Social Boomers proving once again why they are the most selfish generation in history - they don't even care about their grandkids

[Jack V Savage]

I can link you to what I've read, but I need to go find those articles and I'm heading out for the afternoon. You should be able to find that the single mom numbers are significant from 96 to 2000. The peak was 2000-2001 for all women, in terms of percentage of workforce (I believe around 76%). And the increase from 1990 - 2010 was very large relative to population growth. At least that's how I read it, I'm open to having drawn bad conclusions. Happy to dig in a little more later if you're still interested.

I was looking at percentage of women who are in the workforce. So overall flat during that period, but could be that it rose for single moms. Anyway, yeah, I think it's kind of an interesting issue so I wouldn't mind seeing the pieces if you can find them easily.

 

[tastaylvr]

Well, people in the West report higher levels of life satisfaction than people anywhere else, and we're much better off than we used to be, but I agree it could be better still.

This is debatable and there is no real data on this. Happiness and satisfaction are two different things and a lot of people in the west are not content. It is more difficult to be content with life when you know what is possible.

Well, it's all relative. Old people today are better off than ever before in a variety of ways, including having more fun.

As I said, there are tradeoffs involved with increasing prosperity, and I think we should consider ways to deal with the negatives without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But I also think we shouldn't focus exclusively on the downside of increased prosperity.

This increased prosperity would be great if it helped everyone moving forward but it only helped one generation. Then that same generation voted against policies that they themselves benefited from.

Nothing amazes me more than benefiting from cheap/free education then voting against it when you join the workforce just so you can pay less tax. I don't think many things in history can be seen as more selfish than that.

 

[SakurabasEar]

Many boomers have always had an attachment to material wealth over maintaining a close relationship with thier own children. Not everyone, obviously

That being said, blaming your parents or grandparents for your failures is always a foolish thing to do. You can't change the past

 

[Jack V Savage]

Look man, I get that you're a modernist liberal, and you see society through the lens of an over arching narrative. One of progress over time, where for the most part things only get better. And there is a lot of truth to that. But the picture you paint is one of a straight line. When in reality, there are ebbs and flows to things. Sometimes things get horrifically worse, sometimes there are massive leaps forward. Sometimes there is slow entropy and a slow backslide. Sometimes there is marginal incremental progress. I know thats your goldilocks zone.

No, I agree that there are ebbs and flows. On the subject of this thread, I'm just saying that a reason old people might be less available is the fact that old people today are richer than old people have ever been (but generations coming up behind them will be richer still).

What can you point to, to support the idea that things are mostly only getting better for old folks, other than material wealth? Because that's all you seem to point to, their material wealth. And you talk about these alarming social and mental health trends, as if they're negligible.

Material wealth and health are the big things. It's not just that people live longer; they are healthier longer.

-life expectancy just decreased for the first time in recorded US history. I know you're aware of that. So why is that missing from your analysis? Doesn't really seem like things are only getting better if now our life expectancy gains are reversing and were now dying younger, does it?

Well, COVID was a one-off thing. More ODs is No. 2, and I would agree that there is an issue with drugs in the country.

-more old people are being abandoned to die in nursing homes than ever before, more old people are isolated and alone than ever before. None of that really jives very well with your narrative of constant progress in one direction.

Don't know the numbers you're referring to, but I'd guess that a bigger and older population means more people living in nursing homes.

I agree. We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's nothing wrong with older people being more prosperous than they were a century ago. It's actually quite good (as long as they aren't hoarding that wealth and using it to vacuum up all of the housing and to lobby your government to deregulate every sector of the economy and stop all environmental protections....OOPS thats exactly what the elderly did with their increased prosperity but thats a different convo) .You know what social security did for the elderly poverty rate. That's good stuff.

I also don't think we need to return to having 4 generations, and 3 different family units within a family, all sharing the same home. I think it's healthier than what we do now, but it's just an example to point out what's on the other end of the spectrum from our current arrangement. There's a lot of middle ground between that, and 2 parents raising 2.3 children in a suburban box where they're not in walking or driving distance to any loved ones and where the kids see their grandparents once a year for Thanksgiving. There's a ton of in-between.

