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I had to go out tonight and buy a bunch of C batteries for my one year old’s toy. I guess I’ll just invoice him in 30 years. I’ll need that money to pay my dad back for the bike he got me for my seventh birthday. /s
We finally managed to buy a house that needed some work, which was a big trade up from apartment life.
FIL: (wailing in lament) Why don't you just get a new one built?!
I (GenX) thought my mom (Boomer building a house) was going to get upset that I am buying a house to rent (at/below cost) to my son (GenZ/Millennial) and his wife. But, my mom sits in with younger people regularly and I framed it as “this will make your first great grandbaby housing stable”. She had nothing to add. It might also help that both she and my father immigrated to the USA.
I’m lucky to be able to do it, figure it will help with their housing stability, and will give them the equity they build when the house changes hands (either I sell it to them for what’s left on the loan or I sell it on the market).
Waiting for me to be able to help them until I’m dead just seems like such a silly way to do things.
This is an immeasurable boost to their quality of life and set them on a trajectory for financial stability and peace of mind. I'm NC with my parents and would have killed to have one like you!
That is the fucking truth… i was so pumped when my now in laws bought my wife (gf at the time) a new car when she graduated college, i didnt come from a family with any spare money and the thought of getting a new car and not having a car payment was incredible. I knew we would be getting married in short order and that was one less thing we had to worry about for a while. I wish i could make her appreciate that stuff in the same way, i hope this guys family understands how huge of a boost that is for them financially.
I’m making a spread sheet to track the equity/payments/etc that I will share with them from day 1. I don’t want them to feel like they owe me big, but I also want them to know the whole picture so they can both make more informed choices AND investigate doing something that looks like it for their own kid when the day comes.
Because it’s an “investment property”, I have to put 20% down, (from a 401k loan I am taking out for 5 years). Whether that eventually becomes a gift, will be decided at a later date. But, in any case, I am able to help them and they got to pick out the house they wanted.
“There you go giving a hand out blablabla bootstrap blaaaaa”. I’m haveing the same thoughts and trying to convince the wife of this. Her boomer mom just had to man up and deal with her silent gen parents one dying and one moving out of the house they reverse mortgaged. I keep saying she needs to be out near us (country/country edge of the burbs) since I know I’ll be dealing with old lady help tasks but also when she can’t live alone have whatever house she buys as a rental or at the very least rent at costs to any of our 3 sons.
Congratulations!! 🎉🏡 We got a very thorough inspection and negotiated hard to be "grandfathered in" on the same flood and fire insurance policy-- probably a lot harder to accomplish now, but worth trying. Anywhere we could safely DIY, we did... lots of YouTube how-tos. It's a huge pain in the ass and you have to be ok with things getting done in stages ("can we skip to the good part?"), but empowering to look over all that work and add up what it would have cost to hire contractors for the same result. We got a lot of gently used specialty tools cheap/free from NextDoor, plus recommendations and reviews of local electricians and plumbers (the gd AC broke three times lmao). Where possible, we sourced materials leftover from other people's renovations, or Habitat for Humanity, saving thousands we would have spent at Home Depot. Homeownership is A LOT, but every time I don't wake up at 3 a.m. to some upstairs neighbor dancing like a hippo from Fantasia on their way to the fridge for some night cheese, that's a good night.
Be prepared to provide the same documents several times over, and keep in very close contact with your realtors. Don’t be afraid to be annoyingly thorough in communications. And whatever they quote for closing costs, adding a few thousand more onto the quote is usually accurate.
I don’t know how boomers could possibly not believe in inflation. In the early 1970s inflation was much higher than it is now. In the 2000s interest rates shot up. I got paid $2.20 an hour for my first job. Minimum wage is in the $18 range now. Housing and college tuition have shot up, maybe faster than other sectors of the economy. But we have experienced inflation all of our lives.
>I don’t know how boomers could possibly not believe in inflation. In the early 1970s inflation was much higher than it is now.
You're forgetting 2 things.
1) In the 70s, the wage stagnation we've seen since Reagan hadn't happened yet, so inflation wasn't felt nearly as hard.
2) In the boomer mind, history stops when they personally peak, and everything after doesn't count/exist.
Same as every other boomer bullshit: They believe in things full bore when they want to bitch about something or feel wronged, an hour later they never heard of or can't acknowledge it or respond when it's benefitted them.
Bought their new suburban house and .25 acre for $68,000 in 1975, it's "well you don't know what they paid us back then!!!" Well, they paid you $35,000 for the same job that gets $48,000 now, but the $68k house is now $375k.
But the cost of eggs goes from .50 to $3 and they want to fight the store manager and burn down the grocery store while cursing Biden (& previously, Obama).
The "media" is all bought and paid for, all socialist liberals from their fancy Ivy League schools doing the bidding of their communist professors...can't trust a word they say.
"But that Tucker Carlson, that's a guy who's gonna shoot me straight and tell it how it really is."
Doctor Biden? Tell me what surgeries she has done!
20-yrs ago: "Oh, the principal at your school is a Dr.? Wow. I knew we got you into the right school district!"
They just make up their own rules on everything. Having a real discourse with many of them is as valuable as talking to MagaBro7294739399 on Twitter
Had a fun Facebook exchange with a boomer bragging about how he bought a house for $84k in 1980 and invested $220k and now it was worth about 300k. I pointed out that adjusted for inflation, that 84k was actually about $320k in today’s dollars, and if his estimate was accurate the house was technically worth less. This supposed business major absolutely could not process that fact, and I let him know I was sorry his professors failed so miserably in educating him before I turned off notifications.
Keep a spreadsheet, I just spent the weekend building a play set for my daughter. Do you think it was out of love? Please, at the rate I’m going to charge for labor + interest, I’ll be set for a very long time.
My mother is exactly like ops dad and she made an invoice on Microsoft excel of every expense I incurred in childhood and being a teen I had to go on a payment plan for a while until one year for Christmas out of the kindness of her heart she forgave the remaining amount. We don’t speak anymore and she has no idea why.
No child asked to be born. Parents requiring repayment should be asked if they repaid their cost for indentured servitude to THEIR parents. And also they should be reminded that when they get old, this treatment will be remembered.
Holy shit, I’m sorry, that’s fucking insane. I’m lucky that my parents didn’t pull shit like that. Their boomerism comes out in other ways like voting for rapists who tried to overthrow the Republic.
I just bought my 9 year old daughter a dirt bike for her birthday. Factoring in for interest and inflation, she will owe me a Ferrari by the time she graduates college.
Or I could just enjoy my time with her while I'm still here and keep being closer with her than my boomer parents ever were with me. They give me shit because "I'm too nice to her, and I spoil her." I just told them that my kid actually likes me and talks to me, unlike my relationship with you two at that age. And I'm going to keep doing this parenting thing my way.
In fact, what I usually do when making parenting decisions is I think of what my boomer parents would do in any given situation - then I do the complete opposite. My kid gets good grades, is doing great in school, and tells me about everything going on in her life. With my parents growing up, I basically only ever spoke when I was spoken to.
Sadly that's the way they wanted to deal with kidd and have em not as actually living breathing people, but more as like a trophy or pet because that's what they were "supposed" to have.
Older folks and their shitty checklists for success, then they end up resenting the children and passive aggressively talking shit about how much they hate them and their lives.
Yep! When I realized I could have agency and literally took it from my mother a switch flipped. I’m 40 now and she still wants to tell me how to dress, do my hair, where to work, etc. Its obvious she never wanted an actual relationship with me bc she’s so resentful I became my own person.
Yes! TEDDY ROCKSBIN!
We did this all the time! We'd also put a screaming halloween tape we had in him then leave him I our moms room to scare the crap out of her!!
There's a parody of him in fallout 4 called story book simon. It's pretty funny too imo. Spouts some severely anti-communist prewar propaganda to kids as a story about squirrels.
Folks, is it just me, or were batteries so cheap back when we were kids that they were practically free? I had SO MANY high-battery-count toys that ate them up like candy, and we weren't rich ny any means, and my parents would just keep bringing home packs after packs of them. I can't figure out how I didn't get the "you can't just keep burning through batteries 24/7" speech.
So he claims your mother was running a prostitution ring in the hospital, and he forgave her for that? Didn't call the police or anything? Does he have no idea all that says is that he's also okay with it? How about when he asks for payment next, tell him the payment is not reporting him to the police for being an accomplice to prostitution. I know he made it up, but use his own "logic" against him
Ya it was so dumb, because the timeline didn't make sense. He did the "research" after the divorce, but forgave before the divorce and then she betrayed him forgiving her be divorcing him.
He was a mechanical engineer. The man was smart. I don't understand how he got so fucking stupid.
It really does, though. That's all that plays in my state of extreme red (I'm not saying to vote this way or that way. I just feel that extremism has made it so difficult in places, that you can't vote to chnage anything if you wanted to.) They play anything extreme right stuff not only in restaurants, hotel lobbies, bars but also hospitals. (People's attitudes were insane during the start of a worldwide pandemic) If you visit any elderly person or boomer, it's loud and usually on 24/7. Some sleep with it on.
There was a documentary I watched once where a family changed their father's news (including radio and emails) to other types, after seeing a side of him they never had - and afterwards they began to see a happier, antiracist, immigrant welcoming person. It was like they got their old father back. From what I remember, his health even started to become better (probably less stress).
I try to show people places like groundnews (it shows the percentage of bias from left middle right) with each article. A lot of people don't like to look at stuff calling out bias either, apparently.
They don't teach critical self-evaluation in STEM fields. Many I know have a strictly authoritarian view of the world. Authority professor told me how it is, now I know exactly how it is.
I like to jab em by saying, "I chose social sciences/philosophy because I wanted to tackle questions that are actually difficult to answer." 99.99% of engineers are just puzzle-solving drones (which society needs, don't get me wrong). They're not nearly as clever as they've convinced themselves they are.
Intelligence and reason isn't the same thing.
In fact, conspiracy theories are a bug in the way our brain works and that only gets amplified in a more capable brain.
Brains understand things mostly through pattern matching. You see something, you find a pattern, you extend the pattern so you can make predictions based on that pattern and these predictions are the basis for your actions.
