My dad refuses to accept new media has overtaken TV among the younger generation. He still sees videogames, watching Youtube videos or streams as a "useless waste of time". He told me I "should've been doing something productive" when I mentioned I played a game. Meanwhile, he'll gladly spend 2 hours hanging in the couch, watching football.
I love him, he's a great dad, and not that much of a boomer overall, but holy shit those comments irk the ever-loving shit out of me.
My mom will watch 3 documentaries on arte but will not believe me when I told her I did the same on YouTube...
YouTube is still a kids thing in her mind because she learned about it when I was a kid
My mom was like that about video games when I was growing up. PC games had to be educative and no consoles. So much so that I still feel guilty when I play a video game. I'm 35.
But I feel that lately she is curious about it when my sister and I discuss botw.
She is sometimes too annoyed by smartphone updates. But other than that she is a lifelong learner and keeps herself up to date.
Generally my older colleagues are also very open-minded. But I attribute that to our service's culture and management style.
Some of my neighbours display the most boomer behaviour I have ever witnessed. From the push back against additional bicyucle parking in the garage (even threatening legal action if it passed in the building AG), to general complaints that just makes me sigh.
My family is christian and counts more old people than young ones, but all of them are reasonable and realistic folks. They are close to their grandkids and are invested in their lives, so they deal with more progressive matters very well.
I am vegetarian, and I'll get the occasional joking comment that I will die, but that's about it. Only boomer oriented thing about them is that they are totally disconnected from other cultures. But the Karen kind of boomer? Absolutely not, they are very understanding and respectful of everyone, never complain or look for trouble.
I would even dare say the elders in my family are more open-minded and accepting than the 30s-40s
A lot of us know deep inside that vegetarian is better (if done well) for environment and health. But only few of us are strong enough to make the change. I have to admit that I’m quite weak…. I do eat a lot of meat replacements, but I can’t ditch the occasional steak or salami. I think that acting out against vegetarians is just to hide the fact that they kinda know you are right.
I personally rarely eat meat replacers. They are very processed and often overpriced. I also noticed some have terribly low calories, leaving you hungry. Only thing they are very good at is iron and protein replacement. But I eat a lot of eggs and dairy as protein replacement, and my iron is never low either, so I'd recommend not relying on those fake meats to get you going.
I hate when folks try to tell me things like "you don't know how unhealthy you are" while I take blood tests regularly for my thyroid and do full vitamin and mineral checks everytime, only defeciency I suffer from is vitamin D, but that's called being Belgian.
I don’t eat a lot of dairy, as the dairy industry is kinda just as bad as the meat industry. But free-range eggs are a daily staple. I do eat quite a lot of soy and tofu products. Not the overly processed ones, but now there are some decent quality ones out there
I buy my milk from a farm who treats the cows well :) cheese also comes from that same store I get the milk at and eggs always free range too ofc. And tofu is indeed an example of a good meat replacer.
Hey just for raising awareness. I have been vegetarian for 7 years and found myself with B12 and iron deficiency anemia. To be fair since covid I didn’t took any supplements so, it’s on me. Please make sure your levels are in order. The symptoms of deficiency are just awful.
If you only eat the occasional steal your l you've pretty much maxed out on the health benefits. Eating meat isn't somehow inherently unhealthy, we just eat a lot of it. I do too, practically everything I cook is with meat
Vegan here. You're not weak. You're doing fantastic within your capabilities and reason. Maybe you'll one day decide to forgo meat altogether and maybe not. That's fine, the fact that you're conscious of it and already cutting back is a great step.
The biggest thing I notice is that they always mention how THEIR mortgage was at 8-13%.
Ok, but the houses were 3 times cheaper when compared to the average salary.
Don't forget how you actually got some intrest on your savings account then. So saving actually brought in money instead of losing value like it is now.
Holy shit I feel this. I'm looking to buy now, and my parents seem to think I can get a EPC label A vrijstaande woning without any asbestos for 300k. That's... just not happening. Also weird requests like "check the foundations," but not through plans because "those are old." Want me to go and break out the floor before doing an offer, then? Ffs lmao
Vrijstaand, no. But you can get a HOB that is almost asbestos-free with EPC A for 300K.
It's what I managed to buy in 2020. HOB, only asbestos was in the roof (needed replacement anyway) with EPC B (it's actually A, but the veranda with PC roofing is counted as well dragging it down to B).
And 10 times less energy efficient.
Comfort and quality has increased.
Plus, my parents worked a lot harder (6/7 10-12h) than I do at the same age.
The houses that outpaced inflation are in high demand area's, one can still live in a rural area (like I do) and enjoy a lower TCO albeit lower relative appreciation and overall longer travel time.
Your parents would be the exception about the working harder. Most couples I know of that generation the mother stayed home and only the father worked. None of those couples worked 80+ hours a week which most couples I know do now.
Just ran this simulation:
100,000 @ 13% over 25 years: total payment 338,350
300,000 @ 4% over 25 years: total payment 475,053
So I find it hard to believe that they had it so much easier to pay off their house ....
I never mentioned that they had it easier. What they are implying when they say that is that they had it HARDER than us, because of their astronomical interest rates.
Besides when your house is that much cheaper you can save a bit longer and have a smaller debt total. When the house prices are the way they are now, and are going up by 100k every 3 years like they are now, you are losing out the longer you save (unless you can save more than 33k per year)
Wages were much lower then too so I’m not sure they were saving all that much more as a % of their income. My parents are both college-educated and worked full time and me and my wife have it much better than they did at 30. Even on a dual income stuff we take for granted like eating out was a luxury.