Agreed.

Lastly I just want to comment on the first thing you said. I'm not entirely sure what you're saying when you say "the west", has "higher life satisfaction" than anywhere else. The "west" is doing an insane amount of heavy lifting there, and you know that. The united states is not in the top 10 of happiest countries on any list, survey or study. The Nordic countries are. And those are technically "the west", but the US and the Nordic countries have vastly different economic and social models. So you can't just claim the achievements of these nations as those of the US, which is what it seems like you're doing by gesturing towards "the west" here.

You introduced the term! You said there is a horrendous mental health situation in "the West." No. Even broadly, developed nations are happier than developing nations, for very obvious reasons (the material prosperity outweighs everything else that you might think matters). I agreed with you from the start and still do that there are downsides to prosperity and the individualism that leads to it. As I said, my take is that we want liberal governance but for people to find cultural ways to connect in the absence of the necessity that had driven connectedness for most of our history.

When looking at just the modern developed world, the US has one of the worst rates of suicide and depression in the world. The amount of sexlessness among men is at an all time high in recorded history. The amount of social connections and friends among Americans is at an all time low. These are not trivial concerns. These are people's lives. As an example, telling a 36 year old man that hasn't had sex in 6 years, who doesn't have a single friend and hasn't spent time with a friend in 5 years, that he's just winning too much and he's too prosperous, comes off as pretty callous and oafish.

I wouldn't tell the hypothetical guy that he's winning too much and he's too prosperous. I would encourage him to take action--like getting a hobby, looking into online dating, examining mental-health options (therapy, drugs, whatever). But I would say that having people in that situation in the first place is a symptom of a prosperous society. I would suspect that when people are driven more by animal necessity, they are much less likely to feel generalized anxiety or depressed. When animals perceive a threat, they act on it (run from the lion, or if you're a hungry lion, chase the zebra). The stress reaction is beneficial because it causes the body to make tradeoffs that are beneficial for that required immediate burst of energy. But when the threat is in your imagination and weeks off, that same beneficial reaction can cause serious long-term health problems. But sitting around worrying about a bad thing that might happen in a week is a luxury that our ancestors never had.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Nothing amazes me more than benefiting from cheap/free education then voting against it when you join the workforce just so you can pay less tax. I don't think many things in history can be seen as more selfish than that.

See my other post about the tradeoffs to prosperity. As a country gets richer, services get more expensive. Education is inevitably going to get more expensive because it requires people--highly educated people at that (and attempts to scale it through tech so far have been disappointing, but there's still hope). I wouldn't blame people for that. Also remember that when the Baby Boom generation started, most American adults hadn't graduated from high school. As more and more people got the opportunity to get higher education, costs have risen.

 

[tastaylvr]

See my other post about the tradeoffs to prosperity. As a country gets richer, services get more expensive. Education is inevitably going to get more expensive because it requires people--highly educated people at that (and attempts to scale it through tech so far have been disappointing, but there's still hope). I wouldn't blame people for that. Also remember that when the Baby Boom generation started, most American adults hadn't graduated from high school. As more and more people got the opportunity to get higher education, costs have risen.

I think you are missing the point. They are the generation to benefit from the prosperity but they are also the generation to stop it.

They had free education but then voted against free education. They also benefited from welfare and the pension but then chose to stop that too. They had the best inheritance in history yet trashed it. It's actually amazing they are the first generation to make society worse for the future.

just chalking that up to "welp education more expensive" now is a huge cop out and gives them zero responsibility for the policies they created

 

[tastaylvr]

Many boomers have always had an attachment to material wealth over maintaining a close relationship with thier own children. Not everyone, obviously

That being said, blaming your parents or grandparents for your failures is always a foolish thing to do. You can't change the past

Expecting your parents to help out and look after your kids here and there is being a failure?

huh?