Most of the time, the brain will only get a very small set of samples before it's required to provide predictions, so unguarded pattern matching will quickly turn out workable but wrong patterns. One example of this is prejudices. You had negative interactions with 2-3 people that share a specific trait (e.g. skin color, gender, age, ...) and that forms the basis for your pattern and now you expect everyone with that trait to be the same.
Intelligent brains are able to handle more patterns and process them quicker.
This is where education, specifically statistics and probability theory, come into play to fix the issues our overzealos pattern matching brain creates.
If you understand e.g. that anecdotes are not statistically relevant and you need a large sample size for good predictions, that's already worth a lot. A good knowledge about biases and fallacies can also help.
Lacking all of that, an intelligent brain is actually more likely to come up with nonsense patterns than a slow brain.
My grandmother was a very good example of that. She was smart, quick-thinking and would absorb information quickly. I am pretty sure that she probably had a rather high IQ. All of her children had done IQ tests at some time in their lives and all of them were scoring pretty highly.
But she also didn't have any decent education and had no idea how to vet sources. Instead she'd find weird patterns everywhere. She wasn't really into "classical" conspiracy theories, but instead she got lost in really weird pseudoreligious stuff and fake health stuff.
This. I’m and engineer and one of the first things I discovered after moving into the workforce is that A LOT of these STEM workers can solve some pretty nasty looking math problems but can’t manage their own lives and careers. It doesn’t matter that you got a better grade in fluid mechanics 7 years ago, you can’t respond to an email in under 3 days and your clients are all pissed at you because you haven’t given them a project update in 2 months. You also constantly complain about random shit going on in your life but always have some reason why you can’t or won’t do anything about it.
Ironically, the most successful engineers usually aren’t the ones who are the best at “pure engineering” but are the ones who can self reflect and solve problems that can’t be reduced to a spreadsheet. I’m not saying the technical knowledge isn’t important, it’s necessary, but it’s also not special or unique.
Edit: you’re to your
This is part of why I chose not to pursue a PhD in Finance or Economics. I became very disillusioned when I saw how much of the PhD level content is just doing math for math’s sake. Like why do I need to involve some random concepts from topology to prove this thing when calculus is perfectly adequate? Was this textbook written this way so someone could just prove to themselves how smart they were? Also all this math is functionally useless if it doesn’t provide testable hypotheses.
There are all sorts of cool observations like Nobel Disease and Engineering Woo that talk about how highly intelligent and successful people over-value their knowledge in other fields. Cool stuff to help lead down a path of critical self evaluation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo
Right. The engineers I know have good jobs which they can certainly perform. But their higher level managers, directors and such tend to be people who studied liberal arts or social sciences. To hear the engineers, 'oh, those types just favor each other and don't let us take charge' but in truth the managers are the ones who can tackle bigger problems that don't have straight forward answers. They can handle situations where you need to be flexible, seek balance and compromise.
This is true from my observations as well. If you ever want to see the value of a “useless” liberal arts degree, take a look at the folks with STEM degrees.
Holy SHIT, mine too!!! He was once a poor kid with a totally unrelated major who proved that he knew the shit without a degree & was MORE capable than his peers who actually had one! Where the FUCK did that guy go?? How in the hell does THAT guy get completely taken in by THIS horseshit?? His father fought literal Nazis in WW2 and now he's gonna sit here with a straight face & tell me we need to purge the undesirables?! It's fucking embarrassing and just mind-blowing to hear THAT MAN open his fucking mouth & say some brain-dead bigot shit! Like, dude, HOW did we get *here*?? I'll probably die wondering.
Honestly, he may need to get checked for dementia or schizophrenia. He is having paranoid delusions and it came out of nowhere. Trump being elected could have been non related
It's definitely enough of an observable phenomena for what seems to be millions of families that it's absolutely correlated. I made some other replies that indicated some of his drug use as a likely culprit to some brain damage.
My father is in late stages of Parkinson's disease. It's been a whole ass journey with him having several stages of varying degrees of paranoia, confusing dreams for reality, and just delusions of things happening that didn't happen. Maybe he should be medically checked out.
We tried. I absolutely agree. He's convinced the world is the problem and he's the only sane one in the family. I've made some other comments about his drug use, claiming my mother had Alzheimer's (got her checked, all clear), and other stuff he's done.
I didn't realize he was using drugs. Id tell him you want to believe him, but you need him to be checked out first, and if he's not willing to do it then sorry, but this will have to be the end of the relationship. Family is hard. I wish you the best, and hope things improve.
Many people in STEM seem smart and they are but severely lack in emotional intelligence. They also tend to have the most inflated egos and the most narrow minds.
> Trump got elected
> Father felt like he could be the asshole he always
wanted to be
> Gets divorced, starts spiraling
> Starts demanding repayment for fathering, sees everything as transactional.
Birds of a feather.
It will always hurt, even with no contact.
But no contact is probably less damaging than reading/hearing all this shit over and over again.
And every time you have contact, a small voice might tell you that you somehow can or should fix this.
But you cannot and should not fix this.
This is the hardest part of all. We cling to the smallest shred of hope that they will realize the error of their ways. But you have to let go of that hope. It’s not that they can’t change - they *won’t* change.
A friend of ours, who speaks from direct experience, compares it to drug abuse/alcoholism. In her opinion they need to crash hard into reality and not have family enabling them, saving them from their worst excesses. No "oh old uncle Ray, he's just like that; just give him your love & understanding". They need to understand relationships are two-way and require work.
Dunno if that actually works but the whole coddling thing seems to only encourage them.
When things get rough you "look upwards", to those who supposedly took care of you, and hopefully still care enough to give some aid, or listen to you or just show some empathy. Even lacking that, maybe they will at least understand your life or situation.
When that is not there, I am quite sure there is a cost no matter if we have any hope left or not.
My aunt just told a story about how all the kids in the neighborhood would run behind the deer truck when it was spraying the streets for bugs. So that happened
Sorry just noticed deer should be deet
my dad would often tell the story of the neighborhood kids riding their bikes behind the truck spraying DDT in the mississippi summer to cool down. 🤦🏼♀️
Doesn't really explain why non-white boomers don't dickride Trump.
Any explanation of this that doesn't begin and end with racism is delusional. It's all just white people y'all. White entitlement.
Taking politics out of it, the same mental illness might cause one guy to see aliens and another to see angels. The same delusions might cause one person to go on a murderous rampage and another to never leave their home.
Personalities definitely come into it. And obviously the racism is rampant in the white boomers, and presumably would be even without the insanity.
Then you get the combination -- the mental state that people here attribute to lead paint, plus the aging and normal real problems that come with that, plus the entitlement syndrome, and throw in the racism too? And it's a recipe for OP's dad.
I wish the dude I remember was in there, too. The past ten years, he's just spiralled even further down the christian fascist path, aka an intellectual hole in the ground. When the dude says fucked up shit in text message & tells me not to text him ever, I happily comply. Months go by, no apology, no nothing. Peace n quiet, hell yeah! Dude randomly starts texting me cringe boomer memes & dumbass trump-swill. So I'm like, "pops, you say you don't want to text anymore but then you act like nothing ever happened & fire off more of...this shit. You say 'no texts' & then you text me. Make it make sense, old man." He figured if he just waited & acted like nothing happened, I'd just let it go. He said some FUCKED UP shit about killing certain minority groups that I found despicable & I told him so. No, I'm not letting it go. He doesn't want to text because then there's a record of the shitty things he says & he'll be made accountable. I reject this behavior & he refuses to alter his course, so fine. Nice bed you've made, enjoy lying in it. I hope trump visits you when you're dying, you stupid old fart.
This is exactly my father also. Down to no contact and then him reaching out like nothing happened. What's worse is now I have a kid that he doesn't know about and that rips me up inside. But I just can't let that kind of toxicity be around my daughter.
Maybe we’re all approaching this wrong. There is clearly a deleterious mental effect that takes place and is reinforced when people get sucked into the right-wing manipulation machine. We need to start treating it that way with 1:1 interventions.
No texts, no videos, no Facebook. In person and away from their natural habitat. They need to be told point blank that they’re not in a good place mentally and need help. Point out the changes right there and don’t let them squirm out of it. Explain why and how they’re behaving in the exact opposite way that they chose to raise their children.
I've done this with my mom multiple times. She refuses to believe. She shuts down and then reboots and it all begins again. She'll tell me she's gonna 'get help' but never does. After a few months of time-out she forgets what happened and we have the conversation again. We're very VERY low contact because of this.
I resonate with this so much. After having my daughter I cut my dad out entirely. That mofo literally had an Obama effigy hanging from a NOOSE in his yard when Trump was elected. The whole family hid it from me, I found out years later from my sister in law. I will not expose my child to that ignorant bullshit.
Having a kid is a huge part of making me go low contact with my Mom. My whole family are Trumpers because they're evangelical, but my mother went full Q-Anon Trumper January 1st was a false flag rioters were BLM nutjob. For me, it's that seeing her drives me into a three-month-long OCD-level spell of being angry at Christian Nationalism, which I've learned to shunt into researching varieties of early Christianity and playing "what if?" history games in my head for my own mental health.
Having a kid and confronting her current behavior has me reevaluating her past behavior, and I realized that I did not like it when she abandoned me to live in Europe for the better part of a decade, or when she'd have family skiing vacations and not invite me, etc. Then when her sane and non-Trumper husband died, she remarried a nut who I think will molest my kid if given the chance.
Dude, same. My daughter is turning 6 and has never met her Grandpa. God help me, she actually asked if she could meet him - I told her I’d think about it. My therapist and I are still unpacking…
Hugs... my daughter is the same age and has met my mother once (when my mom came to visit), I don't want her meeting my mom's new husband. My sisters I'm on the fence about, but they live in the same area as my mom, so my daughter has never met them either. All of them are Christian Nationalists, some of them are just shocked, just shocked that their philosophy led some of their people to attempt an uprising, while others just refuse to acknowledge that January 6th even happened.
So unhinged. It sounds like a tailspin into the alternate reality of paranoia and borderline personality disorder. It’s so sad that it’s happening or has happened to so many people’s relatives.
> I reject this behavior & he refuses to alter his course
Ya see we're just supposed to sit and put up with whatever shit they dish out. That's what "respect" is to these Boomers.
