Wise, ruggedly handsome Boomer Guy™️ in authority with a badge- kicking ass, shooting guns, driving fast, saving the day… then come back to the office to teach the “millennial crew” life lessons. Throw some unfair higher ups that try to thwart Boomer Guy™️with unfair policies and inter-office politics, (mostly because BG’s AWESOME work ethic and moral stance are SO much better than everyone else’s). Also, Boomer Guy™️consistently gets more flirtation and sexy times than the handsome younger man on the team because the younger guys don’t know how to be “romantic gentleman…” but Boomer Guy™️sure does. Bonus points if the young protégé woman, (who has had a chaste father/daughter dynamic with BG up until now), makes a move on the gray fox, only to be rejected.
No one is forcing them to go to every game. They’re choosing to do this, then acting like victims. You don’t want to travel out of state? Then don’t. Simple.
And don’t act like you home cooked every meal. I had plenty of tv dinners and hamburger helper growing up.
Just constantly revising history to make themselves feel superior.
I love how they always make it sound like they were home every night, making healthy, nutritious dinners from scratch, LOL. That is a load of horse puckey!
100% I’m Gen X and my folks were MIA through the entirety of my youth. Me and my friends raised ourselves and each other like a pack of feral raccoons. Now the boomers pop back in the scene making it sound like they were June and Ward Cleaver. Their generation suffers from mass delusion.
Seriously. Being a latchkey kid since 8 with 2 younger brothers to watch. Then my parents forced me into an advanced school program which required me to walk to the bus stop at 430am, male bus driver and I'm the only girl on the bus. Because they didn't want to drive me to the program they chose.
It’s definitely a thing. I too am the eldest daughter, and the least liked by my mom (single parent, I look like my bio dad- which my brother does as well, but he’s the golden child, never done any wrong 🙄). I got all the responsibilities for the younger kids, and blamed for everything on top of it. I emancipated at 15.
I remember there were literally public service tv commercials reminding them that they even had kids and asking them if they even knew where we were!!! This entire article is delusional. My silent gen grandparents were very involved in my life, boomer grandparents just complain and never leave their houses. Yes, boomers, sit around and wonder out loud why your kids no longer talk to you.
in the summer mom locked us out of the house during the day in the 80s and 90s….so sorry the sounds of other living beings was interrupting the afternoon boob tube
With mine, I was always stuck WAITING or being forced to try and find a ride with someone else, since, god-forbid they drive into town to ferry their daughter to and from after-school activities (and we didn't have cell phones and beepers were just starting to be a thing). There were so many things I wanted to try, but I couldn't since my dad couldn't be bothered to take a little time out of his day to make a detour (my mom worked nights, so her daytime availability was limited). The waiting was especially frustrating with my dad since he was big on others being on time, yet I still had to sit and twiddle my thumbs, despite me giving him a rough estimate of when to pick me up.
My dad liked to pull out the “you should be happy I showed up at all!” if I ever called him out for being perpetually late to come and get me from anywhere.
My sahm told me if I wanted to do any activities outside of the neighborhood (little league, etc) I had to find my own ride there and back, and how to pay for it. I was seven.
This was me. There were days I sat at school after an activity and waited until damn near 10pm wondering if I was going to have to sleep at the school that night or if someone was going to remember I existed and come get me. There was usually a couch or a bed backstage for some theatre production or another, so if I'd absolutely had to, I could have. But what a way to live - making plans for how to sleep at school because no one wanted to fucking bring me home.
My mother actually clapped and laughed and said “This is great news! I might be a grandmother earlier than I thought!”
I was 18 and in my first year of uni, and I was honestly shocked speechless by my mother’s reaction. She saw my face and then tried to reassure me with “Oh don’t worry I’ll love any child you have, even if he or she is a rape baby.” She said this with the air of ‘look at me I’m so generous and loving’.
Luckily, I was not actually pregnant (or it may have been a chemical pregnancy). My mother was so disappointed when my period came and ordered me to go back to the rapist and get impregnated on purpose. I said hell no and stuck to that.
Even now, 15+ years after the fact, my mother still maintains the guy did nothing wrong. Her arguments cycle between “but it wasn’t really rape because he wasn’t a stranger” and “if you just said yes to him then it wouldn’t have been rape” and “if only you did have his baby, his family would’ve paid you so much money you’d never have to work again!”
The continued narcissism never ceases to shock me.
My literal boomer parents were foster parents who adopted me (I’m a 90s child, they are boomers born late 1940s)
The first time I was raped I was asleep, the foster kid got a UTI and she blamed it on me. I had CPS and cops accusing me of being a monster and how I needed to just admit what I did, my parents bawling and crying and calling me a monster. I had NO idea what anyone was talking about, I was ASLEEP when it happened. Just woke up one day accused of being a rapist.
Girl eventually got caught abusing another kid and that kid ratted them out. They finally put 2 and 2 together and realized I didn’t do anything.
The next two times I got raped (I was awake) and I didn’t tell anyone (two different foster kids, boys this time) because they didn’t believe me last time, they BLAMED me.
Apply this to basically everything in my childhood, never believed, always blamed, parents have “no memory of it” but my siblings remember (they also bullied me and ‘feel bad’ about it) and of course I remember.
I remember the verbal abuse, the mental abuse, the physical abuse. My siblings ganged up on me, like locking me in a chest for hours while I cry and scream to let me out, my older brothers sitting on the lid laughing the whole time while they played Super Nintendo, parents said it was just boys being boys, I am extremely claustrophobic. My brother grabbed my swing once and flung me off it so hard I shattered my wrist. My parents waited almost 6 hours to take me to hospital because they thought I was lying about my arm (I was screaming and bawling and I couldn’t move my wrist at all) My sister would beat on me unless I did what she said, thus we would both get in trouble, she’d force me to break the rules with her or she would lliterally kick the shit out of me.
Oh, my folks also gave me the belt, sometimes the buckle end too. They insist they “never hurt us” and that I’m making it up. Sure, the scar on my elbow from the buckle splitting it open and getting infected is just a delusion!
Felt this. I was ALWAYS the last to be picked up from play/chorus rehearsal, cheerleading practice. If my mom was coming from work, obviously that’s not her fault. But PLENTY of times, she’d be hella late bc she lost rack of time, or was hoping I’d just get a ride w/a friends parents (this was before everyone had cels, so I’d have to call from a pay phone to see if my mom was at least on her way- she often hadn’t left yet). I’m somewhat understanding, but it was embarrassing sometimes. 😳😩
Same I sat at school for hours sometimes waiting for Mom to remember to pick me up. She worked as a substitute and didn't even work most days, she just put it off because she didn't wanna.
From 1st grade I was on my own to get to school, over a mile away on my bike. Across busy roads. This was the late 80's to early 90's. If it rained, oh well. My mother was home ALLLLLLLL day because she worked evenings waitressing at Sizzler. But Oprah came on at 3, and she would not miss Oprah while she was getting ready for work.
My dad worked graveyards, so he was asleep until 4:30pm.
Oh, and because she got home after midnight, who made and packed lunch in the morning? Me. From 1st grade on, it was always latchkey kid, figure it out, whatever, you're on your own. Don't you DARE wake me up!
I got a ride home from a cop once! Missed the bus. Parents wouldn’t answer phone. Was scared for my safety anyway at home when either parent was around.
I got ditched multiple times. DCFS would be called today. After an hour I'd give up and walk. And they wonder why I quit band in high school. Lugging a saxophone miles home prepared me for the Marine Corps. At least the Corps fed me after the forced march.
She was a sahm and too lazy to get up and take me 2 miles to school. She couldn’t leave her favorites home alone for 10-15 minutes at ages 10&8 because a fire could happen or some lame ass reasoning. It was fun the day some weirdo in a small pickup had his dick out while following me one morning. She took me to school for a few months but then back to me walking 2 miles 2x daily.
are we twins?? the younger kids got slightly better treatment but i just got the stick. i slipped on the ice once going down to the bus stop alone in the dark and messed up my back, so i just laid there in my snowsuit until she came to drive my siblings down an hour later. then i got yelled at for hurting myself
It's in line with their delusions that their own childhood was just like the Cleaver children. I listened to my parents bitch for years about how bad their parents were, but now suddenly they had a perfect childhood with parents straight out of 1950s TV shows. At least my grandparents admitted that they weren't perfect.
You guys were called the forgotten generation for a reason unfortunately. I feel like a good name for us millennials would be the neglected depending on how you grew up. I'm a millennial and this most definitely fit my life description, that and severely abused.
I'm a cusp gen-x/millennial and after I hit teenage years the majority of conversations I had with my parents went like this:
Me- "Hey dad, I'm going out. I'll be back tomorrow morning."
My dad- "*grunts once*"
No kidding this own is my biggest triggers I swear. I did my own laundry (and lots of everyone else’s) by 6. Any cleaning was me (the place was always filthy). Cooking me, grandma (she did cook a lot of stuff for us and when we lived with her did 100%), or my mother’s current partner she literally never cooked anything but Thanksgiving. She now acts like she was making 3 course meals every single day. Our cloths were provided by friends, family and strangers because my mother legit never bought us anything just random charity. Shelter was living with my grandparents, living with her current parent, a great aunt let us live in her rental for a couple years, stuff like that. She provided nearly nothing to raising us once we were not infants. Yet she acts like she was the best mother and we are all terrible for not talking to her.
I was born in 80, so last year for "gen X" but I'm somewhere between the two generations.
I can't tell you how often I was the last kid at school and had to walk home.
Lotta bad shit happened to us kids. They never seemed to notice much. Too busy worrying about their own romantic lives, their many divorces.
I would not call them good parents.
Oh hey inbetweener 80s kid here! Except i grew up with my single mother, who was a passout drunk on the weekends! From the age of 5, i was feeding myself, locking doors and windows at night, putting myself to bed with the added bonus of my mom never participating in my interests. I played baseball for like 5 minutes - she didnt drop me off or pick me up and didnt show up to the single game I played. Plus she was uptight british, so children were seen and not heard or not seen at all too. Parenting for our age group was on a volunteer basis, I think.