This is just another thing to add to the long list of things that boomers had but refuse to give to their kids.

 

[chardog]

I'm really shocked how many people think that it's a good thing that grandparents are not playing a role in their grandkids development....

I can't see this any other way then an expression of the profound loss of meaning and an expression of the meaning crisis that western culture seems to be in. How is it possible that any amount of vacation time could possibly be more important to a human being grounded in meaning and love than spending time with family and grandchildren?

I really struggle to see how vacationing in florida on a boat could possibly be more important to any human being than other human beings directly under your care and in your lineage. In a world where meaning and wisdom and growth in love and compassion and maturity matters, passing that wisdom onto grandchildren would be one of the highest priorities of any sane person. It's like passing on wealth to the next generation only far more important...

This isn't something that should have to be forced. This is something that would be the natural expression of a human being dedicated to meaning and purpose and love and service...

But the people who are vacationing instead of doing this probably never valued family on this level in the first place or they would all be close and sharing love with one another and appreciating one another anyway.

Obviously there are always going to be exceptions to the rule but in a civilization devoted to the betterment of humanity the rule is obviously going to be, present with family, present with grandchildren, passing on wisdom and knowledge to them.

That is where people are going to find their greatest happiness and joy and fulfillment also...

there is the issue of what came first, the chicken or the egg.....

what if grandparents arent around? It's hip to go out of state for college, to get married, to have fun. Is it the grandparents duty to chase their grand children around in other states?

with the current generation delaying child birth as much as possible, can it be that the grandparents are too old to physically care for children? There is no free lunch, having kids later in life has its consequences, and when you have multiple generations of late parents..... you've got really old grandparents. Have a look at your local school, a bunch of 40+ year old parents, which means they mostly had kids mid 30's and if their parents were the same way, they would be retirement age.

it's modern ideology to have kids later in life,

I'm in my 40's and my son is old enough to be a dad, I can take care of his kid if he has one, but 20 years later, I cant say the same.

 

[Poatan Power]

And this generation sticks them in nursing homes to rot alone.

2 way street.

Expecting your parents to help out and look after your kids here and there is being a failure?

huh?

This is just another thing to add to the long list of things that boomers had but refuse to give to their kids.

Expecting your parents to raise and financially support you for your entire life up until 18 (at least) and then when you're retarded enough to have kids and being incapable of financially supporting a family, expect your parents to now provide you with slave child care is absolutely a fucking failure at life. Fix it or accept it.

 

[blackheart]

I think you are missing the point. They are the generation to benefit from the prosperity but they are also the generation to stop it.

They had free education but then voted against free education. They also benefited from welfare and the pension but then chose to stop that too. They had the best inheritance in history yet trashed it. It's actually amazing they are the first generation to make society worse for the future.

just chalking that up to "welp education more expensive" now is a huge cop out and gives them zero responsibility for the policies they created

Yeah, I wonder how Vienna, often rated as having the highest standard of living on earth, manages to have affordable housing. Maybe it's because most of the housing available is high quality government owned housing, and the smaller free market sector has to compete against that. Or its just, idk, prosperity = suffering and hardship

 

[terrapin]

there is the issue of what came first, the chicken or the egg.....

what if grandparents arent around? It's hip to go out of state for college, to get married, to have fun. Is it the grandparents duty to chase their grand children around in other states?

with the current generation delaying child birth as much as possible, can it be that the grandparents are too old to physically care for children? There is no free lunch, having kids later in life has its consequences, and when you have multiple generations of late parents..... you've got really old grandparents. Have a look at your local school, a bunch of 40+ year old parents, which means they mostly had kids mid 30's and if their parents were the same way, they would be retirement age.

it's modern ideology to have kids later in life,

I'm in my 40's and my son is old enough to be a dad, I can take care of his kid if he has one, but 20 years later, I cant say the same.

like i said there are and will be exceptions to the rule but a caring meaning based society is obviously going to prioritize family/love/spiritual growth over florida beaches..... vacations can be planned to go TO family and with family and not away from them. besides the very best thing grandparents ought/should/do have to offer is wisdom and love that they have grown towards over a lifetime. simply caring for grand-kids physically is not the real treasure anyways.

our society is so lost we dont even value the elderly or the love and wisdom and transformation they could have grown into... probably many do not grow intro it in the first place which is obvious if they are choosing playing over service and love.... all we have to show is accumulated wealth and as nice as that is, its poverty compared to meaning.

western civilization is having a meaning crisis at present. i think discussing why and offering up solutions is one of the most important conversations happening right now.