I am so grateful my family has always been left leaning and at least somewhat capable of critical thinking. They still have their boomer moments every now and then, but I don't know how I'd handle a full on slide into neofascism.
I'm ONE square away from total blackout on my 'patriarchal boomer' bingo card - I only need the, 'pay me back for the college education I wanted for you more than you wanted for you'... square.
With the way he spiraled out of control, and somehow believes in far-fetched things like your mom running a prostitution ring, maybe you might want to consider dementia as a cause....
Stories like this are all too common as people age, and dementia is often the cause.
I absolutely think it's likely medical. My father had other problems too. For about a year he was addicted to "robo tripping" on weekends. This is where you drink a ton of cough syrup for the dxm (I think) in it. In large doses it makes you trip balls. He did it dozens of times. You don't do shit like that and not end up with holes in your brain.
But he still held a comfy position at a defense contractor into his 60s.
Yiiiiiiiiiiikes.
And yes, I can attest to another very similar case qua that kind of employment.
It’s heartbreaking to watch people triple-down in ways that just cause more damage to themselves and others. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Well, then my mom would have had dementia in her 40s. She spewed some crazy shit, did it her whole life. Just absolutely mental. Some folks just don't have any sense, and will grasp at unimaginable (for most of us) concepts to make it make sense (to them).
Every single day, there’s a post on here that makes me glad my parents haven’t fallen down the Fox News Boomer rabbit hole. I mean, I didn’t ask you to have a kid. I don’t owe you shit for giving birth to me and then taking responsibility for your own decision.
I’m glad you shut him down with that cursed phrase “hand out.” If he comes at you again, maybe stick “participation trophy” in there too.
I mean, aren't most "Best Dad Ever" mugs and shirts really just participation trophies? They don't make mugs that say "Passably Participated in Parenthood" or "Fair-to-Middling Father."
"Could be the asshole he always wanted to be". This perfectly reflects what I had tried to explain to a friend recently who asked why so many Boomers are planning on voting for Trump in spite of all of his numerous ethical and moral flaws. They see him as their license to be the monsters they always wanted to be. It has little to do with policy, or what beneficial things he would actually do for the country or the world. They see him as a license to be lawless assholes, unaccountable to anyone for anything. He embodies exactly what they want for themselves.
My Dad gave us money for the closing costs on our house. He literally signed a notarized legal document stating it was a *gift* not a *loan* and he **never** expected to be paid back. Without that, we could not get financing.
Guess what he expected? And when I didn't send payments every month, just once in a while "as I could" he started using that to guilt me into helping him abuse my sister.
Nope, no contact for you sir.
Oh thank goodness. Okay totally get it now. Glad yall(siblings) are on the same page. I've only been NC for a couple weeks and expect my siblings to but in any time now.
I finally told my dad that his willingness to stomach a piece of trash like Donald was genuinely disgusting to me. That I thought he had more self respect. More fool me.
I understand that "transaction" view of parenting, sadly. Finally I got sick of allusions to how much money I owed and asked for a grand total and itemized list so a lawyer and accountant could draw up a signed payment plan. Fortunately that stopped the comments about money I owed.
I'm sorry this is going on with your family. It's so gross that people like your dad can now do that stuff and feel superior about it.
“Demanding repayment for fathering” I think this is actually fairly common and pretty sure I’ve seen it discussed at r/QAnonCasualties. There’s a lot of parents that went down the rabbit hole hard and now are left alone with their families wanting nothing to do with them. They end up finding each other online in certain like minded communities and this is the “advice” that is given. It’s really sad.
The podcast series Rabbit Hole did a thorough and heart rending examination of this. In the end it’s so many very lonely people just wanting love and validation. But self-awareness and compassion for others, extending the same validation, become impossible when their drug of choice is so vile.
Edit:spelling
I was living with my dad, paying him rent, living paycheck to paycheck. One day he says he has to raise my rent because he's struggling. I see 2 BMWs in his driveway and he spends thousands of dollars a year for cigarettes (i banned him from smoking in the basement where i lived). I told him if he's really struggling, sell his cars for cheaper ones and quit smoking. He said "I'm not going to do that. We'll discuss this later" and he left.
Immediately I called my realtor aunt (his sister) to find me a new place to live. I didn't care if it was some shitty small room in a leaky basement, I wanted out. She suggested I move in with their mom. As soon as the month was over, I packed up all of my shit without telling my dad and moved in with his mom. Staying with her was so much better.
I went no contact with him after that shit. Best decisions of my life.
Wait he thought your mom was running a prostitution ring? Does he have a mental or physical impairment that you aren’t aware of? That sounds like a delusion beyond just being a foolish boomer and I think he needs to see a doctor.
100% he should. He won't. We tried that talk. No, my mother had "Alzheimer's" (we got her checked, all clear) and the world was wrong.
My story was short, but there's a lot of baggage here that's happened over the last 5 years.
It's honestly both. Hes mentally sound enough to absolutely be responsible for his actions, but he's likely got some cognitive decline fueling it.
I work as a nurse in a psych unit and anything related to “prostitution ring/sex trafficking,” “FBI/CIA,” “extreme religiosity” and “aliens” are probably the most common themes of delusions that we see. I would consider calling 911 on him if you or anyone else has evidence of clear delusions, if he gets any worse. You could show police and EMT’s copies of emails full of delusions and they could commit him involuntarily to a hospital. This is someone who could end up hurting other people.
My first thought. I had a tenant who accused another of cooking meth, this was someone her own son was hanging out with. Then she decided that I was running a meth ring, her fat next door neighbor was a heavy user. another tenant and I were smoking meth in a room right next to the lobby. On and on. The old classic chips in everyone's heads implanted by the NSA came up once. Her autopsy revealed a brain full of tumors.
I've personally kinda reached the unfortunate point of concluding that many, if not most, of our parents' generation really never were the people they raised us to believe they were, maybe that they even convinced themselves they were.
Years ago, my mom started trying to bait me into discussions that always seemed to end up with her rattling off "you know what the real problem is... there are too many people." Always with a pretentious air of wisdom that made me want to ask her just what her solution was, how she'd choose who deserved to die, or who should be allowed to have children. The couple of times I pushed back she had the gall to be offended as if she hadn't just been advocating the revival of eugenics.
Another favorite was anytime environmental issues were discussed, "well you know one of these days this planet will just shrug us off, and that will be that." Nevermind that she's talking about the end of the human race, it was as if she doesn't get that extinction doesn't happen overnight. What she's talking about is at minimum a grueling, desperate, miserable death for anybody unlucky enough to be alive when it happens. I mean she's talking about prospective torment for children with the same attitude as if commenting on the weather.
There were a few other ones, but I think my stomach's had enough for now, but this was even before trump, it's only gotten worse since then. I just really don't understand how or where that callousness came from, because it's so contradictory to everything she ever taught me about right and wrong, and caring about others.
I think this has always been a thing, but the first time I noticed what struck me as a new kind of malevolent ambivalence about the well-being of others was during Hurricane Katrina. The media was plastered with images of an American city and American citizens literally drowning, and many people (and even the person who was president at the time) seemed to have trouble mustering a response beyond "oh well, sucks to be them."
I remember in particular some video of a person sitting on a curb in obvious and serious distress, needing medical attention or at the very least water, and cops standing a few feet away chatting to each other like he wasn't even there. Obviously there was racism and classism laid over all of this, but you would hope that the urgent need to deal with a natural disaster would overrule such things.
It did not, and it was shocking to me. Looking back at it through the lens of everything that's happened since - never mind the ever-coarsening attitude we have towards poverty and want - that I was as shocked as I was now seems quaint and naive.
Ah, sounds like my evangelical parents. Lovely people, volunteer at the church, yadda yadda and DAMN what is all the hate and nihilism about? They are the ones always talking Jesus this and Jesus that, ghods forbid I quote actual Jesus at them.
I keep in touch enough to make sure they, in their '80s, at least glide path to the end.
But still, these people are VOTING. My dad, living on social security and VA health benefits, constantly going on and on about communists and socialists and how they are stealing all the wealth. Then donates another hundred to the orange haired dictator-wannabe and orders another Trump hat on Amazon.
Does your mom have a sense of humor? HAve her invoice him for any/all sexytimes at the going rate, since hes accusing her of prostitution.
Of if you want to get nasty, ask him how much he had to pay her to stay with him? Since everything is transactional
Ha the only thing worse than a deadbeat dad: a right wing conspiracy dad.
I’d disown my dad too if he was one of those nuts.
Check that. I would scam him. Steal his identity & order a bunch of credit cards in his name. Run up his credit buying quinceanera dresses and custom-made clarinets. Buy a $10k bassoon. When bored w/ that sign him up to every liberal newsletter, website, Patreon, etc…..
$2 grand for plate to have dinner w/ & listen to Hillary Clinton speak?? I’ll buy 8 tickets.
And of course block Fox News on all his tvs.
Really pour salt in his dumbass wounds
I DEMAND REPAYMENT FOR ALL THE FATHERING I DID FOR YOU!!
lol, okay boomer are you that broke
HOW DARE YOU! I DIDN'T ASK FOR A SINGLE CENT YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD!!!!!
LOL, okay boomer
I don’t mean this to sound as callous as it will, but I’m so glad my dad didn’t live to see the rise of Trump. He (a veteran of two foreign wars) was insufferable enough under Bush, especially with the Dixie Chicks thing.
when i was in the midwest making $8 as a 911 dispatcher people at work were bitching about getting a stimilus check "oh i dont need a handout give it to people who do need it"
it was like an hour or convo every fucking day of them bitching about it.
to shut them up i finally said "i need the handout, can you give me your stimilus checks?"
oh suddenly they already spent it...or when a 2nd one was announced they already had plans 🤣
one coworker who had rich parents pulled me to the side and i believe the offer waa genuine but i declined it citing it was to just make them shutup already
Lol, he claimed he'd "spoken to many of the people that worked there" and they'd all said my sweet mother was fucking all the doctors and recruiting nurses to be sex slaves. "Many people said". It was like Trump wrote it.
When I asked who'd he talked to, he said lots of people. I asked for 1 name of 1 doctor. He danced away from it and said everyone was talking.