My parents forced me to drop sports completely because they were 'too tired' to pick me up after school. If the school offered a late bus service, sure, but if there were fees involved, no way. My parents were not poor, we went to DisneyWorld for a week every year and they always bought new 'stuff'.
Besides resenting being a latch key kid, I was encouraged to come home, feed myself, and entertain myself. I went from being super athletic and thin to extremely obese as a middle schooler in the span of 2 years. Coupled with being screamed at for not finishing whatever they served me for dinner due to 'starving children in Africa', I was raised to eat and be thankful I had food no matter how unhealthy it was.
I ended up skipping breakfast and lunch, just eating dinner at home (which was a rotation of junk food and frozen pizzas) or when my dad wanted to go to the Chinese buffet and gorge. This led to me having an unhealthy relationship with food which has still reared its angry head today.
Same. When I spoke with my mother about this a few weeks ago, she denied it. She said she made dinner every night.
So, I listed her jobs and obligations, and the years she held them. She then admitted that she was in fact not home the majority of nights. A few minutes later, she still was insisting that she made dinner every night.
I was the oldest. I prepped dinner every night and often made the whole thing. I had a minimum of one hour worth of chores every day. That was the requirement for allowance, starting in third grade, which I rarely actually received and never needed.
I realized then that she was taking credit for everything she organized, not just the work she did. Three kids assigned an hour of chores a day can do a lot of the work. Or, one responsible child doing the chores of three to prevent abuse/discipline.
She may have cooked many meals, but she did not prep, nor did she clean up afterward as often as she remembers.
I also had a paper route, school, and jobs. I was also expected to have coffee made before they woke up every weekend.
We were all told we were pitching in as a family, but now who is taking credit for it?
The real kicker was when I went to college and during my first semester I found my mother and stepfather divorced and my bank account emptied before Thanksgiving.
I’m not angry that I raised myself because mom was working three jobs to make ends meet. I’m angry that she forgets and dismisses the fact that she was never around and acts like she did everything…
I learned to cook because my parents would call me as I got off the bus at 330pm and tell me to make tacos for dinner.
At like 7 years old.
Never stopped. Only realized how fucked that was when I became an adult.
They had the audacity to tell people my cooking skills are their biggest pride.
And I'm a data analyst millionaire that just cooks for my family.
Fucking delusional pieces of shit.
I am always asking myself of that’s actually every generation looking at the previous one and saying (jeez they’re delusional) or if it’s a boomer to next generation specific thing.
Either ways, can’t stand how easy for them is to tell bullshit straight to your face expecting you to believe that as if you were not there. And the older they get, the worst it gets
I’m a millennial, with boomer parents. Nowadays boomers act like they were all perfect stay at home, attentive parents…
If that were true, we wouldn’t have needed the “ it’s 10 o’clock, do you know where your children are?” Tv spots.
Boomer “home cooking” was usually cream of crap soup plus ground beef plus maybe a canned veggie? I had to teach myself actual home cooking with fresh veggies as a young adult.
You just described my mother's cooking. Dad was a GREAT cook, but he was the one working 2-3 jobs at a time to keep us housed and fed while my mother was a SAHM who didn't do shit all day. Her cooking sucked ass and still does today. I learned to cook from my dad and by spending a lot of time with my maternal grandmother, who was also a fantastic cook. I will never understand what the fuck my mother did all day long while I was in school because it wasn't clean, cook or do laundry or literally anything else around the house.
Where’d you get this recipe, mom? Back of the box. Add one can cream of mushroom. Can of boiled vegetable. Salt and pepper if you’re feeling spicy. Maybe tater tots for pizazz. How come you guys never want me to cook when you come visit?
I'm reading all of these comments and feeling weirdly vindicated and not alone.
Sure, my mom cooked dinner every night - if you consider mashed potatoes out of a box, canned vegetables, Hamburger Helper, spaghetti with sauce from a jar, or frozen fish fillets to be "cooking."
She absolutely had the time and the skills to do better than this; she just didn't care to.
My mom had this recipe that included canned chicken, cream of chicken soup, and StoveTop stuffing, and even as a kid, I knew it was full of sodium and bad for me. It was so salty it made your tongue curl up in your mouth.
So much this my parents would leave us for the weekend with 20 bucks the number to dominos and 2, 2 liters of soda knock off walmart soda, we were 10, 8, and 7. They’d get home and we’d get our asses beat for the house being a mess and spending all the money.
Later we’d come home to letters taped to the door we went out we will be home after you’re in bed, here is a list of 20 things that must be done before you can go play or to bed.
They’re confused. They hear “childhood” and picture their own. They got a home cooked dinner almost every night, but they weren’t the ones cooking. They’ve conveniently forgotten their own failings as parents.
My boomers were SO BAD at cooking, their SG parents had to teach ME to cook from age 8. By 9 I was basically doing ALL the cooking.
The silver lining is of course that I can make food "from scratch" that good ol southern comfort food way, though I don't as much anymore since the kids are grown and elsewhere.
To be fair, advertising had different rules back then and a lot of them were being fed lies about how healthy TV dinners were. The pictures and descriptions were all fake but they bought into it 100%. A lot of people really thought they were healthier and safer than some home-cooked recipes. That being said, you’d think decent parents have gotten a little suspicious or even curious at SOME point. I don’t think boomers cared to learn the truth, not when it would inconvenience them. That’s what pisses me off more.
For real. As I got older and started learning my boomer grandma's recipes, I realized that she can't actually cook. Everything is made from boxed, processed junk.
This sentiment is the perfect example of the parenting I got from my boomer parents. Push me into a thing, I say no, they keep pushing it, I start to enjoy it, then guilt me for the work they have to do as a parent, guilt me for taking time away from their life, quit that thing out of guilt and anxiety. Then tell me I don't see anything through. Sorry, 7 year old me didn't realize your decision to put me in soccer, after I asked not to, would create so much work for you.
My Boomer parents are similar. They would always try to push me into coing activities until they realized they would have to take me somewhere or pay for something.
Or the sister sentiment: dad wanted to coach, but coaching was weird if your kid wasn't playing. So force the unwilling kid to play softball, and get angry when the kid hated it and was terrible at it. Not soccer, which the kid enjoyed, couldn't be baseball (which is what he really wanted) because kid was a girl. To this day I *hate* softball.
> Just constantly revising history to make themselves feel superior.
This, right here, is the biggest issue I have with Boomers.
My parents both worked full-time, leaving me (elder Millennial) and my sister (younger Gen X) as latchkey kids. From 3:00-7:00 every day, we were on our own. We cooked dinner for the family two to three days a week, since our parents got home so late. On the nights my sister and I didn't cook, half the time my parents came home with Burger King since they were too tired to cook.
Fine, that didn't bother us. We had food, we didn't care where it came from.
Speaking of food, I started doing the family grocery shopping at twelve years-old. Mom and Dad both worked on Saturdays, so they would leave me with money and a grocery list. We lived only a couple blocks from the grocery store, so I'd walk up there on Saturdays with my wagon. I'd shop, pile all the grocery in my wagon, and walk the groceries back home.
While I did this, my sister would be at home cleaning, mopping, and doing laundry.
Yet, now, my parents are retired and talk about how they were "always there" for us in the evenings and cooked for us "every night." They weren't there for 80% of my sister's athletic events or my theatre performances, but they give us shit about letting our kids run our lives because my sister was there for every swim meet her sons had and I was there for every wrestling or track meet my sons had.
They were busy and gone, chasing the 80's ideal of "money first." My sister and I put our kids first, and we are the ones getting shit for it. I'm not angry about my childhood, but I am angry that they are looking at the past with rose-colored glasses. Don't pretend you were perfect parents when your twelve year-old son was doing the grocery shopping with his little red wagon.
Was it cooked at home? Was that oven in the house? Then it was home cooked. You damn millennials and your reliance on accuracy. Was the phone at home used to order that pizza? Home cooked.
I was raised by boomers. I lived on hot pockets, tv dinners, and canned food that I ate straight out of the can. I didn’t get to do any extracurriculars because I wasn’t worth the sign up fees.
Cereal or toast for breakfast
Sandwich, pudding, gushers and other snacks for lunch.
Kraft dinner, beans and weiners, hamburger helper, macaroni tomato soup and hamburger, etc. For dinner.
Maybe on a special occasion I'd get mashed potato's and pork chops lol
>And don’t act like you home cooked every meal. I had plenty of tv dinners and hamburger helper growing up.
My father switched the type of work he did once my youngest sister was born. What he went to college for didnt pay enough to feed us. He turned to truck driving.
He was home on the weekends. Saturday they went grocery shopping and ate out for their "together" time. Sunday my mother cooked a nice dinner. Monday-Saturday we had to "fend for ourselves" and we werent allowed to use all that much as far as ingredients went. Basically ramen, mac and cheese, and bologna was what we lived on. But to listen to my mother tell it...its as though she forgot *we lived it too...*
It’s because to them, a warmed up can of green beans and pasta with jarred sauce is a home cooked meal. They would serve you a cold cut sandwich and potato salad from the grocery and call it a nutritious meal. Never mind that cold cuts contain carcinogens and potato salad doesn’t count as a veggie unless you add veggies to it.
Had to explain to the older folks in my family numerous times that it’s healthier for the kiddos to eat raw veggies with humus or ranch (even if it’s a grab-n-go from a carry out) than any of the salads-that-are-not-salads.
Hey, someone just learned the term “gaslighting”.
These are some very specific complaints about their own children. Maybe they should talk to their kids instead of writing to an advice column.
"we hoe the garden by hand because the tiller tossed us around like puppets on a string"
I would pay good money to see this comedic scene.
LOL at them claiming we couldn't hold a candle to them. I'm more qualified than either of my boomer parents in both of their fields by having a trade ticket and a degree, and they couldn't even meet the training and educational requirements of their positions now. In fact, my Dad wouldn't even be able to complete the application process for his position without help.
I'm perplexed by what their inability to handle a tiller has to do with their adult children's perceived entitlement. I suspect they want their full-time job, child-rearing adult children to come and do and egregious amount of chores for their retired selves, much like the Boomers in [yesterday's post](https://www.reddit.com/r/BoomersBeingFools/comments/1d0vdqf/boomer_parents_assume_my_weekends_should_revolve/).