 

[ringking1982]

Boomers are spending far more money on travelling than their parents did - leaving their own millennial kids without childcare as they jet off on vacations.

Psychologist and millennial mother Leslie Dobson, 40, said she wishes her dad Ted Dobson, 71, was around to spend more time with her sisters and his grandchildren.

But Dobson's dad is busy enjoying retirement on his boat in Mexico, he said 'I haven't spent a nickel less on my kids. I just spent some on me.'

The Los Angeles psychologist said that she wasn't alone in feeling disappointed by her father - and that many of her millennial clients are facing the same feelings of abandonment and resentment towards their parents.

Millennials are having children later in life - and many modern households include two working parents.

Boomers are leaving their millennial children to handle the childcare of their grandchildren while they jet off on vacations - like Ted Dobson, 71, in this picture who moved to Mexico after retiring and bought a boat.

Even though the boomer parents - born between 1946 and 1964 - are mostly retired by the time they need them to step in for childcare, members of the older generation are jetting off on vacations instead instead of lending a helping hand.

Bank of America analyzed consumer-spending habits and found that, not only are boomers outspending other generation on travel and dining out - they are also spending far more on their travels than their own parents in the silent generation.

Dobson told Business Insider: 'It is a really common struggle. You have children, and it feels even more like an abandonment that they've chosen their life over meeting their grandchildren and building these relationships.'

She described the phase as a three-fourth life crisis in which boomers realize that their life is almost over and frantically want to make the most of it.

Ted Dobson's three-fourth life crisis involved uprooting his life in California after working there as a businessman and fleeing to Mexico - where he bought a boat and lives in a luxury community.

The younger Dobson said her father 'feels like this is the right choice' - but admitted the decision has upset her and her sisters, who are now raising their own children and envisioned having a grandfather around to dote on their kids.

But the retired businessman insists that even though he's now enjoying his dream lifestyle of boating and pickleball - he still did plenty to help kids kids out with financial support.

'They've all got nannies,' he said. 'We didn't have a damn nanny. They drive expensive SUVs. I drove a fricking minivan.'

The 71-year-old said the last time he went to visit his kids in the U.S. they couldn't squeeze him into their busy schedule.

'Life revolves around the children, and you're either on board or you're not,' he said.

Another millennial facing similar rejection from her mother is Kristjana Hillberg - who grew up always having her grandmother around for childcare whenever her parents took a trip or needed help.

Hillberg, 33, told Business Insider: 'If Mom and Dad ran out of town, we were at Grandma's. Grandma wasn't going anywhere, and we always knew that.'

The mom-of-three doesn't receive the same help from her parents - especially at short notice and only on their terms.

'We have to make sure that we are asking months in advance,' she said - adding that her parents 'own travel plans' also needed to be accounted for in childcare arrangements.

Another millennial facing similar rejection from her mother is Kristjana Hillberg - who grew up always having her grandmother around for childcare whenever her parents took a trip or needed help
Hillberg said it's especially hard to recruit her 61-year-old mother Nella Hanson for babysitting duty after she remarried in February.

Hanson was 'a saint' before her recent wedding, according to Hillberg - who said her mother was always on hand to watch her daughter.

The newlywed turned down Hillberg's recent request to watch her three young children while she went on a girls vacation to Costa Rice with her friends.

'I thought it would be a shoo-in and she would automatically come and watch the kids,' she said. 'But she said, 'I recently married, and I don't want to leave for seven days.''