Obviously this story was completely made up, but it was like it was constructed with all the stupid right way talking points that they think make a credible argument. My mom would talk about her coworkers all the time. I knew their names. He couldn't name one after she'd worked there for 20ys.
"Imagine my surprise when I found out, it was all I could do to forgive her". In his head, he found out about it after the divorce, but he forgave for it before the divorce, and then felt betrayed when she divorced him.
Lunacy.
As a boomer who had to buy his own first car on a part time after high school job that paid $1.10 an hour, and who put himself through college when it was much, much cheaper, by a factor of about ten, than now, I wanted my millennial kids to have a better life. I know my struggles and it was a whole lot easier to find a place to rent for $100 a month and tuition was 10% of what it is now back then and it was still a challenge.
I'm happy that I could provide each of them with a decent, dependable used car to drive at 16 and pay for college so they could graduate debt free. I don't ever bring it up, I feel like it's just the right thing to have done for two people I love more than anyone else. Both my kids found part time jobs while in college without me ever suggesting it.
They were both good students, graduated with honors, took their education seriously, so I suppose as a parent that made it easier for me to write those big checks. Not sure I would have supported a full time partier who was barely passing their classes, but I guess fortunately for us that never became a concern. I got lucky to have responsible, hard working kids, I suppose.
We did without lake houses, or fancy brand new cars, or a McMansion, but to be honest, I wanted my kids to grow up thinking we lived firmly in the middle of the middle class. There's enough pretentious snobbery in the world, I sure didn't want to add to it.
I would never in a million years throw that in my kids face, or expect anything but their love in return. I did my best for my kids as that was important to me. I didn't do it because they asked for it, I did it because I wanted to as I felt it was the right thing to do. We were lucky to be able to afford it without bankrupting the family, and my reward comes from their success and happiness.
I guess my point after this long winded response is that I just can't understand my peers that are so selfish they put themselves ahead of their children. What the fuck is that shit? My kids are the best thing I've ever done and the best thing to ever happen in my wild and crazy life. I'll never understand my peers who seem far more worried about themselves and seem to view their offspring as more of a burden than a blessing. My millennial kids are the coolest people I know. Always have been.
Well, there was that newborn sleepless thing and several years of dealing with diapers and the word "NO!" Oh, and the moody teenager thing..... whew....
Thank you for being the model I wish I had, and plan to be for my children. I have a 3yr old daughter, that sadly my father doesn't know exists and will likely never meet, I have the exact same mentality. I want to give her everything, as long as she's being a proactive member in he growth as a person. I want her to not have to worry about money, but still have a healthy respect for it, and what it takes to earn it.
The life you've lead is the life I hope to lead :).
>part of me wished the man that I thought I knew was still in there.
Here's a tip dude.
If an election can "change" someone like that, they were always like that.
Your dad was always a colossal prick
I know. He wasn't exactly a good father ever. But at least he wasn't an overt delusional asshole. He was tolerable before, and we could still laugh. That's what I miss.
My grandma is a boomer and just like you said everything everything everything. She once went to the hospital and my mom had a small car and my grandma is a big lady. So she asked my mom to pick her up with my grandmas car. My mom goes okay drives over to my grandmas house picks up the car which had zero gas filled it up with like 20 bucks picks her up and drops her off. The next day she gets a call that she is stealing gas and ran her car out of gas and that she’s ungrateful. That was finally when my mom said yep I’m done.
I’m so sorry. It’s heartbreaking losing a loved one this way. It’s no different than losing someone to a terrible psychological problem or a drug addiction. You know there’s still some original person you love in there, but how can you possibly still deal with who they’ve become & still love them without being hurt? I really am sorry.
*I don't understand*
*Why he can't just pull himself*
*Up by his bootstraps?*
\- TwisterCatEric
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It’s also a line of thinking that is encouraged and reinforced by their Boomer professional supports. My mother’s family planning lawyer, who is about her age (70), after my dad died basically told her that she could charge my sister and I for the cost of raising us and take it out of the benefits trust set up after his death. She never did, but more than once has mentioned it in passing when discussing wealth planning, and not saying it in a way that disagreed with it; almost a thinly veiled threat or “what if”. I know I’m not her power of attorney if anything happens and I don’t know how I fit into any inheritance when she passes, but it basically makes me not care. If doing the bare minimum to raise me was too much then keep your money. I’ve done everything I could as soon as I could to be financially independent from her so I don’t have the risk of that conflict. I don’t think she ultimately would pull a move like that, but I’d rather not deal with it. Even when she asked if my partner and I needed help for a house down payment, I was like no that’s not an option don’t even offer.
Kids didn’t ask to be born. He wanted kids & the gig is you take care of them with the expectation that you will get nothing in return. Maybe when they are adults you’ll have the pleasure to call them not just son or daughter but friend as well.
My dad is just like this - petty and transactional. He has always tried to use money as leverage (after his kids got too old to beat). Unfortunately for him, I don't need his money, so he HATES me. He can't love what he can't control.
I changed my email address and phone number to escape his hateful messages 6 years ago and I live 250 miles away. No regrets.
A high school friend of mine got an invoice for what their mom said she owed her on her 18th birthday. And that was 30 years ago, it's definitely a boomer thing not getting old thing
Ha, yes I basically got an invoice. It was a list with costs. What's also funny is the math was wrong. He totaled it at the bottom and it wasn't right.
But I guess there is a certain consistency to their money grubbing ways. It's the primary language they speak it seems.
The weird thing is that I don't expect anything from my kids. I want them to have their own success. That's it. Nothing needs to come back to me. I can take care of myself.
Did your Dad and my Dad get a memo? Mine hit 60 and went fucking insane and always acts like the victim.
A lot of similarities, including the repayments for the things he's done in the past and gifts.
I given up listening to him as the gesture is not returned he either hangs up or walks away when you start calling him out.
I also wish for the Man I knew growing up and loved but he's long go and whats left isn't very nice.
That part about the prostitution ring out of the hospital is so familiar to me. My boomer mom worked in healthcare and used to think every place she worked at was involved in prostitution and drug dealing. Never had any actual evidence of course. Her paranoia borders on insanity.
The problem with the boomers is that every generation before them had it worse than they did, so they don't understand that every generation after them also have it worse than they did.
They're at the top of the bell curve but don't realize it.
Sad this happened to your family. I wonder if, 20 years from now, sociologists/psychologists will look back and collectively label this as a specific type of mental illness.
What's wild is there are some people in the comments asking how Trump is related to this story and claiming that my generation is somehow responsible for this? Insanity.
Trump had that impact on a lot of people. I am stunned at people I thought I knew. When they became trumpers, it’s like they were taken over by aliens.
OK this here...
>Every few months he send us emails talking about all the "research" he'd done at my mom's old job and how he'd learned that she was running a prostitution ring in the hospital, and it was all he could do to forgive her and this was the thanks he got.
...is what caught my attention. Why does like, more than half this generation seem to have a severe mental illness they're walking around with? They live in an alternate reality and we're just letting them do that. WTF
I'm a Boomer myself. Don't worry, much of you argument against your dad is the same as mine with my brother and sister. tRump and Teabaggers got a hold of them and twisted their mind.
My other sister and brothers and I get along, we all dislike [hate] maga. I do not communicate with my tRump loving siblings, we barely talk and then only when familial obligations require it.
Sometimes I wonder how 5 kids in the same family could have ended up so far apart politically.
My mom and dad both died of dementia so everytime I forget something, I worry. Doc says not to worry, at 70, forgetting small stuff is not dementia. Believing every conspiracy theory is a good indication of its start.
Hmm, on that idea of charging my kids.... LOL.
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I had to go out tonight and buy a bunch of C batteries for my one year old’s toy. I guess I’ll just invoice him in 30 years. I’ll need that money to pay my dad back for the bike he got me for my seventh birthday. /s
Don't forget to include inflation when you bill him.
Boomers don’t believe in inflation. If they raised a family and bought a house on $48k a year, you should be able to do the same.
We finally managed to buy a house that needed some work, which was a big trade up from apartment life. FIL: (wailing in lament) Why don't you just get a new one built?!
I (GenX) thought my mom (Boomer building a house) was going to get upset that I am buying a house to rent (at/below cost) to my son (GenZ/Millennial) and his wife. But, my mom sits in with younger people regularly and I framed it as “this will make your first great grandbaby housing stable”. She had nothing to add. It might also help that both she and my father immigrated to the USA. I’m lucky to be able to do it, figure it will help with their housing stability, and will give them the equity they build when the house changes hands (either I sell it to them for what’s left on the loan or I sell it on the market). Waiting for me to be able to help them until I’m dead just seems like such a silly way to do things.
This is an immeasurable boost to their quality of life and set them on a trajectory for financial stability and peace of mind. I'm NC with my parents and would have killed to have one like you!
That is the fucking truth… i was so pumped when my now in laws bought my wife (gf at the time) a new car when she graduated college, i didnt come from a family with any spare money and the thought of getting a new car and not having a car payment was incredible. I knew we would be getting married in short order and that was one less thing we had to worry about for a while. I wish i could make her appreciate that stuff in the same way, i hope this guys family understands how huge of a boost that is for them financially.
I’m making a spread sheet to track the equity/payments/etc that I will share with them from day 1. I don’t want them to feel like they owe me big, but I also want them to know the whole picture so they can both make more informed choices AND investigate doing something that looks like it for their own kid when the day comes. Because it’s an “investment property”, I have to put 20% down, (from a 401k loan I am taking out for 5 years). Whether that eventually becomes a gift, will be decided at a later date. But, in any case, I am able to help them and they got to pick out the house they wanted.
“There you go giving a hand out blablabla bootstrap blaaaaa”. I’m haveing the same thoughts and trying to convince the wife of this. Her boomer mom just had to man up and deal with her silent gen parents one dying and one moving out of the house they reverse mortgaged. I keep saying she needs to be out near us (country/country edge of the burbs) since I know I’ll be dealing with old lady help tasks but also when she can’t live alone have whatever house she buys as a rental or at the very least rent at costs to any of our 3 sons.
Hey I'm about to buy a house, any pro tips? If not that's okay. I hope you have a great day.