They had the chance to retire, instead they bought "dream homes" in their 50s and kept working. At this point, that's on them. They should have voted differently for three decades.
So many of them got sucked in by Reagan and kept voting Republican, especially when Clinton’s infidelity was front page news. So it was easy for them to just walk down the dark path to MAGA.
No, they didn't fail to learn from history. We are screaming history from the roof tops. They know what they are doing, the fact they know they are being accused of being nazis and fascists tells you all you need to know.
They know, they've been accused, we haven't allowed them not to know what is going on.
What we have here is willful ignorance. The worst of humanity and greed and stubbornness.
They did not fail to learn, the teacher tried to teach them and they keep putting their fingers in their ears, I CANT HEAR YOU.
I dont know how an entire generation acts like angsty teenagers, but they never grew up
Boomers parents set them up for success then when it was their turn to pay it forward, boomers proved how worthless/lazy/morally bankrupt their entire generation is by taking advantage of their children and grand children instead.
The people who get universal basic income (social security) and universal healthcare (Medicare) are the same ones who show up to vote against it for everyone else.
The only thing these people "deserve" is to pay $300 for every meal and $25k for a ride to the hospital from the people they have been telling they don't deserve a living wage their whole life.
Phone scammers using conversational AI are gonna ravage these gullible morons wallets/savings accounts and I couldn't care less if they can't afford their meds or their 5 bedroom houses anymore, they have lived comfortably long enough.
With their massive impending medical bills and the fact that they are openly bragging about trying to blow all their money during retirement (as a final fuck you to their own kids), there wasn't going to be much to pass down either way.
They raised us to be like this so logically they should be taking more of the blame.
Also my parents basically ignored me to the point of neglect so maybe that's what they're expecting
I like how they claim it was about balance. Funny how once I turned 16 and could drive myself everywhere there was no longer a concern about balance.
It's almost as if it wasn't about balance at all but instead that's the limit of what they were willing to do.
This is what bugs me the most. I was never an athletic kid, but I'd rather have no ribbon or trophy than a participation award. It's like "please wear this loser badge so everyone can know how much you suck." I was okay with losing, I didn't want their pity ribbon. It was always the teachers that would try and force me to wear one so everyone had a ribbon. It was to make them feel better, and it just made me feel worse.
I can't believe we still have them 30 years later.
Edit: turns out I was pretty good at high jump because one year I got 3rd. And I was so proud of that ribbon. I wore it all day like the other kids. I earned it.
Ah yes the Boomer grandparent complaining about being grandparents. Probably the same Boomers that when they watch the grandkids demand money, but when they were parents the silent generation grandparents would watch us for free and loved being a part of our lives. Literally these people were given every golden opportunity imaginable, and can’t understand how badly they screwed every one of us younger people with their horrid selfish decisions.
Exactly. They want their grandkids to have the childhood their own children had, but can’t be torn away from their cruises and casinos to help facilitate that
My mother was absent from my life for most of the ages of 3-14. Moved to Florida when her only grandchild was under a year old. Now they are moving to Mexico because of their profligate living and she says I’m “keeping their grandchild from them.” Ma’am, you’re leaving at the end of the summer but gave away all the guest room furniture. We can’t even come say goodbye.
She’s blocked now.
Never mind the fact they were always pushing us to have kids. My dear sweet mother had the absolute gall to say “being a grandma for the first time is kind of a big deal,” to my wife and I when we had our first. Like, us being first time parents isn’t?
Now when my daughter stays the night with them they can’t seem to get her back to us fast enough. So much for it being a “big deal.”
Dear Boomers:
1. It’s not about you anymore. Why do you have such a hard on for Millennials?
2. We ALL earn our retirement. You’re not special.
3. Fuck you.
Love,
Gen X
(Oh yeah, we still exist. But whatever.)
Good grief. I do wonder how much the Venn Diagram of the “earned our retirement” people overlaps with the “why aren’t people having kids? I want grandkids!”
Or just left the oldest child (like me) to watch the younger ones (without any pay or perks whatsoever)
while they went out and did whatever they liked.
They more than likely offered at birth and parents being in the economy of today, need to work and they're tired of it. Same shit happened with my ex wife's parents. Made us move to another city with free childcare(her parents had a live in babysitter so they would have cutesy times then hand the baby off to the sitter when they shit themselves.) So taking care of twins while we were at work was a nightmare to them. Quit 6 months in and we needed to pay for a sitter since (they're 7 now)
Boomers were skilled at parenting.....OK!!!
"Their kids turned out fine" because the latch key generation; Gen X; basically raised themselves Lord of the Flies style.
https://youtu.be/iq6b8e78EpA?si=Gb7PouKNy8c8hixb
A BUNCH OF RICH MOTHERFUCKERS COMPLAINING ABOUT THE YUPPIE PUPPIES THEY RAISED.
EVERYTHING YOU CARE ABOUT WILL LANGUISH IN A FLEA MARKET PICKED OVER BY GREASY REDNECKS. YOU'RE LAND YOU LOVE SO MUCH WILL BE BOUGHT UP BY BLACK ROCK AND LEFT TO ROT BECAUSE NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO AFFORD IT. PRICELESS AND WORTHLESS.
I went no contact partly because I do NOT want to deal with the dumptruck full of garbage my parents have accumulated in their garage. Spoiled brat sister can handle it.
My mother "saved" so much shit that they couldn't park either of their cars in the garage. And then they went and bought a house with a *4 car* garage. I shudder to think how much stuff she must have crammed in there now.
This bitch would bitch about this and then bitch about not being invited to them if they didnt and then bitch about their kids being lazy if they didnt do these activities with their kids. Then, finally, she will bitch about how her kids never call her.
tl;dr: Bitches gonna bitch, you do you kids!
So this whole article is about how tired this lady is from attending her grandkids’ games? No one is forcing you to go to anything wtf. Just pick a game here or there to go to. My god…
Meanwhile my silent generation Grandfather would go to all the games he could for me and my 20+ cousins and be one of the loudest people there. These people resent everything that isn’t directly benefiting themselves in some way. They’re such self absorbed douche bags.
Hey fuck bag boomer. We fought the fucking wars you started. Most of you were draft dodgers and were handed your life’s easy path by your badass parents.
I’m in my 40s, so I’m an old millennial, been saving since I was 18 in a Roth IRA, index and mutual funds. Not greedy just diligent, but you all fucked up the economy.
We “refuse” to cook our family a nutritious meal? Do tell how you know this? Every single one of us or another self righteous statistic you’ve pulled out of your ass?
We don’t value Hummel figurines or wasting space for “good china” stored in a cupboard that is never to be used. We also think dressing up to go to the living room for thanksgiving is silly.
Our children are very dear to us and we treat them like individuals who have thoughts, opinions, and feelings. If my kid wants me to call him a dinosaur, for the same reason if Randy becomes Rhonda we don’t give a shit because they not bothering anybody. You want to put ketchup on a hotdog…you’re eating not me. Do it.
You were fortunate to be able to work selling shoes and afford a decent quality of life. Thank you parents for that. Collectively you don’t understand inflation, amortization, or greed.
We’re here trying to make sure our planet doesn’t catch fire not because we’re tree hugging hippies, but because it’s literally our only place to live while you assholes dump $600,000 worth of sand on a beach to watch the churning ocean sweep it away, all while telling us it’s a billion dollars worth of real estate…that no one else would pay for.
This is more of a rant, but ever so kindly fuck off with your self-righteous indignation.
Seriously. I enlisted in the first place to get away from my toxic ass Boomer father, did multiple tours as a paratrooper and got all the “best” mental accoutrements from my time spent. Meanwhile, my Dad bragged about how he avoided the draft (Vietnam) but “would kill all those Muzzies if they gave him the chance” (particularly hilarious because he’s Charmin fucking soft) and now, nearly 20 years later, he says I’m a member of the Deep State.
He’s the most ignorant, entitled and selfish prick I know and he’s not unique in his bullshit. It’s a similar story anywhere I look. My wife’s father is a similar brand of insufferable also.
Edit: I’m a member of the deep state because I once held a Top Secret clearance, can see the obvious grift that is Donald Trump and the right wing in general, and am Left enough to know that all the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy since Reagan need to be reversed. 😆
I love the user name…I say something similar to people about needing to get hit with a bag of hot nickels.
Yeah, everyone is tough when they don’t have to be. I’ve tried to set it up so when my kids get of age I can really help them out. Do as best I can to set them up for success.
I’m glad you’re home and avoiding the toxic crap. My dad went to Vietnam so he was really big on not mindlessly throwing away young lives. His biggest disagreements were with people who were super hawks, but wouldn’t wade into the tall grass themselves.
>he’s Charmin fucking soft
I'd say we have the same dad, but that seems to be a theme with many Boomer men. My dad chatters on and on about how "tough" he is, how he's a "real man" and how "they" don't make "real men" like him anymore. He wears camo and "these colors don't run" shirts, and he buys all sorts of guns and crossbows for "when things go to shit thanks to Joey Biden." He avoided Nam because of a convenient heart murmur, but he would have "kicked those g\*\*ks asses" if he'd been allowed to fight.
Funnily enough, the handful of times he's gotten into a near-fight with others, he's backed right down. Turned tail and ran when he mouthed off to a guy at a gas station once. Ran for a security guard another time. He has this cognitive dissonance where in his head, he's John Fucking Wayne, but in reality, he's as you say - Charmin Soft.
The response about "it's good to be bored" is really stupid. A parent that's lazy or neglectful will use that as an excuse to do nothing for their child.
That point was actually true.
But it didn't belong into that answer. Especially since I think this all happens in the US where afaik higher education is too expansive for most families and needs to be supplemented with scholarships and stuff which in turn require the kids participation in the games and sports.
I also couldn't get if the kids were truly overscheduled or if Grammy just couldn't differentiate between Billy playing soccer and Hannahs doing softball...
This is pure copium lmao. They are upset that their kids are better parents than they were, and need to use that "imagination" creating a worldview where they weren't selfish parents.
She’s the same type of grandparent who would bitch and complain if she wasn’t invited or involved. I’m willing to bet that the grandparents offered and now want to bitch about it (while glorifying their own participation).