'Watching your mom find love at 60 is overwhelming… in a good way.' Hillburg said. 'She took us everywhere alone when we were kids. My dad was always working. All of my memories are of her.'

Hanson said she understood that her daughter was put out by her lack of availability - and said she adores her grandchildren - but it was the "right time" to put herself and her new husband first.

While boomers - who own more than $78 trillion in assets - have been living life to the fullest in their later years, childcare has been steadily and steeply inclining.

Recent data shows that the average family was spending $700 a month on daycare - which is 32 percent more than what was being spent in 2019. The cost of childcare has tripled since 1991.

Millennial parents claim boomer generation has ABANDONED them

Boomers are spending far more money on travelling than their parents did - leaving their own millennial kids without childcare as they jet off on vacations.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Encouraged by radical feminism. While birth rates plummet to negative numbers, we all have to become indoctrinated that radical feminism is the way and that men are evil.

 

[tastaylvr]

Expecting your parents to raise and financially support you for your entire life up until 18 (at least) and then when you're retarded enough to have kids and being incapable of financially supporting a family, expect your parents to now provide you with slave child care is absolutely a fucking failure at life. Fix it or accept it.

What are you talking about? You don't think it's normal to expect your parents to look after you? You are wording it as if they deserve praise for raising the kids they gave birth to. It's comical that you think we should say "thank you" for expecting something everyone received all throughout human history. Imagine thinking people should grovel at their feet for doing their job.

My issue is that boomers had parents who would look after their kids like every other generation before them but they don't want to. They only want to take while never giving back anything in return. They are the generation that has persistently challenged conventional behavior patterns but only after benefiting from them.

I remember reading an article on the three different choices boomers had moving forward.

· The selfish route: individualists and consumer society pioneers will unite around the pursuit of fulfilment and enjoyment of their accumulated wealth, with little regard for the needs of the less well-off.

· The path of civic defender: liberal activists will act as a civic bulwark against the erosion of the public realm (which their individualism and consumerism helped unleash), and create conditions for radical and progressive politics.

· Invisibility: the fragmented generation will fail to coalesce or wield any collective influence, but get absorbed into other currents of social change.

It's fairly obvious what choice they made.

 

[chardog]

like i said there are and will be exceptions to the rule but a caring meaning based society is obviously going to prioritize family/love/spiritual growth over florida beaches..... vacations can be planned to go TO family and with family and not away from them. besides the very best thing grandparents ought/should/do have to offer is wisdom and love that they have grown towards over a lifetime. simply caring for grand-kids physically is not the real treasure anyways.

our society is so lost we dont even value the elderly or the love and wisdom and transformation they could have grown into... probably many do not grow intro it in the first place which is obvious if they are choosing playing over service and love.... all we have to show is accumulated wealth and as nice as that is, its poverty compared to meaning.

western civilization is having a meaning crisis at present. i think discussing why and offering up solutions is one of the most important conversations happening right now.

You're not wrong, but it is extremely prevalent for kids to move far far away, a 60+ year old grandparent cant sell and move to new location, and if there are multiple families, it becomes even more difficult, but should be somewhat "doable" if you take declining birthrates into the equation.

the age gap is a MAJOR factor that cant be ignored, anecdotally, you have outliers, but say a 70 year old vs 50 year old grandparent is night and day different. I cant fully comprehend what it's like to be 70, but I got an idea what it'll be like when I'm 50 and it's going to be shit, but still, 70 is near expiration date. it's no different than comparing women in their mid 20's vs mid 30's, that's only 10 years apart and a massive difference in body structure, mindset, etc. Hell, around 70, there will be a lot of grandparents that have already expired.

How you you convince an entire society that age gap is a problem, which seems counter intuitive to literally 99% of the population?

I see that as the very first issue that has to be addressed. Time is extremely precious and gives zero fks about anyone's feelings.

 

[chardog]

What are you talking about? You don't think it's normal to expect your parents to look after you? You are wording it as if they deserve praise for raising the kids they gave birth to. It's comical that you think we should say "thank you" for expecting something everyone received all throughout human history. Imagine thinking people should grovel at their feet for doing their job.