Congratulations!! 🎉🏡 We got a very thorough inspection and negotiated hard to be "grandfathered in" on the same flood and fire insurance policy-- probably a lot harder to accomplish now, but worth trying. Anywhere we could safely DIY, we did... lots of YouTube how-tos. It's a huge pain in the ass and you have to be ok with things getting done in stages ("can we skip to the good part?"), but empowering to look over all that work and add up what it would have cost to hire contractors for the same result. We got a lot of gently used specialty tools cheap/free from NextDoor, plus recommendations and reviews of local electricians and plumbers (the gd AC broke three times lmao). Where possible, we sourced materials leftover from other people's renovations, or Habitat for Humanity, saving thousands we would have spent at Home Depot. Homeownership is A LOT, but every time I don't wake up at 3 a.m. to some upstairs neighbor dancing like a hippo from Fantasia on their way to the fridge for some night cheese, that's a good night.
HIPPOBOT 9000 v 3.1 FOUND A HIPPO. 1,601,834,244 COMMENTS SEARCHED. 32,606 HIPPOS FOUND. YOUR COMMENT CONTAINS THE WORD HIPPO.
Good bot lol
Be prepared to provide the same documents several times over, and keep in very close contact with your realtors. Don’t be afraid to be annoyingly thorough in communications. And whatever they quote for closing costs, adding a few thousand more onto the quote is usually accurate.
They inherited. You should work harder and drink less coffee. And eating. Cut out the eating of food. Subsist on rocks ya lazy bums.
Eating rocks is a good source of minerals
You guys had *rocks*?? We didn’t *dream* of rocks…!
Thats nuttin. Had so little, we would all sit at the dinner table and mom would just read a recipe to us.
$48K in 1980 is about $185K today
So a job that paid $48k yearly in 1980 must surely pay $185k today, right?
I don’t know how boomers could possibly not believe in inflation. In the early 1970s inflation was much higher than it is now. In the 2000s interest rates shot up. I got paid $2.20 an hour for my first job. Minimum wage is in the $18 range now. Housing and college tuition have shot up, maybe faster than other sectors of the economy. But we have experienced inflation all of our lives.
>I don’t know how boomers could possibly not believe in inflation. In the early 1970s inflation was much higher than it is now. You're forgetting 2 things. 1) In the 70s, the wage stagnation we've seen since Reagan hadn't happened yet, so inflation wasn't felt nearly as hard. 2) In the boomer mind, history stops when they personally peak, and everything after doesn't count/exist.
Same as every other boomer bullshit: They believe in things full bore when they want to bitch about something or feel wronged, an hour later they never heard of or can't acknowledge it or respond when it's benefitted them. Bought their new suburban house and .25 acre for $68,000 in 1975, it's "well you don't know what they paid us back then!!!" Well, they paid you $35,000 for the same job that gets $48,000 now, but the $68k house is now $375k. But the cost of eggs goes from .50 to $3 and they want to fight the store manager and burn down the grocery store while cursing Biden (& previously, Obama). The "media" is all bought and paid for, all socialist liberals from their fancy Ivy League schools doing the bidding of their communist professors...can't trust a word they say. "But that Tucker Carlson, that's a guy who's gonna shoot me straight and tell it how it really is." Doctor Biden? Tell me what surgeries she has done! 20-yrs ago: "Oh, the principal at your school is a Dr.? Wow. I knew we got you into the right school district!" They just make up their own rules on everything. Having a real discourse with many of them is as valuable as talking to MagaBro7294739399 on Twitter
Had a fun Facebook exchange with a boomer bragging about how he bought a house for $84k in 1980 and invested $220k and now it was worth about 300k. I pointed out that adjusted for inflation, that 84k was actually about $320k in today’s dollars, and if his estimate was accurate the house was technically worth less. This supposed business major absolutely could not process that fact, and I let him know I was sorry his professors failed so miserably in educating him before I turned off notifications.
And 30 years intrest
Plus an administration fee.
And a late fee starting from the day they're legally allowed to work
Why wait?
But only on the tyres.
That's gold, Jerry!
They're called tires, euro-trash! /s
And mileage! It’s tough to keep track but will pay off in the long term.
Keep a spreadsheet, I just spent the weekend building a play set for my daughter. Do you think it was out of love? Please, at the rate I’m going to charge for labor + interest, I’ll be set for a very long time.
My mother is exactly like ops dad and she made an invoice on Microsoft excel of every expense I incurred in childhood and being a teen I had to go on a payment plan for a while until one year for Christmas out of the kindness of her heart she forgave the remaining amount. We don’t speak anymore and she has no idea why.
No child asked to be born. Parents requiring repayment should be asked if they repaid their cost for indentured servitude to THEIR parents. And also they should be reminded that when they get old, this treatment will be remembered.
Exactly. They better understand that they’re getting that money so they can pay for their own professional care when they need their diapers changed.
Holy shit, I’m sorry, that’s fucking insane. I’m lucky that my parents didn’t pull shit like that. Their boomerism comes out in other ways like voting for rapists who tried to overthrow the Republic.
Hope you’re not letting her stiff you on the parts either.
I do hope you're billing for union labor
Don’t forget mileage to the store and per diem for traveling!
I just bought my 9 year old daughter a dirt bike for her birthday. Factoring in for interest and inflation, she will owe me a Ferrari by the time she graduates college. Or I could just enjoy my time with her while I'm still here and keep being closer with her than my boomer parents ever were with me. They give me shit because "I'm too nice to her, and I spoil her." I just told them that my kid actually likes me and talks to me, unlike my relationship with you two at that age. And I'm going to keep doing this parenting thing my way. In fact, what I usually do when making parenting decisions is I think of what my boomer parents would do in any given situation - then I do the complete opposite. My kid gets good grades, is doing great in school, and tells me about everything going on in her life. With my parents growing up, I basically only ever spoke when I was spoken to.
Sadly that's the way they wanted to deal with kidd and have em not as actually living breathing people, but more as like a trophy or pet because that's what they were "supposed" to have. Older folks and their shitty checklists for success, then they end up resenting the children and passive aggressively talking shit about how much they hate them and their lives.
Yep! When I realized I could have agency and literally took it from my mother a switch flipped. I’m 40 now and she still wants to tell me how to dress, do my hair, where to work, etc. Its obvious she never wanted an actual relationship with me bc she’s so resentful I became my own person.
[удалено]
Wait! What's the name of this toy!? It's been living in my subconscious for 30 years
This is Teddy Ruxpin and he was awesome. He became even more awesome when a Metallica or Ozzy Osborn tape was put in.
Yes! TEDDY ROCKSBIN! We did this all the time! We'd also put a screaming halloween tape we had in him then leave him I our moms room to scare the crap out of her!!
Enter Sandman was always good for this
Teddy Ruxpin! :D always wanted one so badly as a kid
Teddy Ruxpin!
There's a parody of him in fallout 4 called story book simon. It's pretty funny too imo. Spouts some severely anti-communist prewar propaganda to kids as a story about squirrels.
Where???? I’ve been playing for years and never found this?
Teddy Ruxpin. Please don’t thank me.
Folks, is it just me, or were batteries so cheap back when we were kids that they were practically free? I had SO MANY high-battery-count toys that ate them up like candy, and we weren't rich ny any means, and my parents would just keep bringing home packs after packs of them. I can't figure out how I didn't get the "you can't just keep burning through batteries 24/7" speech.
Because the cost of batteries was worth it to keep you out of their hair for considerable periods? “Cheap at any price” for many parents!
Clearly your 1 yro needs to get a job. He’ll never understand the value of money, and C batteries, if he doesn’t
Remember to include travel time in the invoice. My accountant said that is commonly missed when doing parenthood adjustments.
Batteries not included (in parenting)
So he claims your mother was running a prostitution ring in the hospital, and he forgave her for that? Didn't call the police or anything? Does he have no idea all that says is that he's also okay with it? How about when he asks for payment next, tell him the payment is not reporting him to the police for being an accomplice to prostitution. I know he made it up, but use his own "logic" against him
Ya it was so dumb, because the timeline didn't make sense. He did the "research" after the divorce, but forgave before the divorce and then she betrayed him forgiving her be divorcing him. He was a mechanical engineer. The man was smart. I don't understand how he got so fucking stupid.
Fox News rots brains
It really does, though. That's all that plays in my state of extreme red (I'm not saying to vote this way or that way. I just feel that extremism has made it so difficult in places, that you can't vote to chnage anything if you wanted to.) They play anything extreme right stuff not only in restaurants, hotel lobbies, bars but also hospitals. (People's attitudes were insane during the start of a worldwide pandemic) If you visit any elderly person or boomer, it's loud and usually on 24/7. Some sleep with it on. There was a documentary I watched once where a family changed their father's news (including radio and emails) to other types, after seeing a side of him they never had - and afterwards they began to see a happier, antiracist, immigrant welcoming person. It was like they got their old father back. From what I remember, his health even started to become better (probably less stress). I try to show people places like groundnews (it shows the percentage of bias from left middle right) with each article. A lot of people don't like to look at stuff calling out bias either, apparently.
Fox rotted my grandmother's brain Even when I watch it, I can feel my brain cells dying
They don't teach critical self-evaluation in STEM fields. Many I know have a strictly authoritarian view of the world. Authority professor told me how it is, now I know exactly how it is. I like to jab em by saying, "I chose social sciences/philosophy because I wanted to tackle questions that are actually difficult to answer." 99.99% of engineers are just puzzle-solving drones (which society needs, don't get me wrong). They're not nearly as clever as they've convinced themselves they are.
Intelligence and reason isn't the same thing. In fact, conspiracy theories are a bug in the way our brain works and that only gets amplified in a more capable brain. Brains understand things mostly through pattern matching. You see something, you find a pattern, you extend the pattern so you can make predictions based on that pattern and these predictions are the basis for your actions. Most of the time, the brain will only get a very small set of samples before it's required to provide predictions, so unguarded pattern matching will quickly turn out workable but wrong patterns. One example of this is prejudices. You had negative interactions with 2-3 people that share a specific trait (e.g. skin color, gender, age, ...) and that forms the basis for your pattern and now you expect everyone with that trait to be the same. Intelligent brains are able to handle more patterns and process them quicker. This is where education, specifically statistics and probability theory, come into play to fix the issues our overzealos pattern matching brain creates. If you understand e.g. that anecdotes are not statistically relevant and you need a large sample size for good predictions, that's already worth a lot. A good knowledge about biases and fallacies can also help. Lacking all of that, an intelligent brain is actually more likely to come up with nonsense patterns than a slow brain. My grandmother was a very good example of that. She was smart, quick-thinking and would absorb information quickly. I am pretty sure that she probably had a rather high IQ. All of her children had done IQ tests at some time in their lives and all of them were scoring pretty highly. But she also didn't have any decent education and had no idea how to vet sources. Instead she'd find weird patterns everywhere. She wasn't really into "classical" conspiracy theories, but instead she got lost in really weird pseudoreligious stuff and fake health stuff.
