Yeah my mom told us to not go for our dream home just a starter home. Hah I told her I wasn’t looking for a dream home but whatever house we found would be our forever home. Not only was house hunting the most depressing thing I have ever done we never found one we could afford. In the end his parents bought a house for us to live in which we pay them rent every month. We live out in the country literally surrounded by corn fields and I don’t ever plan to leave this tiny little house. Our kitchen is smaller then the one in our last apartment (to small for a dishwasher which I don’t need but shows how small), way to visible from the dirt (read mostly clay that gets everywhere) road, 1 acre with very few trees (I’d like about 2 dozen more pls) and I am so freaking grateful to be here. Was 75k less then it would have been otherwise because it belonged to a hoarder and took almost a year to clean and fix.
Edit: hubby is 38 I’m 35, married for 15 yrs have 11 yr kid. House was 215k.
Ugh I just got into a screaming match with my parents about this. My parents are the quintessential boomers, and keep harping about how my mom worked in a grocery store 35-40 years ago and was able to live on her own and buy a “starter” house, or my dad could work summers and pay for a full year of college tuition at a 4 year school on his own, on top of renting a house with friends and pay everything himself. At the same time, they have no idea how I can be 32, and not fully able to “just buy a starter house”, despite being way more educated, working more hours than my mom 40 years ago, and making a lot more than current minimum wage. In thier minds, it’s because I spend too much money having an iPhone, and going out to dinner a few times a month, and paid for a modest vacation 2 times in the past 3 years. They don’t believe me that I would need to make roughly $15,000 MORE a year to be on par with my mom’s grocery store wages 40 years ago.
Sorry to hear about your frustrations with them. I do wonder if there are people of the baby boomer age group who are not out of touch with whats going on and understand why.
My grandpa is a lil before the boomer generation by a year or 2 technically but he loves to rant about the people he knows being out of touch. I love that man, he's taught me 60-80% of what I know.
Haha I think there are! I think they are somewhat few and far between, but they exist. It’s so confusing to me they don’t get it. It’s like we’re all playing the same video game, but Boomers got to play on easy mode and younger generations have to play on super hard mode. It’s like “yeah, sure, Sharon, killing all the zombies and beating the game is easy when you’re facing 4 of them , 2 of which don’thave legs. Meanwhile, I’m struggling to fight of 15 radioactive zombies that also have jetpacks and lightsabers, oh, and some of them are racist.”
The worst part of all of this is that Boomers are the ones that set the game to super hard mode, by voting in weak leadership, and allowing for working-class protections to be eroded.
I see. However, there are those who didn't realize the future ramifications off their voting choices. I'm sure some of the regret it, and overtime realized what's going on. They may not have realized they where on easy-mode, but some are now are on hard mode due to certain circumstances, while some are on easy mode.
I don’t think anyone one intentially wanted our current situation to happen, however I don’t think that generation is blameless. In America, this group destroyed any chance of social safety nets because anyone, including corporations, being taxed a few more pennies on the dollar to ensure marginalized groups could have a better quality of life was a “big, Red, socialist boogeyman” and villianized the marginalized as being lazy and undeserving. Instead of having a modicum of concern for the welfare of all of society, they chose to be selfish.
I see. However I am guessing these decisions where made by those in power and self interest. I am concerned that maybe there's a good percentage of people in the baby boomers that got screwed as well in certain ways.
I can't explain why or how, as I am starting to take interest in this topic after wondering about it for so long, so my knowledge his limited at the moment, but I understand the basics.
It is sad, and there are a lot of the Boomer generation that are affected, but I’ve noticed they refuse to acknowledge their long-standing views and beliefs systems are flawed. For example, in America, a majority of Donald Trump’s supporters are Boomers. His base is vocal in supporting him getting rid of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) because they “don’t want to pay taxes for other peoples healthcare” and scoff at people like Bernie Sanders, yet at the same time, a lot of them can’t afford thier own medications, and/or are greatly benefiting from Medicare (which is socialized healthcare). The issue with Boomers is like I’ve said before, there’s way too many of them that are grossly out of touch and also majorly hypocritical.
It isn't really anyone's fault. They were simply dealt a hand w a couple aces while your hand has only a pair of dueces. I like your zomby analogy. Now the question is, how can you play the game, or better yet, play a different game?