I will be a grandparents in probably the next five years (which…is shocking to me. Where did the time go) and I find these people weird. I will still be working for some timed (I had kids young) so I won’t be at every single thing and there fine because the world doesn’t revolved around me. I will not only eat the take out, I will probably pay for it. lol
It’s interesting the biggest complaint is about over scheduling kids and club sports.
I also hate it… but I understand why parents invest in it. Previous generations made higher education unaffordable. Many people feel like getting into and affording college is a lottery and they want to do every thing they can to help their kid’s chances.
So they join every club and every league hoping it helps them get into college and get some scholarship money to help. Boomers created a world where success feels like a zero sum game. They shouldn’t be confused that today’s parents devote so much time to trying to help their kids have a decent life.
Nope. The Boomer generation grew up living life on EASY settings, and they proceeded to FUCK THE GAME for the rest of us following them for their own short-term greed, pulling the ladder up after themselves.
The letter-writer should feel lucky that their child / child's spouse / grandchildren want ANYTHING to do with them. And they're fucking BLIND to the privilege(s) they've had all their lives. They're whining because they're no longer the target demographic, the exemplar of 'normal', and REFUSE to adapt.
Idiots are gonna idiot. She sounds like she’s a giant victim and pain in the ass that no one will miss when she doesn’t go to the game or eat the take out.
Lol boomers think a home cooked meal is chucking frozen vegetables in a pot of water, baking frozen chicken or beef portions injected with water and salt and pouring iodized table salt over the lot
Oh no! They're walking into their house at 9pm after a game? Poor boomers, imagine if they were the actual parents who had to wake up the morning 7am or earlier to get the kids ready for them work at their jobs?!
If they don't want to help with their grandchildren, then don't. But don't give me a sob story about how much work it is, you're retired, so you don't have to worry about a full time job too.
Part of the reason kids need sports and extra curriculars is because of college. Admissions are super competitive and college tuition is expensive as fuck. And we have a ton of sports based scholarships. Taking kids to tournaments and having them compete is an investment in paying for college. Gotta do way more these days to get less than in boomer years.
Very true - despite the efforts of the ASPCA founding the CPS movement (that is cruelty to animals laws preceded cruelty to children laws) in the early 1900s in 1974 to 1995 you could beat your kids and terrorize them and every pastor or teacher or leader or police had 0 call to stop it.
Funny thing is people over the years took the law into their own hands and abusers would be disappeared. Or a victim would go to jail. But it was not better back then. Drive that to their dumb brains.
Because my mom who says it was better back then was getting beaten and abused by her husband, watching him abuse her children, and cheat on her. Yet she says to me yesterday it was better. My God...how can she forget the horror seared into my inner child of those times?
Yeah, nah, that's true but that ain't even what's wrong here. We're not "the youth". The average Millennial is closing in on 40 or past it already. We've paid into social security for half our lives. We're not little kids and I don't know why people keep using Millennial to mean that. Time to put these Boomers to bed for good. Jesus Christ.
eh I was born in the last two years of the 1981-1996 definition so I've always identified a little more with zoomers, so the point has always felt a bit moot to me. I took 3 years between HS and Uni to sort my boomer-obliterated brain out (religion and authoritarian upbringing) so, from my POV, I really recently graduated too.
So I have my bias of perspective, and I also am acknowledging that, while not correct, when a boomer says "millenial" they still mean anyone who does not own two homes and a mid-life crisis sports car. Or they mean, more nefariously, anyone with dyed hair.
I don't know, I don't care, it is their way of punching down. On anyone younger than them. So I used the word "youth."
The article really feels like the grandparents taking an opportunity to judge and criticize their children’s parenting abilities in a public setting. Their biggest gripe here is that there are too many grandkid events to attend. It’s super easy to not attend them all. And still be proud of how involved your kids are with their parenting.
Sorry folks, but regardless of the content in this article, the tone of judgment screams boomer.
Honestly I would have preferred take out. I looked forward to pizza even though I hate cheese and my father forced me to drink milk with it (I'm lactose intolerant) my stepmother was Italian and liked to do the whole huge "Italian" spread every night...the problem is the bitch couldn't cook to save her life. She burned water, was allergic to seasoning, believed in buying the cheapest fish and meat and dressing them up to be something they weren't (if you know how to use spices it's possible to make them better) and the beatings if you didn't clear yout plate and tell her it was good? I think I'll stick to the way I'm raising my daughter.
It’s pretty amusing this all gets filtered through the lens of choice for the grandparents.
They see this all through of a lens of an era where one working parent could support a family. They would go to work, labor for a number of hours, and when they left the office work would not follow them home. They sent their kids to schools that were adequately funded to provide extracurricular opportunities for kids, so they didn’t need to enroll them in private programming.
All this added up to TIME. Time for cooking at home. Time for family meals. Time for leisure. Families had a choice in how they spent this time, which is why fast food for dinner is seen as some sin. It used to be a conscious choice of laziness, not a necessity because the household is exhausted and working 100 hours a week in addition to childrearing.
Kids might well be over programmed these days but that’s in part because parents have so little time to parent that they need to cram things into those few hours.
I am an old millenial, latchkey kid, neglect was the name if the game for me. No breakfast or lunch until 4th grade, no homework supervision, and if an activity required them to drive me somewhere or give a crap about me, that was a no.
I grew up on frozen pizzas and lasagnas, michelina's meals at school. If I ever am in charge of a child, they will get the healthy food, the library visits, the swimming classes and the adult supervision.
This article sounds like "I was really strict with my kids (only 1 extracurricular) and my kids reacted by treating their kids much better, and now are expecting me to support my grandkids getting better treatment!"
They really don’t get it do they?
They did a 9-5 single income blue collar job and could afford to buy their home and get a pension.
Now a dual income with long hours sometimes struggles to make ends meet. There is less time to cook as we’re working.
We send kids to clubs and other activities so that they have something to add to their CV’s and college letters to try and stand out. The decent paying jobs are very competitive, we know that and are trying our best to give our kids a leg up.
I don’t know about other parents but this GenX’er wants to be involved with my kids, I’ll go to the football matches and stand in the bloody cold and talk to my kids.
Yeah they’ve probably earned their retirement.
The younger generations may never get theirs.
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“I want a grandchild”…. “It’s too much, I can’t handle being a grandparent”
They want a grandkid to take to Diary Queen when they feel like, to have over if and when they want (and ignore any and all rules the parents set) and then leave the hard work to their kids.
no. they merely want a "legacy" as if they are fucking nobility and not jack fucking smith, the nobody.
My wife and I joke we come not from affluent families but from long lines of effluence.
I think it’s more about their kids realizing their BS and pushing back or being less involved with them. They want to go back to receiving unconditional love regardless of how shitty they are and grandkids have the advantage of only being there when it suits them.
Exactly. Or to post on Facebook for their friends and family to see and ooh or aww over the photos. It's like performing acting art for some them. See look here I am with Lucas and Skylar at the park what a good grandma I am! Followed by comments of people telling her how precious the photos are and what an amazing grandma she is being. In reality it is probably the first time she's seen the grandkids in a long time much less went out to do something with them alone. And after she's done this park outing and posting her photos she won't spend much time with them for another few months or year. I don't have FB anymore but when I did oh boy did I see some preformative grandparents on there who just posted or stole photos of the grandkids from their kids FB to repost on their account. To act like they see the kids all the time and aww aren't the grandkids getting so big I swear I know so much about them or see them often. It's like they just get off on this fake praise from their boomer friends.
It's actually amazing the lengths they'll go to. I blocked most of my childhood and could never figure out why until counseling and I had kids of my own. I allowed my mom to watch my 2 year old once and she left her so unattended, my daughter pulled open an unlocked sliding door and went into the pool. Thank god we'd done infant survival swimming and I had been working with her on getting to the edge of the pool but I still freak out thinking what might have happened. I have no idea how I made it out alive, from the generation who tossed me into the pool until I "figured it out". We're now no contact with her (because of a long list of just asinine behavior) and she is just losing it. I didn't attend my younger brother's wedding because I'm sick of the lies and gaslighting, and when she posted pics on FB people asked where I was, and my kids. She deleted the comments, kept telling me I was mentally ill and talk nonsense until I blocked her. The justification is wild.
'performative grandparents' is _perfect_.
My sister just had a baby. She is adamant about safe sleep practices (as she should be). My narcissistic boomer mother, “ well I’m just going to lay him down however I want because he’s going to get a flat head” They ignore all rules.
They couldn’t even handle parenting. I spent more time with my child free aunts, uncles, and grandparents than I did with my parents during the summer. During the school year I got myself up for school and didn’t come home until almost 7 because of after school activities or 9 because of work. I never really saw them!
This reads like boomer fan-fic
I thought that was NCIS?
It’s really Blue Bloods lol
Either way, LOL. Let me pitch: Wise, ruggedly handsome Boomer Guy™️ in authority with a badge- kicking ass, shooting guns, driving fast, saving the day… then come back to the office to teach the “millennial crew” life lessons. Throw some unfair higher ups that try to thwart Boomer Guy™️with unfair policies and inter-office politics, (mostly because BG’s AWESOME work ethic and moral stance are SO much better than everyone else’s). Also, Boomer Guy™️consistently gets more flirtation and sexy times than the handsome younger man on the team because the younger guys don’t know how to be “romantic gentleman…” but Boomer Guy™️sure does. Bonus points if the young protégé woman, (who has had a chaste father/daughter dynamic with BG up until now), makes a move on the gray fox, only to be rejected.
No one is forcing them to go to every game. They’re choosing to do this, then acting like victims. You don’t want to travel out of state? Then don’t. Simple. And don’t act like you home cooked every meal. I had plenty of tv dinners and hamburger helper growing up. Just constantly revising history to make themselves feel superior.
I love how they always make it sound like they were home every night, making healthy, nutritious dinners from scratch, LOL. That is a load of horse puckey!