My issue is that boomers had parents who would look after their kids like every other generation before them but they don't want to. They only want to take while never giving back anything in return. They are the generation that has persistently challenged conventional behavior patterns but only after benefiting from them.

I remember reading an article on the three different choices boomers had moving forward.

· The selfish route: individualists and consumer society pioneers will unite around the pursuit of fulfilment and enjoyment of their accumulated wealth, with little regard for the needs of the less well-off.

· The path of civic defender: liberal activists will act as a civic bulwark against the erosion of the public realm (which their individualism and consumerism helped unleash), and create conditions for radical and progressive politics.

· Invisibility: the fragmented generation will fail to coalesce or wield any collective influence, but get absorbed into other currents of social change.

It's fairly obvious what choice they made.

there is some truth to what he says

a 50 year old parent will look after their 20 year old that is broke as a joke, than a 70 year old looking after a 40 year old that is married, two cars, and financial stability. We are living in different circumstances.

the relationship I had with my parents at 20, unmarried, no kids, is much different than how it was at 30 married with three kids, than it was at 40 with five kids <Lmaoo>

time factor is enormous, in my late 20's/early 30's, my grandparents did help out, at 40, I'm starting to look after them....

EDIT: and as for retirement travel, the grandparents love to, and my older kids have gone with them!

 

[SakurabasEar]

Expecting your parents to help out and look after your kids here and there is being a failure?

huh?

This is just another thing to add to the long list of things that boomers had but refuse to give to their children

I don't understand how you can say that boomers "had that". Obviously, context matters here. How much babysitting are we talking about here.

But for example, to think my WWII vet grandfather looked after my mom all the time is laughable. They didn't have to, back then, you more normally had a parent at home because one income could more often hold down an entire household

Now things are different. But to blame this hardship solely on your boomer grandpa or grandma is misguided imo

 

[ShadowRun]

Seriously, how old are you?

It’s fucking embarrassing to see millensilals and younger adults constantly complain about everything.



Lol… fuck these kids. Nannies??

I’m thinking Grandpa ditched these entitled shitheads.

Just proves the guy has no idea what the he’ll he is talking about. He thinks everyone got a degree and great manufacturing jobs. Zoomers have access to the internet they can learn so much like coding , cyber security ect for free and make it a career.

 

[sickc0d3r]

I was looking at percentage of women who are in the workforce. So overall flat during that period, but could be that it rose for single moms. Anyway, yeah, I think it's kind of an interesting issue so I wouldn't mind seeing the pieces if you can find them easily.

It’s definitely A single mothers spike that I was recalling, not an overall women in the workforce spike:

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/02/welfare-book-02.html

Here , though, as you said overall women in the workforce peaked around 2000:

So, I incorrectly projected the single mother data onto overall data. That’s what I get for working off memory.

But, I was commenting because the poster I replied to implied that feminism drove women to work. I think that‘s partially true, especially during the boomers’ era, but I think economic pressures and incentives (like increased graduation rates, welfare reform, eitc expansion, housing costs, recessions, etc) are much more of a driver.

Edit: Well I guess they still haven’t fixed the image link doohickey.

 

[Jack V Savage]

It’s definitely A single mothers spike that I was recalling, not an overall women in the workforce spike:

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/02/welfare-book-02.html

Here , though, as you said overall women in the workforce peaked around 2000:

So, I incorrectly projected the single mother data onto overall data. That’s what I get for working off memory.

But, I was commenting because the poster I replied to implied that feminism drove women to work. I think that‘s partially true, especially during the boomers’ era, but I think economic pressures and incentives (like increased graduation rates, welfare reform, eitc expansion, housing costs, recessions, etc) are much more of a driver.

Edit: Well I guess they still haven’t fixed the image link doohickey.

Thanks!

 

[Hog-train]

Sorry but the article says they have nannies. They're not like these struggling parents that need help, so it comes across as entitlement to me.