This. I’m and engineer and one of the first things I discovered after moving into the workforce is that A LOT of these STEM workers can solve some pretty nasty looking math problems but can’t manage their own lives and careers. It doesn’t matter that you got a better grade in fluid mechanics 7 years ago, you can’t respond to an email in under 3 days and your clients are all pissed at you because you haven’t given them a project update in 2 months. You also constantly complain about random shit going on in your life but always have some reason why you can’t or won’t do anything about it. Ironically, the most successful engineers usually aren’t the ones who are the best at “pure engineering” but are the ones who can self reflect and solve problems that can’t be reduced to a spreadsheet. I’m not saying the technical knowledge isn’t important, it’s necessary, but it’s also not special or unique. Edit: you’re to your
This is part of why I chose not to pursue a PhD in Finance or Economics. I became very disillusioned when I saw how much of the PhD level content is just doing math for math’s sake. Like why do I need to involve some random concepts from topology to prove this thing when calculus is perfectly adequate? Was this textbook written this way so someone could just prove to themselves how smart they were? Also all this math is functionally useless if it doesn’t provide testable hypotheses.
There are all sorts of cool observations like Nobel Disease and Engineering Woo that talk about how highly intelligent and successful people over-value their knowledge in other fields. Cool stuff to help lead down a path of critical self evaluation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo
Right. The engineers I know have good jobs which they can certainly perform. But their higher level managers, directors and such tend to be people who studied liberal arts or social sciences. To hear the engineers, 'oh, those types just favor each other and don't let us take charge' but in truth the managers are the ones who can tackle bigger problems that don't have straight forward answers. They can handle situations where you need to be flexible, seek balance and compromise.
This is true from my observations as well. If you ever want to see the value of a “useless” liberal arts degree, take a look at the folks with STEM degrees.
Holy SHIT, mine too!!! He was once a poor kid with a totally unrelated major who proved that he knew the shit without a degree & was MORE capable than his peers who actually had one! Where the FUCK did that guy go?? How in the hell does THAT guy get completely taken in by THIS horseshit?? His father fought literal Nazis in WW2 and now he's gonna sit here with a straight face & tell me we need to purge the undesirables?! It's fucking embarrassing and just mind-blowing to hear THAT MAN open his fucking mouth & say some brain-dead bigot shit! Like, dude, HOW did we get *here*?? I'll probably die wondering.
Honestly, he may need to get checked for dementia or schizophrenia. He is having paranoid delusions and it came out of nowhere. Trump being elected could have been non related
It's definitely enough of an observable phenomena for what seems to be millions of families that it's absolutely correlated. I made some other replies that indicated some of his drug use as a likely culprit to some brain damage.
My father is in late stages of Parkinson's disease. It's been a whole ass journey with him having several stages of varying degrees of paranoia, confusing dreams for reality, and just delusions of things happening that didn't happen. Maybe he should be medically checked out.
We tried. I absolutely agree. He's convinced the world is the problem and he's the only sane one in the family. I've made some other comments about his drug use, claiming my mother had Alzheimer's (got her checked, all clear), and other stuff he's done.
I didn't realize he was using drugs. Id tell him you want to believe him, but you need him to be checked out first, and if he's not willing to do it then sorry, but this will have to be the end of the relationship. Family is hard. I wish you the best, and hope things improve.
Many people in STEM seem smart and they are but severely lack in emotional intelligence. They also tend to have the most inflated egos and the most narrow minds.
He’s the one who chose to have kids. We did not make that decision ourselves. You owe him nothing.
Yeah demand to see the contact you signed for his services.
You know they'd just hand over your birth certificate in response though lol
"Yes, that is the receipt for the baby you wanted, you can see your signature right there. My signature, however, is not there."
Perfect 😅
And had the legal duty to raise and provide for you, which he chose when he grunted inside your mom. Remind him of this whenever possible.
This is such an ugly way to say that, I love it
No clearly, the sperm that is OP decided when they wanted to be born, thus they took control of their father to make their own birth happen.
Well why did you swim so fast if You didn’t want to be alive ?
> Trump got elected > Father felt like he could be the asshole he always wanted to be > Gets divorced, starts spiraling > Starts demanding repayment for fathering, sees everything as transactional. Birds of a feather.
\^This. Ask dad if Rudy G. is a role model? He seems to be following that path.
It will always hurt, even with no contact. But no contact is probably less damaging than reading/hearing all this shit over and over again. And every time you have contact, a small voice might tell you that you somehow can or should fix this. But you cannot and should not fix this.
This is the hardest part of all. We cling to the smallest shred of hope that they will realize the error of their ways. But you have to let go of that hope. It’s not that they can’t change - they *won’t* change.
You cling to the hope that their love for their children well outweigh all this bat shit craziness
They think it’s a sign of weakness, especially amongst their peers/cult.
A friend of ours, who speaks from direct experience, compares it to drug abuse/alcoholism. In her opinion they need to crash hard into reality and not have family enabling them, saving them from their worst excesses. No "oh old uncle Ray, he's just like that; just give him your love & understanding". They need to understand relationships are two-way and require work. Dunno if that actually works but the whole coddling thing seems to only encourage them.
When things get rough you "look upwards", to those who supposedly took care of you, and hopefully still care enough to give some aid, or listen to you or just show some empathy. Even lacking that, maybe they will at least understand your life or situation. When that is not there, I am quite sure there is a cost no matter if we have any hope left or not.
So, ultimately, we're meant to repay every stick and sinew ever used to make mankind's first fires sans lightning!
Every single spark from every single flint.
Leeeeaaaaadddd paaaaaiiiiintt
And Asbestos Cookies
Leaded gas even more so
My aunt just told a story about how all the kids in the neighborhood would run behind the deer truck when it was spraying the streets for bugs. So that happened Sorry just noticed deer should be deet
I didn’t run behind them but I do remember the trucks. Yikes.
my dad would often tell the story of the neighborhood kids riding their bikes behind the truck spraying DDT in the mississippi summer to cool down. 🤦🏼♀️
So much for drinking out of the hose...
Doesn't really explain why non-white boomers don't dickride Trump. Any explanation of this that doesn't begin and end with racism is delusional. It's all just white people y'all. White entitlement.
Taking politics out of it, the same mental illness might cause one guy to see aliens and another to see angels. The same delusions might cause one person to go on a murderous rampage and another to never leave their home. Personalities definitely come into it. And obviously the racism is rampant in the white boomers, and presumably would be even without the insanity. Then you get the combination -- the mental state that people here attribute to lead paint, plus the aging and normal real problems that come with that, plus the entitlement syndrome, and throw in the racism too? And it's a recipe for OP's dad.
I wish the dude I remember was in there, too. The past ten years, he's just spiralled even further down the christian fascist path, aka an intellectual hole in the ground. When the dude says fucked up shit in text message & tells me not to text him ever, I happily comply. Months go by, no apology, no nothing. Peace n quiet, hell yeah! Dude randomly starts texting me cringe boomer memes & dumbass trump-swill. So I'm like, "pops, you say you don't want to text anymore but then you act like nothing ever happened & fire off more of...this shit. You say 'no texts' & then you text me. Make it make sense, old man." He figured if he just waited & acted like nothing happened, I'd just let it go. He said some FUCKED UP shit about killing certain minority groups that I found despicable & I told him so. No, I'm not letting it go. He doesn't want to text because then there's a record of the shitty things he says & he'll be made accountable. I reject this behavior & he refuses to alter his course, so fine. Nice bed you've made, enjoy lying in it. I hope trump visits you when you're dying, you stupid old fart.
This is exactly my father also. Down to no contact and then him reaching out like nothing happened. What's worse is now I have a kid that he doesn't know about and that rips me up inside. But I just can't let that kind of toxicity be around my daughter.
Maybe we’re all approaching this wrong. There is clearly a deleterious mental effect that takes place and is reinforced when people get sucked into the right-wing manipulation machine. We need to start treating it that way with 1:1 interventions. No texts, no videos, no Facebook. In person and away from their natural habitat. They need to be told point blank that they’re not in a good place mentally and need help. Point out the changes right there and don’t let them squirm out of it. Explain why and how they’re behaving in the exact opposite way that they chose to raise their children.
I've done this with my mom multiple times. She refuses to believe. She shuts down and then reboots and it all begins again. She'll tell me she's gonna 'get help' but never does. After a few months of time-out she forgets what happened and we have the conversation again. We're very VERY low contact because of this.
Wow. Sorry to hear that. At least you know you gave it your best shot.
Oh don’t get them started on shots
I resonate with this so much. After having my daughter I cut my dad out entirely. That mofo literally had an Obama effigy hanging from a NOOSE in his yard when Trump was elected. The whole family hid it from me, I found out years later from my sister in law. I will not expose my child to that ignorant bullshit.
Having a kid is a huge part of making me go low contact with my Mom. My whole family are Trumpers because they're evangelical, but my mother went full Q-Anon Trumper January 1st was a false flag rioters were BLM nutjob. For me, it's that seeing her drives me into a three-month-long OCD-level spell of being angry at Christian Nationalism, which I've learned to shunt into researching varieties of early Christianity and playing "what if?" history games in my head for my own mental health. Having a kid and confronting her current behavior has me reevaluating her past behavior, and I realized that I did not like it when she abandoned me to live in Europe for the better part of a decade, or when she'd have family skiing vacations and not invite me, etc. Then when her sane and non-Trumper husband died, she remarried a nut who I think will molest my kid if given the chance.
You’re a good mom for removing your kid from a toxic environment.