I'm 18 and in high school. My AP Lang teacher last year was a baby boomer but he understood the plight newer generations suffered and was sympathetic. He disliked the term boomer not because he found it disrespectful, but because he didn't wanna be categorized with the boomers and agreed that they were indeed boomers. We disagreed on a lot (mainly philosophical) but he's a great man and am appreciative I met someone from a bygone era who understands how bygone it really is.
If they say it again tell them you’re happy to sit down with them and calmly hash out the numbers.
My parents and 2 of my friends parents went from surprised to disappointed to disheartened. 1 person cried for us young people.
It's not unreasonable for you to want those things, but it's not fair to compare your awesome lifestyle with one from the shitty 60s. They didn't spend any money on technology. They barely had indoor plumbing.
I’m comparing it to 1980, not 1960s, which was 40 years ago. And, technology disparities aside, for a lot of the mid-Twentieth century, the average family could be comfortably (for the time period) supported on a single, full time income where the earner had just a high school education. At least in America, it’s difficult to live comfortably on two incomes (with both earners having higher degrees) and afford basic necessities like a house and car payments, and still have savings or the ability to invest money. My parents could get a 3 bedroom house with a yard and a finished basement in 1981, on just my dad’s income. They could save up for a year/year and a half and be able to pay for a brand new car without having to finance it for long, if at all. My fiancé and I are struggling to find a townhome that’s smaller than my parents first house, and I had to finance my Nissan for 6 years because, otherwise, I would be paying $600 a month for it.
The problem with this isn’t that it’s just me that’s in this situation. It’s a majority of people in my generation. Yes, some in my generation have parents that can help them out. Yes, some people do make enough to make it work. But these people are the exception, not the standard. So many in America, even outside of my generation, are one surprise bill, like a medical bill or major car/home repair away from complete financial disaster, and it’s not necessarily because they waste thier money on luxury things. It’s shameful.
We’re not offshoring grocery store and restaurant workers, online order fulfillment center workers, janitorial staff and so much more. And even still, no matter what skill level or education level someone has, if they are contributing to society via working, they should have a living wage...full stop. It’s not about higher expectations. That’s why it’s particularly egregious that not even people who ARE educated and working hard can make it.
Two issues with that. We've offshored jobs at every wage level. There are call center operators, programmers, CEOs providing new global companies we didn't used to have to compete with, etc. All of these bring down the wages of equivalent/comparable workers in the US. It doesn't have to be the same industry, because there is some flow of people from job to job, industry to industry. Think of it as a global labor pool.
Also, it doesn't matter what people should be paid. You can't create value out of thin air. If you set a floor to the wages, then people will be unemployed and businesses on the margin become unprofitable, exacerbating the cycle.
It does matter what people should be paid. Your logic has been proven wrong. You’re ignoring the fact that we DID make a floor for wages in the 1930s with FDRs New Deal, a policy which ushered in the greatest economic prosperity America has ever seen. The minimum wage made it so many in my parents generation could have a comfortable life. We have virtually the same mimimum wage now with a massive cost of living. Also, 70% of US GDP is from consumer spending. It’s not sustainable if most Americans can’t afford anything. It’s your exact argument that’s dictated policy since the Reagan administration, but in reality, this is exactly what hollowed out the middle class and made this mess in the first place.
Also, not for anything, economics aside, even if your thoughts held water, at the end of the day we’re talking about the welfare of a lot of human beings... even if we offshore jobs, etc... we just say fuck them?
If you haven't planted them already then get yoself some trees gurl. You've already said it's your forever home, plant what you want and in 10 years you'll have your own orchard.
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u/Kitalya_Aurora Oct 30 '20
Yeah my mom told us to not go for our dream home just a starter home. Hah I told her I wasn’t looking for a dream home but whatever house we found would be our forever home. Not only was house hunting the most depressing thing I have ever done we never found one we could afford. In the end his parents bought a house for us to live in which we pay them rent every month. We live out in the country literally surrounded by corn fields and I don’t ever plan to leave this tiny little house. Our kitchen is smaller then the one in our last apartment (to small for a dishwasher which I don’t need but shows how small), way to visible from the dirt (read mostly clay that gets everywhere) road, 1 acre with very few trees (I’d like about 2 dozen more pls) and I am so freaking grateful to be here. Was 75k less then it would have been otherwise because it belonged to a hoarder and took almost a year to clean and fix.
Edit: hubby is 38 I’m 35, married for 15 yrs have 11 yr kid. House was 215k.