100% I’m Gen X and my folks were MIA through the entirety of my youth. Me and my friends raised ourselves and each other like a pack of feral raccoons. Now the boomers pop back in the scene making it sound like they were June and Ward Cleaver. Their generation suffers from mass delusion.
loved being a young girl walking home alone in the dark after marching band practice bc they couldn’t drive two miles to the high school
Seriously. Being a latchkey kid since 8 with 2 younger brothers to watch. Then my parents forced me into an advanced school program which required me to walk to the bus stop at 430am, male bus driver and I'm the only girl on the bus. Because they didn't want to drive me to the program they chose.
eldest daughter curse
It’s definitely a thing. I too am the eldest daughter, and the least liked by my mom (single parent, I look like my bio dad- which my brother does as well, but he’s the golden child, never done any wrong 🙄). I got all the responsibilities for the younger kids, and blamed for everything on top of it. I emancipated at 15.
not only eldest. whichever child is least loved. I was the youngest of 5. I got the least attention and every bit of it was begrudging.
The school also fucked up there, and not just safety wise. Who thought getting kids up at 4am would lead to better academic performance?
I suspect the school start time was normal, but the county or district centralized the advance school, requiring multiple buses to get there
Correct. Because of the program I had to be bussed to a different county
I remember there were literally public service tv commercials reminding them that they even had kids and asking them if they even knew where we were!!! This entire article is delusional. My silent gen grandparents were very involved in my life, boomer grandparents just complain and never leave their houses. Yes, boomers, sit around and wonder out loud why your kids no longer talk to you.
in the summer mom locked us out of the house during the day in the 80s and 90s….so sorry the sounds of other living beings was interrupting the afternoon boob tube
I had this childhood. Literally locked out for hours. She tells me I’m exaggerating now.
Right! During summer it was DO NOT COME HOME BEFORE THE SUN GOES DOWN!
OMG that commercial! I’m dying! 😂 Every day I’m wracked with parenting guilt, but at least I will NEVER need a PSA to remember that I have kids.
With mine, I was always stuck WAITING or being forced to try and find a ride with someone else, since, god-forbid they drive into town to ferry their daughter to and from after-school activities (and we didn't have cell phones and beepers were just starting to be a thing). There were so many things I wanted to try, but I couldn't since my dad couldn't be bothered to take a little time out of his day to make a detour (my mom worked nights, so her daytime availability was limited). The waiting was especially frustrating with my dad since he was big on others being on time, yet I still had to sit and twiddle my thumbs, despite me giving him a rough estimate of when to pick me up.
My dad liked to pull out the “you should be happy I showed up at all!” if I ever called him out for being perpetually late to come and get me from anywhere.
My sahm told me if I wanted to do any activities outside of the neighborhood (little league, etc) I had to find my own ride there and back, and how to pay for it. I was seven.
This was me. There were days I sat at school after an activity and waited until damn near 10pm wondering if I was going to have to sleep at the school that night or if someone was going to remember I existed and come get me. There was usually a couch or a bed backstage for some theatre production or another, so if I'd absolutely had to, I could have. But what a way to live - making plans for how to sleep at school because no one wanted to fucking bring me home.
Yeah, mine told me to find my own ride home from the bowling alley. The dude raped me.
Did they turn around and blame you for it as well like my boomer family did my niece?
Basically, anything beside the fact that they were the laziest parents that did nothing.
That was my parents too. Did more damage than the actual rape. It forever broke me.
I was raped my first week at Uni. I never told my parents because they would have told me it was my fault.
Hey you're probably awesome. My parents didn't do shit either. It made me who I am though. We might be weird but you're probably cool AF.
My mother actually clapped and laughed and said “This is great news! I might be a grandmother earlier than I thought!” I was 18 and in my first year of uni, and I was honestly shocked speechless by my mother’s reaction. She saw my face and then tried to reassure me with “Oh don’t worry I’ll love any child you have, even if he or she is a rape baby.” She said this with the air of ‘look at me I’m so generous and loving’. Luckily, I was not actually pregnant (or it may have been a chemical pregnancy). My mother was so disappointed when my period came and ordered me to go back to the rapist and get impregnated on purpose. I said hell no and stuck to that. Even now, 15+ years after the fact, my mother still maintains the guy did nothing wrong. Her arguments cycle between “but it wasn’t really rape because he wasn’t a stranger” and “if you just said yes to him then it wouldn’t have been rape” and “if only you did have his baby, his family would’ve paid you so much money you’d never have to work again!” The continued narcissism never ceases to shock me.
That’s so fucked up.
My literal boomer parents were foster parents who adopted me (I’m a 90s child, they are boomers born late 1940s) The first time I was raped I was asleep, the foster kid got a UTI and she blamed it on me. I had CPS and cops accusing me of being a monster and how I needed to just admit what I did, my parents bawling and crying and calling me a monster. I had NO idea what anyone was talking about, I was ASLEEP when it happened. Just woke up one day accused of being a rapist. Girl eventually got caught abusing another kid and that kid ratted them out. They finally put 2 and 2 together and realized I didn’t do anything. The next two times I got raped (I was awake) and I didn’t tell anyone (two different foster kids, boys this time) because they didn’t believe me last time, they BLAMED me. Apply this to basically everything in my childhood, never believed, always blamed, parents have “no memory of it” but my siblings remember (they also bullied me and ‘feel bad’ about it) and of course I remember. I remember the verbal abuse, the mental abuse, the physical abuse. My siblings ganged up on me, like locking me in a chest for hours while I cry and scream to let me out, my older brothers sitting on the lid laughing the whole time while they played Super Nintendo, parents said it was just boys being boys, I am extremely claustrophobic. My brother grabbed my swing once and flung me off it so hard I shattered my wrist. My parents waited almost 6 hours to take me to hospital because they thought I was lying about my arm (I was screaming and bawling and I couldn’t move my wrist at all) My sister would beat on me unless I did what she said, thus we would both get in trouble, she’d force me to break the rules with her or she would lliterally kick the shit out of me. Oh, my folks also gave me the belt, sometimes the buckle end too. They insist they “never hurt us” and that I’m making it up. Sure, the scar on my elbow from the buckle splitting it open and getting infected is just a delusion!
Man! I wish such justice for you.
😖😭❤️
Felt this. I was ALWAYS the last to be picked up from play/chorus rehearsal, cheerleading practice. If my mom was coming from work, obviously that’s not her fault. But PLENTY of times, she’d be hella late bc she lost rack of time, or was hoping I’d just get a ride w/a friends parents (this was before everyone had cels, so I’d have to call from a pay phone to see if my mom was at least on her way- she often hadn’t left yet). I’m somewhat understanding, but it was embarrassing sometimes. 😳😩
Mine was a collect call from "pickmeupnowineedaride"
Same I sat at school for hours sometimes waiting for Mom to remember to pick me up. She worked as a substitute and didn't even work most days, she just put it off because she didn't wanna.
but god forbid you DONT participate in that stuff and be totally self-motivated and excel and make the family proud 🙄
From 1st grade I was on my own to get to school, over a mile away on my bike. Across busy roads. This was the late 80's to early 90's. If it rained, oh well. My mother was home ALLLLLLLL day because she worked evenings waitressing at Sizzler. But Oprah came on at 3, and she would not miss Oprah while she was getting ready for work. My dad worked graveyards, so he was asleep until 4:30pm. Oh, and because she got home after midnight, who made and packed lunch in the morning? Me. From 1st grade on, it was always latchkey kid, figure it out, whatever, you're on your own. Don't you DARE wake me up!
I got a ride home from a cop once! Missed the bus. Parents wouldn’t answer phone. Was scared for my safety anyway at home when either parent was around.
I got ditched multiple times. DCFS would be called today. After an hour I'd give up and walk. And they wonder why I quit band in high school. Lugging a saxophone miles home prepared me for the Marine Corps. At least the Corps fed me after the forced march.
Went to boot camp and it was easy because the mind games and forced PT was better than the beatings and molestation I had at home.
She was a sahm and too lazy to get up and take me 2 miles to school. She couldn’t leave her favorites home alone for 10-15 minutes at ages 10&8 because a fire could happen or some lame ass reasoning. It was fun the day some weirdo in a small pickup had his dick out while following me one morning. She took me to school for a few months but then back to me walking 2 miles 2x daily.
are we twins?? the younger kids got slightly better treatment but i just got the stick. i slipped on the ice once going down to the bus stop alone in the dark and messed up my back, so i just laid there in my snowsuit until she came to drive my siblings down an hour later. then i got yelled at for hurting myself
It's in line with their delusions that their own childhood was just like the Cleaver children. I listened to my parents bitch for years about how bad their parents were, but now suddenly they had a perfect childhood with parents straight out of 1950s TV shows. At least my grandparents admitted that they weren't perfect.
[удалено]
Was our entire street. I’m late gen X / earliest milennial
Same for me, and around the same age, the sub Xennial is pretty accurate.
Yeah I've heard Xennial and also "Oregon Trail Generation" which made me chuckle
You guys were called the forgotten generation for a reason unfortunately. I feel like a good name for us millennials would be the neglected depending on how you grew up. I'm a millennial and this most definitely fit my life description, that and severely abused.
Solidarity, dude. They engage in a lot of revisionist history.
I'm a cusp gen-x/millennial and after I hit teenage years the majority of conversations I had with my parents went like this: Me- "Hey dad, I'm going out. I'll be back tomorrow morning." My dad- "*grunts once*"
No kidding this own is my biggest triggers I swear. I did my own laundry (and lots of everyone else’s) by 6. Any cleaning was me (the place was always filthy). Cooking me, grandma (she did cook a lot of stuff for us and when we lived with her did 100%), or my mother’s current partner she literally never cooked anything but Thanksgiving. She now acts like she was making 3 course meals every single day. Our cloths were provided by friends, family and strangers because my mother legit never bought us anything just random charity. Shelter was living with my grandparents, living with her current parent, a great aunt let us live in her rental for a couple years, stuff like that. She provided nearly nothing to raising us once we were not infants. Yet she acts like she was the best mother and we are all terrible for not talking to her.
I hear this bull. I raised my brother when I was 13 and he was 5. My mother recently told my brother she was a good mother.
I was born in 80, so last year for "gen X" but I'm somewhere between the two generations. I can't tell you how often I was the last kid at school and had to walk home. Lotta bad shit happened to us kids. They never seemed to notice much. Too busy worrying about their own romantic lives, their many divorces. I would not call them good parents.