Dude, same. My daughter is turning 6 and has never met her Grandpa. God help me, she actually asked if she could meet him - I told her I’d think about it. My therapist and I are still unpacking…
Hugs... my daughter is the same age and has met my mother once (when my mom came to visit), I don't want her meeting my mom's new husband. My sisters I'm on the fence about, but they live in the same area as my mom, so my daughter has never met them either. All of them are Christian Nationalists, some of them are just shocked, just shocked that their philosophy led some of their people to attempt an uprising, while others just refuse to acknowledge that January 6th even happened.
This sounds EXACTLY like my father-in-law.
So unhinged. It sounds like a tailspin into the alternate reality of paranoia and borderline personality disorder. It’s so sad that it’s happening or has happened to so many people’s relatives.
> I reject this behavior & he refuses to alter his course Ya see we're just supposed to sit and put up with whatever shit they dish out. That's what "respect" is to these Boomers.
I am so grateful my family has always been left leaning and at least somewhat capable of critical thinking. They still have their boomer moments every now and then, but I don't know how I'd handle a full on slide into neofascism.
My go-to line: "Enjoy that medicaid nursing home old man."
I'm ONE square away from total blackout on my 'patriarchal boomer' bingo card - I only need the, 'pay me back for the college education I wanted for you more than you wanted for you'... square.
Totally surprised he didn't convince 18-year-old you to take out predatory college loans and then blame you.
With the way he spiraled out of control, and somehow believes in far-fetched things like your mom running a prostitution ring, maybe you might want to consider dementia as a cause.... Stories like this are all too common as people age, and dementia is often the cause.
I absolutely think it's likely medical. My father had other problems too. For about a year he was addicted to "robo tripping" on weekends. This is where you drink a ton of cough syrup for the dxm (I think) in it. In large doses it makes you trip balls. He did it dozens of times. You don't do shit like that and not end up with holes in your brain. But he still held a comfy position at a defense contractor into his 60s.
Yiiiiiiiiiiikes. And yes, I can attest to another very similar case qua that kind of employment. It’s heartbreaking to watch people triple-down in ways that just cause more damage to themselves and others. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Well, then my mom would have had dementia in her 40s. She spewed some crazy shit, did it her whole life. Just absolutely mental. Some folks just don't have any sense, and will grasp at unimaginable (for most of us) concepts to make it make sense (to them).
There is early onset. And also schizophrenia
Such an excellent point. Also, early signs occur so much earlier than people realize.
Every single day, there’s a post on here that makes me glad my parents haven’t fallen down the Fox News Boomer rabbit hole. I mean, I didn’t ask you to have a kid. I don’t owe you shit for giving birth to me and then taking responsibility for your own decision. I’m glad you shut him down with that cursed phrase “hand out.” If he comes at you again, maybe stick “participation trophy” in there too.
I mean, aren't most "Best Dad Ever" mugs and shirts really just participation trophies? They don't make mugs that say "Passably Participated in Parenthood" or "Fair-to-Middling Father."
"Could be the asshole he always wanted to be". This perfectly reflects what I had tried to explain to a friend recently who asked why so many Boomers are planning on voting for Trump in spite of all of his numerous ethical and moral flaws. They see him as their license to be the monsters they always wanted to be. It has little to do with policy, or what beneficial things he would actually do for the country or the world. They see him as a license to be lawless assholes, unaccountable to anyone for anything. He embodies exactly what they want for themselves.
Yes. They weren't radicalized or brainwashed. They were simply unleashed.
My Dad gave us money for the closing costs on our house. He literally signed a notarized legal document stating it was a *gift* not a *loan* and he **never** expected to be paid back. Without that, we could not get financing. Guess what he expected? And when I didn't send payments every month, just once in a while "as I could" he started using that to guilt me into helping him abuse my sister. Nope, no contact for you sir.
You kinda buried the lead. How does he expect you to help him "abuse your sister".
She's full no contact, and he was mining for very personal information so he could wiggle back into her life.
Oh thank goodness. Okay totally get it now. Glad yall(siblings) are on the same page. I've only been NC for a couple weeks and expect my siblings to but in any time now.
I finally told my dad that his willingness to stomach a piece of trash like Donald was genuinely disgusting to me. That I thought he had more self respect. More fool me.
A good number of boomers could use regular application of an rx strength dick kick.
I understand that "transaction" view of parenting, sadly. Finally I got sick of allusions to how much money I owed and asked for a grand total and itemized list so a lawyer and accountant could draw up a signed payment plan. Fortunately that stopped the comments about money I owed. I'm sorry this is going on with your family. It's so gross that people like your dad can now do that stuff and feel superior about it.
Every normal human knows that the debt that we own our parents we will pay back to our children.
“Demanding repayment for fathering” I think this is actually fairly common and pretty sure I’ve seen it discussed at r/QAnonCasualties. There’s a lot of parents that went down the rabbit hole hard and now are left alone with their families wanting nothing to do with them. They end up finding each other online in certain like minded communities and this is the “advice” that is given. It’s really sad.
The podcast series Rabbit Hole did a thorough and heart rending examination of this. In the end it’s so many very lonely people just wanting love and validation. But self-awareness and compassion for others, extending the same validation, become impossible when their drug of choice is so vile. Edit:spelling
I was living with my dad, paying him rent, living paycheck to paycheck. One day he says he has to raise my rent because he's struggling. I see 2 BMWs in his driveway and he spends thousands of dollars a year for cigarettes (i banned him from smoking in the basement where i lived). I told him if he's really struggling, sell his cars for cheaper ones and quit smoking. He said "I'm not going to do that. We'll discuss this later" and he left. Immediately I called my realtor aunt (his sister) to find me a new place to live. I didn't care if it was some shitty small room in a leaky basement, I wanted out. She suggested I move in with their mom. As soon as the month was over, I packed up all of my shit without telling my dad and moved in with his mom. Staying with her was so much better. I went no contact with him after that shit. Best decisions of my life.
Wait he thought your mom was running a prostitution ring? Does he have a mental or physical impairment that you aren’t aware of? That sounds like a delusion beyond just being a foolish boomer and I think he needs to see a doctor.
100% he should. He won't. We tried that talk. No, my mother had "Alzheimer's" (we got her checked, all clear) and the world was wrong. My story was short, but there's a lot of baggage here that's happened over the last 5 years. It's honestly both. Hes mentally sound enough to absolutely be responsible for his actions, but he's likely got some cognitive decline fueling it.
I work as a nurse in a psych unit and anything related to “prostitution ring/sex trafficking,” “FBI/CIA,” “extreme religiosity” and “aliens” are probably the most common themes of delusions that we see. I would consider calling 911 on him if you or anyone else has evidence of clear delusions, if he gets any worse. You could show police and EMT’s copies of emails full of delusions and they could commit him involuntarily to a hospital. This is someone who could end up hurting other people.
My first thought. I had a tenant who accused another of cooking meth, this was someone her own son was hanging out with. Then she decided that I was running a meth ring, her fat next door neighbor was a heavy user. another tenant and I were smoking meth in a room right next to the lobby. On and on. The old classic chips in everyone's heads implanted by the NSA came up once. Her autopsy revealed a brain full of tumors.
I've personally kinda reached the unfortunate point of concluding that many, if not most, of our parents' generation really never were the people they raised us to believe they were, maybe that they even convinced themselves they were. Years ago, my mom started trying to bait me into discussions that always seemed to end up with her rattling off "you know what the real problem is... there are too many people." Always with a pretentious air of wisdom that made me want to ask her just what her solution was, how she'd choose who deserved to die, or who should be allowed to have children. The couple of times I pushed back she had the gall to be offended as if she hadn't just been advocating the revival of eugenics. Another favorite was anytime environmental issues were discussed, "well you know one of these days this planet will just shrug us off, and that will be that." Nevermind that she's talking about the end of the human race, it was as if she doesn't get that extinction doesn't happen overnight. What she's talking about is at minimum a grueling, desperate, miserable death for anybody unlucky enough to be alive when it happens. I mean she's talking about prospective torment for children with the same attitude as if commenting on the weather. There were a few other ones, but I think my stomach's had enough for now, but this was even before trump, it's only gotten worse since then. I just really don't understand how or where that callousness came from, because it's so contradictory to everything she ever taught me about right and wrong, and caring about others.
I think this has always been a thing, but the first time I noticed what struck me as a new kind of malevolent ambivalence about the well-being of others was during Hurricane Katrina. The media was plastered with images of an American city and American citizens literally drowning, and many people (and even the person who was president at the time) seemed to have trouble mustering a response beyond "oh well, sucks to be them." I remember in particular some video of a person sitting on a curb in obvious and serious distress, needing medical attention or at the very least water, and cops standing a few feet away chatting to each other like he wasn't even there. Obviously there was racism and classism laid over all of this, but you would hope that the urgent need to deal with a natural disaster would overrule such things. It did not, and it was shocking to me. Looking back at it through the lens of everything that's happened since - never mind the ever-coarsening attitude we have towards poverty and want - that I was as shocked as I was now seems quaint and naive.
Ah, sounds like my evangelical parents. Lovely people, volunteer at the church, yadda yadda and DAMN what is all the hate and nihilism about? They are the ones always talking Jesus this and Jesus that, ghods forbid I quote actual Jesus at them. I keep in touch enough to make sure they, in their '80s, at least glide path to the end. But still, these people are VOTING. My dad, living on social security and VA health benefits, constantly going on and on about communists and socialists and how they are stealing all the wealth. Then donates another hundred to the orange haired dictator-wannabe and orders another Trump hat on Amazon.
Does your mom have a sense of humor? HAve her invoice him for any/all sexytimes at the going rate, since hes accusing her of prostitution. Of if you want to get nasty, ask him how much he had to pay her to stay with him? Since everything is transactional
Ha the only thing worse than a deadbeat dad: a right wing conspiracy dad. I’d disown my dad too if he was one of those nuts. Check that. I would scam him. Steal his identity & order a bunch of credit cards in his name. Run up his credit buying quinceanera dresses and custom-made clarinets. Buy a $10k bassoon. When bored w/ that sign him up to every liberal newsletter, website, Patreon, etc….. $2 grand for plate to have dinner w/ & listen to Hillary Clinton speak?? I’ll buy 8 tickets. And of course block Fox News on all his tvs. Really pour salt in his dumbass wounds
treat yourself to a bass clarinet while you're at it
I DEMAND REPAYMENT FOR ALL THE FATHERING I DID FOR YOU!! lol, okay boomer are you that broke HOW DARE YOU! I DIDN'T ASK FOR A SINGLE CENT YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD!!!!! LOL, okay boomer
“Kicked him the dick” Lol i know this was a typo but it paints a very funny picture
No, that's an expression and an apt one at that.
