“Don’t trust anyone over thirty.”
-Jack Weinberg
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@dfbdfb, Power is fluid. My generation’s parents are in the graveyard or nursing homes, and there is a huge long-running thread about that at the top of this page. They had the power when we were young, then we got it, and now we are handing it off. Our kids will be managing our care before long, and their kids will be complaining about they way they ruined the world.
The only real estate the Thumper Boomer family owns is our primary residence. We don’t play the stock market (although a small portion of our retirement accounts have stocks as part).
We are doing just fine.
We have always been careful spenders. The best way to save money is not to spend it. We never felt like we needed to keep up with anyone. We have what we need and want, and the freedom to purchase if we want to.
Re: credit cards…my parents didn’t have them. And the notion that they would have put us on accounts with them if they did is ridiculous. My parents felt that credit cards were for folks who had their own income to manage them.
We did have one kid on our credit card for a year or so…because hers didn’t have a high enough credit limit for even a plane ticket. That is no longer the case. We never funded discretionary spending (like Starbucks and the like) for kids. Even as college students, they earned their own spending money and learned to live within their earned income means. A good life’s lesson, in my opinion. But this is a family decision and whatever works for your family is fine.
Yeah I don’t see it either.
Just read this this morning: “Why You Shouldn’t Let Your Teen Throw OK Boomer at You”
https://grownandflown.com/teens-say-ok-boomer/
FYI, this is a lighthearted article and takes a different angle from this thread.
That is actually what I meant, @thumper1. I wasn’t referring to real estate moguls or investment whizzes. Just ordinary people who bought their homes when real estate was cheap, hung onto them, and put money in their 401K’s for decades. Many people have not done that, and have not enjoyed the real estate/market boom over the long term.
The founding of the EPA was only the beginning of environmental legislation. The Clean Water Act was first passed in 1972 but continued to be amended with standards set over time including required upgrades to sewage treatment plants. It was boomer scientists, along with older generations, that studied these issues. It also seems like the OK Boomer is not just specifically for boomers, but for any older folks. Certainly, parents of boomers were also responsible for environmental degradation.
It was not until 1990 that the Clean Air Act was amended to regulate toxic air pollutants, urban air pollution, acid rain, and the depletion of the ozone layer. Seems like boomers were in charge at that point.
Obviously, my point was that the boomers deserve some support for the environmental and social progress that has been made.
As a Boomer, I totally hate the greedmongers in my generation. Those responsible for the ridiculous student loan debt fiasco and for raping pillaging their profits by taking enormous salaries and bonuses and cutting benefits. Yeah, I hate them. Greed. Greed. Greed. It trickles down and affects us all, some worse than others.
Gen X here. I take “OK Boomer” as a response to things like college costs and climate change which many people of differing ages refuse to acknowledge are a great problem. “OK Boomer” not because boomers were the “only” ones who caused it (they aren’t) but because there is so much denial and/or reluctance to do anything about it. Many (not all) of the politicians in power now are boomers and there is a whole lot of “we can’t afford that” and agreeing only to gradual change which is terrifying to those of us paying close attention to these problems. Recently in my municipality, I reached out to a council member expressing polite disappointment that he voted against a sustainability measure brought by community and youth groups to combat climate change. The measure passed without him, and I told him I was glad it did. He actually called me to talk about it and explained he was attempting to keep taxes low. He thought the city is doing plenty environmentally already. He was a bit incredulous that I found climate change to be as important or more important than redundant bike trails and other things he was eager to fund. His opponent in the recent election was endorsed by the youth climate groups and won in a narrow vote.
Other people like to talk about how they worked their way through college with no debt and “why can’t these young people do what I did.” Well, it sure isn’t as easy as it was decades ago. This board is a great resource to find more affordable ways to get an education.
It’s obviously an imprecise utterance, but I understand it and I too feel despair when I hear these types of responses to these issues.
The first time I heard “Okay boomer” (when Chloe Swarbrick made headlines for using it) I was amused because I thought the rudeness of interrupting a fellow legislator merited a cheeky response. On the other hand I’d hate to see it become more than an occasionally referenced internet meme.
My problem with it is that, like “Okay snowflake,” it reads as “You have nothing of value to say to me” and as far as I’m concerned that’s an obnoxious message to send from any generation to any generation.
@chardonMN Well said. You perfectly summed up my feelings on the collective frustration that lies behind the expression.
The retort started with millennials and Gen Z kids, but it seems to be catching on with other generations. There was a thread that went viral on Reddit recently where someone claimed their 86 year old grandmother had used it in response to the poster’s aunt.
Sorry, but no. There is a current power imbalance. Appealing to an unrealized future doesn’t speak to the current difference between “punching up” and “punching down”.
(Also, “You’ll be in charge one day” is pretty thin gruel to offer to people whose worlds are being crushed at this very moment.)
This.
You know, it occurs to me that it’s actually an intriguing linguistic question: How and why is “Ok Boomer” perceived as insulting? I mean, seriously—what is the insult?
(I’m honestly curious if people all perceive it as the same thing, or if it’s people projecting their own different interpretations onto it.)
It’s the implied eyeroll and the obvious implication that the receiver is old and out of touch.
Steve Jobs was the Chief Innovator and futurist at Apple. Seriously a Boomer. Sorry Gen X (my group). We implemented that vision. We didn’t invent.
I don’t like Ok Boomer or Ok Snowflake. Anymore than it would be polite to say Ok Grandpa or Grandma to an older person you don’t. see eye to eye with on an issue. It’s not necessarily an insult per se, it’s simply rude.
Inter-generational strife is as old as time, as is debate about who has/had it worse. I’m in a weird spot on the cusp of the Boomer generation and Gen X so I can’t lay claim to any of the below, but I think a true Boomer might say, “Constant wars? At least you weren’t being drafted.” Sure houses now are expensive but they’re twice as big as what we had and my first mortgage was at 16% interest.” “I get that you can’t afford a car, but at least you could ride in the front of the bus as a kid.”
The generation before that might have a similar response to the Boomers. ‘You think Vietnam was bad?” You think you experience sexism?” And so on…
The reality is that every generation deals with stuff but that’s not to say that every generation in turn has not had real complaints to make. The boomer generation has been slow to deal with climate change and many of us of whatever generation have been loathe to face the reality of what we’re doing to the planet. Many people graduating today do have a heinous level of college debt. I won’t list all of the legitimate complaints made by Millennials and Gen Zers. I just think that “OK Boomer” (essentially, “Whatever, old person”) does little to foster communication.
I had a lot of really insightful things to say, but it seems that @dfbdfb already said them and in a more elegant way.
I am a 1965’r, from the baby bust year (minimum birthrate.) So just like the GenX’r that I am, I slacked off and didn’t say them. We X’s are really just nihilists .
When it comes to concerns like the environment/EPA, women’s rights, civil rights, etc. I’m sure it is super discomforting for the younger generations who will be more impacted by it to see progress made over centuries being unwound and the clock on this stuff going backward.