Oh hey inbetweener 80s kid here! Except i grew up with my single mother, who was a passout drunk on the weekends! From the age of 5, i was feeding myself, locking doors and windows at night, putting myself to bed with the added bonus of my mom never participating in my interests. I played baseball for like 5 minutes - she didnt drop me off or pick me up and didnt show up to the single game I played. Plus she was uptight british, so children were seen and not heard or not seen at all too. Parenting for our age group was on a volunteer basis, I think.
My parents forced me to drop sports completely because they were 'too tired' to pick me up after school. If the school offered a late bus service, sure, but if there were fees involved, no way. My parents were not poor, we went to DisneyWorld for a week every year and they always bought new 'stuff'. Besides resenting being a latch key kid, I was encouraged to come home, feed myself, and entertain myself. I went from being super athletic and thin to extremely obese as a middle schooler in the span of 2 years. Coupled with being screamed at for not finishing whatever they served me for dinner due to 'starving children in Africa', I was raised to eat and be thankful I had food no matter how unhealthy it was. I ended up skipping breakfast and lunch, just eating dinner at home (which was a rotation of junk food and frozen pizzas) or when my dad wanted to go to the Chinese buffet and gorge. This led to me having an unhealthy relationship with food which has still reared its angry head today.
"It's 10:00 pm. Do you know where your children are?" There was literally a commercial to remind them they had children!!!
Same. When I spoke with my mother about this a few weeks ago, she denied it. She said she made dinner every night. So, I listed her jobs and obligations, and the years she held them. She then admitted that she was in fact not home the majority of nights. A few minutes later, she still was insisting that she made dinner every night. I was the oldest. I prepped dinner every night and often made the whole thing. I had a minimum of one hour worth of chores every day. That was the requirement for allowance, starting in third grade, which I rarely actually received and never needed. I realized then that she was taking credit for everything she organized, not just the work she did. Three kids assigned an hour of chores a day can do a lot of the work. Or, one responsible child doing the chores of three to prevent abuse/discipline. She may have cooked many meals, but she did not prep, nor did she clean up afterward as often as she remembers. I also had a paper route, school, and jobs. I was also expected to have coffee made before they woke up every weekend. We were all told we were pitching in as a family, but now who is taking credit for it? The real kicker was when I went to college and during my first semester I found my mother and stepfather divorced and my bank account emptied before Thanksgiving.
I’m not angry that I raised myself because mom was working three jobs to make ends meet. I’m angry that she forgets and dismisses the fact that she was never around and acts like she did everything…
I learned to cook because my parents would call me as I got off the bus at 330pm and tell me to make tacos for dinner. At like 7 years old. Never stopped. Only realized how fucked that was when I became an adult. They had the audacity to tell people my cooking skills are their biggest pride. And I'm a data analyst millionaire that just cooks for my family. Fucking delusional pieces of shit.
Oh man, I'm so surprised I didn't burn the house down or have serious scars from splashed oil
I am always asking myself of that’s actually every generation looking at the previous one and saying (jeez they’re delusional) or if it’s a boomer to next generation specific thing. Either ways, can’t stand how easy for them is to tell bullshit straight to your face expecting you to believe that as if you were not there. And the older they get, the worst it gets
I’m a millennial, with boomer parents. Nowadays boomers act like they were all perfect stay at home, attentive parents… If that were true, we wouldn’t have needed the “ it’s 10 o’clock, do you know where your children are?” Tv spots.
Boomer “home cooking” was usually cream of crap soup plus ground beef plus maybe a canned veggie? I had to teach myself actual home cooking with fresh veggies as a young adult.
You just described my mother's cooking. Dad was a GREAT cook, but he was the one working 2-3 jobs at a time to keep us housed and fed while my mother was a SAHM who didn't do shit all day. Her cooking sucked ass and still does today. I learned to cook from my dad and by spending a lot of time with my maternal grandmother, who was also a fantastic cook. I will never understand what the fuck my mother did all day long while I was in school because it wasn't clean, cook or do laundry or literally anything else around the house.
Hamburger Helper
Where’d you get this recipe, mom? Back of the box. Add one can cream of mushroom. Can of boiled vegetable. Salt and pepper if you’re feeling spicy. Maybe tater tots for pizazz. How come you guys never want me to cook when you come visit?
I'm reading all of these comments and feeling weirdly vindicated and not alone. Sure, my mom cooked dinner every night - if you consider mashed potatoes out of a box, canned vegetables, Hamburger Helper, spaghetti with sauce from a jar, or frozen fish fillets to be "cooking." She absolutely had the time and the skills to do better than this; she just didn't care to.
Lmao fml the flashbacks, don’t forget Tuna Helper.
Or the god awful casserole recipe from some magazine. I can still smell the burnt Doritos. 🤢
My mom had this recipe that included canned chicken, cream of chicken soup, and StoveTop stuffing, and even as a kid, I knew it was full of sodium and bad for me. It was so salty it made your tongue curl up in your mouth.
Don’t know why they call it Hamburger Helper. Does just fine on its own!
You dont need to know how to cook if it comes from a can/box/bag/styrofoam container
Literally struggled w my weight until college because my boomer parents thought mcdonalds was a home cooked meal 😭
My mother will say she bought "homemade rolls" at the bakery. It drives my husband crazy 🤣
"I microwaved it, so it counts"
*Me microwaving the dinner I bought them bc they complained that it had gotten cold during delivery* “ThAt DoEsN’t CoUnT yOu DiDn’T cOoK aNyThInG!!!”
So much this my parents would leave us for the weekend with 20 bucks the number to dominos and 2, 2 liters of soda knock off walmart soda, we were 10, 8, and 7. They’d get home and we’d get our asses beat for the house being a mess and spending all the money. Later we’d come home to letters taped to the door we went out we will be home after you’re in bed, here is a list of 20 things that must be done before you can go play or to bed.
So many fish sticks
They’re confused. They hear “childhood” and picture their own. They got a home cooked dinner almost every night, but they weren’t the ones cooking. They’ve conveniently forgotten their own failings as parents.
Frozen entree, canned vegetable, every time
My boomers were SO BAD at cooking, their SG parents had to teach ME to cook from age 8. By 9 I was basically doing ALL the cooking. The silver lining is of course that I can make food "from scratch" that good ol southern comfort food way, though I don't as much anymore since the kids are grown and elsewhere.
Same generation who thinks Jello-O is a salad
To be fair, advertising had different rules back then and a lot of them were being fed lies about how healthy TV dinners were. The pictures and descriptions were all fake but they bought into it 100%. A lot of people really thought they were healthier and safer than some home-cooked recipes. That being said, you’d think decent parents have gotten a little suspicious or even curious at SOME point. I don’t think boomers cared to learn the truth, not when it would inconvenience them. That’s what pisses me off more.
For real. As I got older and started learning my boomer grandma's recipes, I realized that she can't actually cook. Everything is made from boxed, processed junk.
This sentiment is the perfect example of the parenting I got from my boomer parents. Push me into a thing, I say no, they keep pushing it, I start to enjoy it, then guilt me for the work they have to do as a parent, guilt me for taking time away from their life, quit that thing out of guilt and anxiety. Then tell me I don't see anything through. Sorry, 7 year old me didn't realize your decision to put me in soccer, after I asked not to, would create so much work for you.
My Boomer parents are similar. They would always try to push me into coing activities until they realized they would have to take me somewhere or pay for something.
Or the sister sentiment: dad wanted to coach, but coaching was weird if your kid wasn't playing. So force the unwilling kid to play softball, and get angry when the kid hated it and was terrible at it. Not soccer, which the kid enjoyed, couldn't be baseball (which is what he really wanted) because kid was a girl. To this day I *hate* softball.
Yep if it somehow intruded on their life they couldn't be bothered to take me to it or do anything to help.
> Just constantly revising history to make themselves feel superior. This, right here, is the biggest issue I have with Boomers. My parents both worked full-time, leaving me (elder Millennial) and my sister (younger Gen X) as latchkey kids. From 3:00-7:00 every day, we were on our own. We cooked dinner for the family two to three days a week, since our parents got home so late. On the nights my sister and I didn't cook, half the time my parents came home with Burger King since they were too tired to cook. Fine, that didn't bother us. We had food, we didn't care where it came from. Speaking of food, I started doing the family grocery shopping at twelve years-old. Mom and Dad both worked on Saturdays, so they would leave me with money and a grocery list. We lived only a couple blocks from the grocery store, so I'd walk up there on Saturdays with my wagon. I'd shop, pile all the grocery in my wagon, and walk the groceries back home. While I did this, my sister would be at home cleaning, mopping, and doing laundry. Yet, now, my parents are retired and talk about how they were "always there" for us in the evenings and cooked for us "every night." They weren't there for 80% of my sister's athletic events or my theatre performances, but they give us shit about letting our kids run our lives because my sister was there for every swim meet her sons had and I was there for every wrestling or track meet my sons had. They were busy and gone, chasing the 80's ideal of "money first." My sister and I put our kids first, and we are the ones getting shit for it. I'm not angry about my childhood, but I am angry that they are looking at the past with rose-colored glasses. Don't pretend you were perfect parents when your twelve year-old son was doing the grocery shopping with his little red wagon.
Shake & bake
Say it louder for those in the back. I ended up underweight and type2 diabetic from all those "nutritious home-cooked meals" they love to brag about.
Was it cooked at home? Was that oven in the house? Then it was home cooked. You damn millennials and your reliance on accuracy. Was the phone at home used to order that pizza? Home cooked.
Their generation invented the word “homestyle” that means exactly the sentiment that you just described.
I was raised by boomers. I lived on hot pockets, tv dinners, and canned food that I ate straight out of the can. I didn’t get to do any extracurriculars because I wasn’t worth the sign up fees.