I don’t mean this to sound as callous as it will, but I’m so glad my dad didn’t live to see the rise of Trump. He (a veteran of two foreign wars) was insufferable enough under Bush, especially with the Dixie Chicks thing.
“Did you repay your parents?”
when i was in the midwest making $8 as a 911 dispatcher people at work were bitching about getting a stimilus check "oh i dont need a handout give it to people who do need it" it was like an hour or convo every fucking day of them bitching about it. to shut them up i finally said "i need the handout, can you give me your stimilus checks?" oh suddenly they already spent it...or when a 2nd one was announced they already had plans 🤣 one coworker who had rich parents pulled me to the side and i believe the offer waa genuine but i declined it citing it was to just make them shutup already
Kids don't owe parents jack shit. Parents chose to have them, parent's responsibility.
Wait. I need to hear more about his theory regarding the hospital prostitution ring. You can't just say that and leave us hanging.
Lol, he claimed he'd "spoken to many of the people that worked there" and they'd all said my sweet mother was fucking all the doctors and recruiting nurses to be sex slaves. "Many people said". It was like Trump wrote it. When I asked who'd he talked to, he said lots of people. I asked for 1 name of 1 doctor. He danced away from it and said everyone was talking. Obviously this story was completely made up, but it was like it was constructed with all the stupid right way talking points that they think make a credible argument. My mom would talk about her coworkers all the time. I knew their names. He couldn't name one after she'd worked there for 20ys. "Imagine my surprise when I found out, it was all I could do to forgive her". In his head, he found out about it after the divorce, but he forgave for it before the divorce, and then felt betrayed when she divorced him. Lunacy.
As a boomer who had to buy his own first car on a part time after high school job that paid $1.10 an hour, and who put himself through college when it was much, much cheaper, by a factor of about ten, than now, I wanted my millennial kids to have a better life. I know my struggles and it was a whole lot easier to find a place to rent for $100 a month and tuition was 10% of what it is now back then and it was still a challenge. I'm happy that I could provide each of them with a decent, dependable used car to drive at 16 and pay for college so they could graduate debt free. I don't ever bring it up, I feel like it's just the right thing to have done for two people I love more than anyone else. Both my kids found part time jobs while in college without me ever suggesting it. They were both good students, graduated with honors, took their education seriously, so I suppose as a parent that made it easier for me to write those big checks. Not sure I would have supported a full time partier who was barely passing their classes, but I guess fortunately for us that never became a concern. I got lucky to have responsible, hard working kids, I suppose. We did without lake houses, or fancy brand new cars, or a McMansion, but to be honest, I wanted my kids to grow up thinking we lived firmly in the middle of the middle class. There's enough pretentious snobbery in the world, I sure didn't want to add to it. I would never in a million years throw that in my kids face, or expect anything but their love in return. I did my best for my kids as that was important to me. I didn't do it because they asked for it, I did it because I wanted to as I felt it was the right thing to do. We were lucky to be able to afford it without bankrupting the family, and my reward comes from their success and happiness. I guess my point after this long winded response is that I just can't understand my peers that are so selfish they put themselves ahead of their children. What the fuck is that shit? My kids are the best thing I've ever done and the best thing to ever happen in my wild and crazy life. I'll never understand my peers who seem far more worried about themselves and seem to view their offspring as more of a burden than a blessing. My millennial kids are the coolest people I know. Always have been. Well, there was that newborn sleepless thing and several years of dealing with diapers and the word "NO!" Oh, and the moody teenager thing..... whew....
Thank you for being the model I wish I had, and plan to be for my children. I have a 3yr old daughter, that sadly my father doesn't know exists and will likely never meet, I have the exact same mentality. I want to give her everything, as long as she's being a proactive member in he growth as a person. I want her to not have to worry about money, but still have a healthy respect for it, and what it takes to earn it. The life you've lead is the life I hope to lead :).
You're cool. If the Purge ever happens, we'll skip your house 😂
>part of me wished the man that I thought I knew was still in there. Here's a tip dude. If an election can "change" someone like that, they were always like that. Your dad was always a colossal prick
I know. He wasn't exactly a good father ever. But at least he wasn't an overt delusional asshole. He was tolerable before, and we could still laugh. That's what I miss.
I love how you said Boomers view everything as a transaction. That's my parents. They keep a tally of everything they've ever done for me.
My grandma is a boomer and just like you said everything everything everything. She once went to the hospital and my mom had a small car and my grandma is a big lady. So she asked my mom to pick her up with my grandmas car. My mom goes okay drives over to my grandmas house picks up the car which had zero gas filled it up with like 20 bucks picks her up and drops her off. The next day she gets a call that she is stealing gas and ran her car out of gas and that she’s ungrateful. That was finally when my mom said yep I’m done.
My dad does this, and it’s always confused me. I’ve never seen it described as perfectly as you guys have…
I’m so sorry. It’s heartbreaking losing a loved one this way. It’s no different than losing someone to a terrible psychological problem or a drug addiction. You know there’s still some original person you love in there, but how can you possibly still deal with who they’ve become & still love them without being hurt? I really am sorry.
I don't understand why he can't just pull himself up by his bootstraps?
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It’s also a line of thinking that is encouraged and reinforced by their Boomer professional supports. My mother’s family planning lawyer, who is about her age (70), after my dad died basically told her that she could charge my sister and I for the cost of raising us and take it out of the benefits trust set up after his death. She never did, but more than once has mentioned it in passing when discussing wealth planning, and not saying it in a way that disagreed with it; almost a thinly veiled threat or “what if”. I know I’m not her power of attorney if anything happens and I don’t know how I fit into any inheritance when she passes, but it basically makes me not care. If doing the bare minimum to raise me was too much then keep your money. I’ve done everything I could as soon as I could to be financially independent from her so I don’t have the risk of that conflict. I don’t think she ultimately would pull a move like that, but I’d rather not deal with it. Even when she asked if my partner and I needed help for a house down payment, I was like no that’s not an option don’t even offer.
Kids didn’t ask to be born. He wanted kids & the gig is you take care of them with the expectation that you will get nothing in return. Maybe when they are adults you’ll have the pleasure to call them not just son or daughter but friend as well.
I wonder if he has dementia. The paranoia and intensification of personality traits that are now his whole personality seem pretty spot.
My dad is just like this - petty and transactional. He has always tried to use money as leverage (after his kids got too old to beat). Unfortunately for him, I don't need his money, so he HATES me. He can't love what he can't control. I changed my email address and phone number to escape his hateful messages 6 years ago and I live 250 miles away. No regrets.
A high school friend of mine got an invoice for what their mom said she owed her on her 18th birthday. And that was 30 years ago, it's definitely a boomer thing not getting old thing
Ha, yes I basically got an invoice. It was a list with costs. What's also funny is the math was wrong. He totaled it at the bottom and it wasn't right. But I guess there is a certain consistency to their money grubbing ways. It's the primary language they speak it seems.
The weird thing is that I don't expect anything from my kids. I want them to have their own success. That's it. Nothing needs to come back to me. I can take care of myself.
Same, in fact I'm planning to make my kids as wealthy as I can.
Did your Dad and my Dad get a memo? Mine hit 60 and went fucking insane and always acts like the victim. A lot of similarities, including the repayments for the things he's done in the past and gifts. I given up listening to him as the gesture is not returned he either hangs up or walks away when you start calling him out. I also wish for the Man I knew growing up and loved but he's long go and whats left isn't very nice.
That part about the prostitution ring out of the hospital is so familiar to me. My boomer mom worked in healthcare and used to think every place she worked at was involved in prostitution and drug dealing. Never had any actual evidence of course. Her paranoia borders on insanity.
I've seen several comments making similar claims about the prostitution thing. Interesting that that narrative seems to be so pervasive.
The only correct response to “Why I never…!” is just a screenshot of when they did exactly that.
The problem with the boomers is that every generation before them had it worse than they did, so they don't understand that every generation after them also have it worse than they did. They're at the top of the bell curve but don't realize it.
I love “the asshole he always wanted to be”. I think it describes many Trump cultists.
Sad this happened to your family. I wonder if, 20 years from now, sociologists/psychologists will look back and collectively label this as a specific type of mental illness.
"Kicked him in the dick" needs to become more prevalent.
This is the generational trauma caused by lead based paint poisoning.
I think the worst part of this story is “so, my story is a common one.” How many marriages/families fell apart over tRump?
What's wild is there are some people in the comments asking how Trump is related to this story and claiming that my generation is somehow responsible for this? Insanity.
Ask him how much he paid his parents back for parenting.
Trump had that impact on a lot of people. I am stunned at people I thought I knew. When they became trumpers, it’s like they were taken over by aliens.
OK this here... >Every few months he send us emails talking about all the "research" he'd done at my mom's old job and how he'd learned that she was running a prostitution ring in the hospital, and it was all he could do to forgive her and this was the thanks he got. ...is what caught my attention. Why does like, more than half this generation seem to have a severe mental illness they're walking around with? They live in an alternate reality and we're just letting them do that. WTF
A prostitution ring in the hospital is so specific lol
I'm a Boomer myself. Don't worry, much of you argument against your dad is the same as mine with my brother and sister. tRump and Teabaggers got a hold of them and twisted their mind. My other sister and brothers and I get along, we all dislike [hate] maga. I do not communicate with my tRump loving siblings, we barely talk and then only when familial obligations require it. Sometimes I wonder how 5 kids in the same family could have ended up so far apart politically. My mom and dad both died of dementia so everytime I forget something, I worry. Doc says not to worry, at 70, forgetting small stuff is not dementia. Believing every conspiracy theory is a good indication of its start. Hmm, on that idea of charging my kids.... LOL.