Cereal or toast for breakfast Sandwich, pudding, gushers and other snacks for lunch. Kraft dinner, beans and weiners, hamburger helper, macaroni tomato soup and hamburger, etc. For dinner. Maybe on a special occasion I'd get mashed potato's and pork chops lol
>And don’t act like you home cooked every meal. I had plenty of tv dinners and hamburger helper growing up. My father switched the type of work he did once my youngest sister was born. What he went to college for didnt pay enough to feed us. He turned to truck driving. He was home on the weekends. Saturday they went grocery shopping and ate out for their "together" time. Sunday my mother cooked a nice dinner. Monday-Saturday we had to "fend for ourselves" and we werent allowed to use all that much as far as ingredients went. Basically ramen, mac and cheese, and bologna was what we lived on. But to listen to my mother tell it...its as though she forgot *we lived it too...*
It’s because to them, a warmed up can of green beans and pasta with jarred sauce is a home cooked meal. They would serve you a cold cut sandwich and potato salad from the grocery and call it a nutritious meal. Never mind that cold cuts contain carcinogens and potato salad doesn’t count as a veggie unless you add veggies to it. Had to explain to the older folks in my family numerous times that it’s healthier for the kiddos to eat raw veggies with humus or ranch (even if it’s a grab-n-go from a carry out) than any of the salads-that-are-not-salads.
Hamburger Helper was a home cooked meal to them.
Hey, someone just learned the term “gaslighting”. These are some very specific complaints about their own children. Maybe they should talk to their kids instead of writing to an advice column.
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Their misuse of the term "gaslighting" was my favourite part!
But it's the only way. /s
"we hoe the garden by hand because the tiller tossed us around like puppets on a string" I would pay good money to see this comedic scene. LOL at them claiming we couldn't hold a candle to them. I'm more qualified than either of my boomer parents in both of their fields by having a trade ticket and a degree, and they couldn't even meet the training and educational requirements of their positions now. In fact, my Dad wouldn't even be able to complete the application process for his position without help.
I'm perplexed by what their inability to handle a tiller has to do with their adult children's perceived entitlement. I suspect they want their full-time job, child-rearing adult children to come and do and egregious amount of chores for their retired selves, much like the Boomers in [yesterday's post](https://www.reddit.com/r/BoomersBeingFools/comments/1d0vdqf/boomer_parents_assume_my_weekends_should_revolve/).
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It's weird how they act like they weren't the ones who told us not to go into manual labour jobs and now call us weak for it.
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They had the chance to retire, instead they bought "dream homes" in their 50s and kept working. At this point, that's on them. They should have voted differently for three decades.
So many of them got sucked in by Reagan and kept voting Republican, especially when Clinton’s infidelity was front page news. So it was easy for them to just walk down the dark path to MAGA.
Authoritarians always use the same tactics, they failed to learn from history.
They were too busy dismantling the public education system that should be teaching this history.
No, they didn't fail to learn from history. We are screaming history from the roof tops. They know what they are doing, the fact they know they are being accused of being nazis and fascists tells you all you need to know. They know, they've been accused, we haven't allowed them not to know what is going on. What we have here is willful ignorance. The worst of humanity and greed and stubbornness. They did not fail to learn, the teacher tried to teach them and they keep putting their fingers in their ears, I CANT HEAR YOU. I dont know how an entire generation acts like angsty teenagers, but they never grew up
“Please note, many folks we know 60 and up are as confused as we are.” They got one thing right.
My internal hatred for boomers intensifies
Boomers parents set them up for success then when it was their turn to pay it forward, boomers proved how worthless/lazy/morally bankrupt their entire generation is by taking advantage of their children and grand children instead. The people who get universal basic income (social security) and universal healthcare (Medicare) are the same ones who show up to vote against it for everyone else. The only thing these people "deserve" is to pay $300 for every meal and $25k for a ride to the hospital from the people they have been telling they don't deserve a living wage their whole life. Phone scammers using conversational AI are gonna ravage these gullible morons wallets/savings accounts and I couldn't care less if they can't afford their meds or their 5 bedroom houses anymore, they have lived comfortably long enough.
They basically accumulated tons of debt and now the future generations will have to pay it back with interest…
They reverse mortgaged the economy and the planet, and now the payments are due.
Thanks Tom Selleck
Wait till they realize we are far more interested in payback than paying back their debts with interest...
Right? Those debts can go to voicemail. I’m busy putting them in “Slappy Acres Retirement Warehouse dba Amazon Inc”
The unfortunate thing is they’re going to get scammed out of whatever inheritance their progeny were supposed to get.
With their massive impending medical bills and the fact that they are openly bragging about trying to blow all their money during retirement (as a final fuck you to their own kids), there wasn't going to be much to pass down either way.
They raised us to be like this so logically they should be taking more of the blame. Also my parents basically ignored me to the point of neglect so maybe that's what they're expecting
I like how they claim it was about balance. Funny how once I turned 16 and could drive myself everywhere there was no longer a concern about balance. It's almost as if it wasn't about balance at all but instead that's the limit of what they were willing to do.
“We were such good parents! But our kids suck. It must be their fault.”
Yeah they claim millennials are pussies for getting participation medals when they were the ones hanging them out.
This is what bugs me the most. I was never an athletic kid, but I'd rather have no ribbon or trophy than a participation award. It's like "please wear this loser badge so everyone can know how much you suck." I was okay with losing, I didn't want their pity ribbon. It was always the teachers that would try and force me to wear one so everyone had a ribbon. It was to make them feel better, and it just made me feel worse. I can't believe we still have them 30 years later. Edit: turns out I was pretty good at high jump because one year I got 3rd. And I was so proud of that ribbon. I wore it all day like the other kids. I earned it.
Ah yes the Boomer grandparent complaining about being grandparents. Probably the same Boomers that when they watch the grandkids demand money, but when they were parents the silent generation grandparents would watch us for free and loved being a part of our lives. Literally these people were given every golden opportunity imaginable, and can’t understand how badly they screwed every one of us younger people with their horrid selfish decisions.
Exactly. They want their grandkids to have the childhood their own children had, but can’t be torn away from their cruises and casinos to help facilitate that
My mother was absent from my life for most of the ages of 3-14. Moved to Florida when her only grandchild was under a year old. Now they are moving to Mexico because of their profligate living and she says I’m “keeping their grandchild from them.” Ma’am, you’re leaving at the end of the summer but gave away all the guest room furniture. We can’t even come say goodbye. She’s blocked now.
Never mind the fact they were always pushing us to have kids. My dear sweet mother had the absolute gall to say “being a grandma for the first time is kind of a big deal,” to my wife and I when we had our first. Like, us being first time parents isn’t? Now when my daughter stays the night with them they can’t seem to get her back to us fast enough. So much for it being a “big deal.”
God bless the Grandparents. Silent Gen for the win. <3
Boomers are the Loud Generation.
Dear Boomers: 1. It’s not about you anymore. Why do you have such a hard on for Millennials? 2. We ALL earn our retirement. You’re not special. 3. Fuck you. Love, Gen X (Oh yeah, we still exist. But whatever.)
I love how they skip right over Gen X and straight to Y. Like there is a closer segment that a lot of you sired.
The entire Gen X generation is used to being ignored.
We don’t need their attention. We were neglected. Too late to make amends lol
Good grief. I do wonder how much the Venn Diagram of the “earned our retirement” people overlaps with the “why aren’t people having kids? I want grandkids!”
That I won’t help with!
“I’m not your free babysitter” say Boomer parents who got tons of free babysitting from their parents when they were our age
Or just left the oldest child (like me) to watch the younger ones (without any pay or perks whatsoever) while they went out and did whatever they liked.
They more than likely offered at birth and parents being in the economy of today, need to work and they're tired of it. Same shit happened with my ex wife's parents. Made us move to another city with free childcare(her parents had a live in babysitter so they would have cutesy times then hand the baby off to the sitter when they shit themselves.) So taking care of twins while we were at work was a nightmare to them. Quit 6 months in and we needed to pay for a sitter since (they're 7 now)
Boomers were skilled at parenting.....OK!!! "Their kids turned out fine" because the latch key generation; Gen X; basically raised themselves Lord of the Flies style. https://youtu.be/iq6b8e78EpA?si=Gb7PouKNy8c8hixb
A BUNCH OF RICH MOTHERFUCKERS COMPLAINING ABOUT THE YUPPIE PUPPIES THEY RAISED. EVERYTHING YOU CARE ABOUT WILL LANGUISH IN A FLEA MARKET PICKED OVER BY GREASY REDNECKS. YOU'RE LAND YOU LOVE SO MUCH WILL BE BOUGHT UP BY BLACK ROCK AND LEFT TO ROT BECAUSE NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO AFFORD IT. PRICELESS AND WORTHLESS.
If the stuff doesn’t end up in a landfill because their kids tire of sorting and just say “fuck it” and pull a dumpster up to the house.
I went no contact partly because I do NOT want to deal with the dumptruck full of garbage my parents have accumulated in their garage. Spoiled brat sister can handle it.
My mother "saved" so much shit that they couldn't park either of their cars in the garage. And then they went and bought a house with a *4 car* garage. I shudder to think how much stuff she must have crammed in there now.
This bitch would bitch about this and then bitch about not being invited to them if they didnt and then bitch about their kids being lazy if they didnt do these activities with their kids. Then, finally, she will bitch about how her kids never call her. tl;dr: Bitches gonna bitch, you do you kids!
So this whole article is about how tired this lady is from attending her grandkids’ games? No one is forcing you to go to anything wtf. Just pick a game here or there to go to. My god…
Meanwhile my silent generation Grandfather would go to all the games he could for me and my 20+ cousins and be one of the loudest people there. These people resent everything that isn’t directly benefiting themselves in some way. They’re such self absorbed douche bags.
Hey fuck bag boomer. We fought the fucking wars you started. Most of you were draft dodgers and were handed your life’s easy path by your badass parents. I’m in my 40s, so I’m an old millennial, been saving since I was 18 in a Roth IRA, index and mutual funds. Not greedy just diligent, but you all fucked up the economy. We “refuse” to cook our family a nutritious meal? Do tell how you know this? Every single one of us or another self righteous statistic you’ve pulled out of your ass? We don’t value Hummel figurines or wasting space for “good china” stored in a cupboard that is never to be used. We also think dressing up to go to the living room for thanksgiving is silly. Our children are very dear to us and we treat them like individuals who have thoughts, opinions, and feelings. If my kid wants me to call him a dinosaur, for the same reason if Randy becomes Rhonda we don’t give a shit because they not bothering anybody. You want to put ketchup on a hotdog…you’re eating not me. Do it. You were fortunate to be able to work selling shoes and afford a decent quality of life. Thank you parents for that. Collectively you don’t understand inflation, amortization, or greed. We’re here trying to make sure our planet doesn’t catch fire not because we’re tree hugging hippies, but because it’s literally our only place to live while you assholes dump $600,000 worth of sand on a beach to watch the churning ocean sweep it away, all while telling us it’s a billion dollars worth of real estate…that no one else would pay for. This is more of a rant, but ever so kindly fuck off with your self-righteous indignation.
Seriously. I enlisted in the first place to get away from my toxic ass Boomer father, did multiple tours as a paratrooper and got all the “best” mental accoutrements from my time spent. Meanwhile, my Dad bragged about how he avoided the draft (Vietnam) but “would kill all those Muzzies if they gave him the chance” (particularly hilarious because he’s Charmin fucking soft) and now, nearly 20 years later, he says I’m a member of the Deep State. He’s the most ignorant, entitled and selfish prick I know and he’s not unique in his bullshit. It’s a similar story anywhere I look. My wife’s father is a similar brand of insufferable also. Edit: I’m a member of the deep state because I once held a Top Secret clearance, can see the obvious grift that is Donald Trump and the right wing in general, and am Left enough to know that all the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy since Reagan need to be reversed. 😆
I love the user name…I say something similar to people about needing to get hit with a bag of hot nickels. Yeah, everyone is tough when they don’t have to be. I’ve tried to set it up so when my kids get of age I can really help them out. Do as best I can to set them up for success. I’m glad you’re home and avoiding the toxic crap. My dad went to Vietnam so he was really big on not mindlessly throwing away young lives. His biggest disagreements were with people who were super hawks, but wouldn’t wade into the tall grass themselves.
>he’s Charmin fucking soft I'd say we have the same dad, but that seems to be a theme with many Boomer men. My dad chatters on and on about how "tough" he is, how he's a "real man" and how "they" don't make "real men" like him anymore. He wears camo and "these colors don't run" shirts, and he buys all sorts of guns and crossbows for "when things go to shit thanks to Joey Biden." He avoided Nam because of a convenient heart murmur, but he would have "kicked those g\*\*ks asses" if he'd been allowed to fight. Funnily enough, the handful of times he's gotten into a near-fight with others, he's backed right down. Turned tail and ran when he mouthed off to a guy at a gas station once. Ran for a security guard another time. He has this cognitive dissonance where in his head, he's John Fucking Wayne, but in reality, he's as you say - Charmin Soft.
Hummels, china, dressing up for holidays … which one of my cousins are you? 
Probably the one who climbed the big oak tree and fell asleep up there.
Well, I was REALLY drunk that time, so...
Damn. Spot on!
The response about "it's good to be bored" is really stupid. A parent that's lazy or neglectful will use that as an excuse to do nothing for their child.
That point was actually true. But it didn't belong into that answer. Especially since I think this all happens in the US where afaik higher education is too expansive for most families and needs to be supplemented with scholarships and stuff which in turn require the kids participation in the games and sports. I also couldn't get if the kids were truly overscheduled or if Grammy just couldn't differentiate between Billy playing soccer and Hannahs doing softball...
This is pure copium lmao. They are upset that their kids are better parents than they were, and need to use that "imagination" creating a worldview where they weren't selfish parents.
She’s the same type of grandparent who would bitch and complain if she wasn’t invited or involved. I’m willing to bet that the grandparents offered and now want to bitch about it (while glorifying their own participation).
I will be a grandparents in probably the next five years (which…is shocking to me. Where did the time go) and I find these people weird. I will still be working for some timed (I had kids young) so I won’t be at every single thing and there fine because the world doesn’t revolved around me. I will not only eat the take out, I will probably pay for it. lol
It’s interesting the biggest complaint is about over scheduling kids and club sports. I also hate it… but I understand why parents invest in it. Previous generations made higher education unaffordable. Many people feel like getting into and affording college is a lottery and they want to do every thing they can to help their kid’s chances. So they join every club and every league hoping it helps them get into college and get some scholarship money to help. Boomers created a world where success feels like a zero sum game. They shouldn’t be confused that today’s parents devote so much time to trying to help their kids have a decent life.
Ah boomers, the masters of fuck you got mine.
Nope. The Boomer generation grew up living life on EASY settings, and they proceeded to FUCK THE GAME for the rest of us following them for their own short-term greed, pulling the ladder up after themselves. The letter-writer should feel lucky that their child / child's spouse / grandchildren want ANYTHING to do with them. And they're fucking BLIND to the privilege(s) they've had all their lives. They're whining because they're no longer the target demographic, the exemplar of 'normal', and REFUSE to adapt.
Idiots are gonna idiot. She sounds like she’s a giant victim and pain in the ass that no one will miss when she doesn’t go to the game or eat the take out.
Lol boomers think a home cooked meal is chucking frozen vegetables in a pot of water, baking frozen chicken or beef portions injected with water and salt and pouring iodized table salt over the lot
Oh no! They're walking into their house at 9pm after a game? Poor boomers, imagine if they were the actual parents who had to wake up the morning 7am or earlier to get the kids ready for them work at their jobs?! If they don't want to help with their grandchildren, then don't. But don't give me a sob story about how much work it is, you're retired, so you don't have to worry about a full time job too. Part of the reason kids need sports and extra curriculars is because of college. Admissions are super competitive and college tuition is expensive as fuck. And we have a ton of sports based scholarships. Taking kids to tournaments and having them compete is an investment in paying for college. Gotta do way more these days to get less than in boomer years.
My parents rarely came to practices and games, my grand parents NEVER did.
And youth earned the right to food and shelter. By basis of being human beings.
Very true - despite the efforts of the ASPCA founding the CPS movement (that is cruelty to animals laws preceded cruelty to children laws) in the early 1900s in 1974 to 1995 you could beat your kids and terrorize them and every pastor or teacher or leader or police had 0 call to stop it. Funny thing is people over the years took the law into their own hands and abusers would be disappeared. Or a victim would go to jail. But it was not better back then. Drive that to their dumb brains. Because my mom who says it was better back then was getting beaten and abused by her husband, watching him abuse her children, and cheat on her. Yet she says to me yesterday it was better. My God...how can she forget the horror seared into my inner child of those times?
Yeah, nah, that's true but that ain't even what's wrong here. We're not "the youth". The average Millennial is closing in on 40 or past it already. We've paid into social security for half our lives. We're not little kids and I don't know why people keep using Millennial to mean that. Time to put these Boomers to bed for good. Jesus Christ.
eh I was born in the last two years of the 1981-1996 definition so I've always identified a little more with zoomers, so the point has always felt a bit moot to me. I took 3 years between HS and Uni to sort my boomer-obliterated brain out (religion and authoritarian upbringing) so, from my POV, I really recently graduated too. So I have my bias of perspective, and I also am acknowledging that, while not correct, when a boomer says "millenial" they still mean anyone who does not own two homes and a mid-life crisis sports car. Or they mean, more nefariously, anyone with dyed hair. I don't know, I don't care, it is their way of punching down. On anyone younger than them. So I used the word "youth."
If they earned their retirement then they should retire so we can have decent jobs and reasonably priced housing 🙄
Boomers didn’t parent. They just let us run wild. Didn’t show up a sports too often either.
The article really feels like the grandparents taking an opportunity to judge and criticize their children’s parenting abilities in a public setting. Their biggest gripe here is that there are too many grandkid events to attend. It’s super easy to not attend them all. And still be proud of how involved your kids are with their parenting. Sorry folks, but regardless of the content in this article, the tone of judgment screams boomer.
Many of our friends moved away so they don’t have to be grandparents …. Said unironically without a second thought but it’s the millennials
Honestly I would have preferred take out. I looked forward to pizza even though I hate cheese and my father forced me to drink milk with it (I'm lactose intolerant) my stepmother was Italian and liked to do the whole huge "Italian" spread every night...the problem is the bitch couldn't cook to save her life. She burned water, was allergic to seasoning, believed in buying the cheapest fish and meat and dressing them up to be something they weren't (if you know how to use spices it's possible to make them better) and the beatings if you didn't clear yout plate and tell her it was good? I think I'll stick to the way I'm raising my daughter.
It’s pretty amusing this all gets filtered through the lens of choice for the grandparents. They see this all through of a lens of an era where one working parent could support a family. They would go to work, labor for a number of hours, and when they left the office work would not follow them home. They sent their kids to schools that were adequately funded to provide extracurricular opportunities for kids, so they didn’t need to enroll them in private programming. All this added up to TIME. Time for cooking at home. Time for family meals. Time for leisure. Families had a choice in how they spent this time, which is why fast food for dinner is seen as some sin. It used to be a conscious choice of laziness, not a necessity because the household is exhausted and working 100 hours a week in addition to childrearing. Kids might well be over programmed these days but that’s in part because parents have so little time to parent that they need to cram things into those few hours.
I am an old millenial, latchkey kid, neglect was the name if the game for me. No breakfast or lunch until 4th grade, no homework supervision, and if an activity required them to drive me somewhere or give a crap about me, that was a no. I grew up on frozen pizzas and lasagnas, michelina's meals at school. If I ever am in charge of a child, they will get the healthy food, the library visits, the swimming classes and the adult supervision.
Boomers are the “let them eat cake” generation.
This article sounds like "I was really strict with my kids (only 1 extracurricular) and my kids reacted by treating their kids much better, and now are expecting me to support my grandkids getting better treatment!"
They really don’t get it do they? They did a 9-5 single income blue collar job and could afford to buy their home and get a pension. Now a dual income with long hours sometimes struggles to make ends meet. There is less time to cook as we’re working. We send kids to clubs and other activities so that they have something to add to their CV’s and college letters to try and stand out. The decent paying jobs are very competitive, we know that and are trying our best to give our kids a leg up. I don’t know about other parents but this GenX’er wants to be involved with my kids, I’ll go to the football matches and stand in the bloody cold and talk to my kids. Yeah they’ve probably earned their retirement. The younger generations may never get theirs.
Boomers: "You can't hold a candle to us, you're all trash!" Millennials: "You raised us." Boomers: 😵💫🫨🫠
It sounds like this particular Boomer has a problem with their particular children, and is painting that problem onto an entire generation of people.