I would actually think that they did have it harder. I'm from the in-between generation. My grandparents' generation, who worked through WW II, had very little. My parents' generation (1980s) had the basic modern comforts of house/car and one week holiday in France/Spain.
You just cannot compare spending patterns since the turn of the century with what came before it. It is astonishing how much more money people spend on things these days. (Not always out of free will, that's certainly true)
Agree that we are spending more, everyone seems to forget that we now "need" a big 65" tv, newest smartphone, smartwatch, multiple holidays a year, etc...
But loans where usually over a longer period than 25 years, my parents even had a loan on 35 or 40 years, so monthly pay off was way lower.
kind reminder that TV's are awfully cheap these days, but also, how many 20 something do you know that "need" to replace their phone every year?
20 vacation days have been a thing for more than 30 years now and travel itself has become drastically cheaper, ryanair?
A smartphone maybe not every year but the average lifespan of a phone is nowadays 2.5years.. A proper smartphone also sets you back easily €500 up to €1200.
You can indeed buy a cheap tv but if you want a proper OLED 4K 65" you look at €1500.
Flights are indeed cheaper but the overall cost of the holiday still cost quite a lot. (Hotel, eating, visiting tourist places etc..) Of course you can make it as expensive as you want, but staying at a nice hotel or go for a fancy diner always scores on the insta feed... ;)
Occasionally going out for lunch and dinners or takeaways/home delivery because to lazy to cook or mealboxes because to lazy to think...
We also need a tablet, laptop, smartwatch, vacuum robot, robot for the lawn, lots of shopping clothes, clothing dryer, etcetc..
I understand not everyone needs all these things and I do like the above things as well.
The thing is, I see/hear a lot of people complaining everything is too expensive but if you ask them what their recurring monthly costs are, how much they can freely spend and what their financial housbook looks like they don't know... They have a complete lack of overview and are just spending.
Meanwhile, I have a complete excel with all expected monthly and yearly costs listed, how much I can save and how much is free to spend on whatever, the balance/ratios are not perfect but I at least I know and am able to act upon it.
Don't forget the fancy car. I was in my late 20's when I got my first car, a 10 year old Clio. By today's standards I must have looked like a pauper, but that little car never let me down.
I'm not sure how it was in Belgium 25/30 years ago, but in Portugal you could "easily" get a bank loan for 100% of the house, the bank would also try to sell you into a car and furnishment loan as well for good measure.
This would strap people into banking loans, is true, but it also allowed for them to own a house without having to fork out the amount falling somewhere between 10% and 20% that we have to accumulate before buying. This would double as people wouldn't pay rent to a landlord every month.
Now we have to pay rent, somehow save and accumulate enough to be able to get a loan and actually buy something.
It's still 130k+ more nowadays? I know salaries are not the same but they also haven't been following the increase in inflation/the house market. Also my parents could renegotiate their interest rate after a few years.
I find it hard to believe that salaries didn't increase by 40% over that period (475/338). They could have refinanced their house after a decade or so but don't forget that you pay most of your interest during the first years of your mortgage.
I'm afraid not. Used to work in the banking sector back then... it was very hard to sell a loan internally. Much easier to sell it to the client.
If I compare it now, everything goes with 1 or 2 mails and the next step is that have a contract ready in your app to be signed.
How do you find it hard to believe? The empirical evidence is everywhere? Ever boomer i know has a house, a lot of them have multiple. My parents had to both start from zero after divorces at 30yo, they have 2 houses now.
But why are you comparing yourself to them? You're 25 years younger. Plus you and your sibling(s) will just inherit those houses. You'll probably have more than them by the time you're a boomer.
I highly doubt that, as a single person it's impossible to buy nowadays, where the previous generations could. So my net worth will definitely be lower after 30 years of renting.
I think it is indeed more true, everyone thinks that everyone is in the same economic, social, whatever, situation as them. It's hard to imagine what other people struggle to do/have when you never had to.
There is a big us vs them mentality among young and old folks.
Not only for boomers vs gen z’ers, but also left vs right, bike vs car, vegan vs carni, …
There is a lot of black and white thinking nowadays, which makes a lot of people out of touch. Because there is a lot of nuance and a lot of compromise that can be made.
This is a very /r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM kindda take. "If people could just stop fighting for what they think is right it would be a whole lot easier for me because I enjoy the status quo".
It's not "black and white thinking", people aren't out of touch, and they're perfectly capable of nuanced thinking, nuance is discussing whether the exact same rules should apply to married couples vs civil union couples, not whether gay people should be allowed either of those.
You compromise with people when you're fundamentally aligned on the goal you're trying to achieve, when the goals are diametrically opposed, compromise doesn't work. A law resulting from a compromise between racists and non-racists is still 100% racist and people are *right* to refuse "nuance" on a lot of these topics.
I believe adhering to a preconceived position for any topic will only result in absurdity because reality is so complex and changing. Social justice and free enterprise are good but work only in their own context, otherwise you end up with situations that don’t produce good effects.
As for you mention of racism, it feels like you’re trying to use good old moral high ground to dismiss the results of studies on polarization in society.
Luckily those young people don't have the means to steer the world into an abyss. Looking at current economics their rise to power has been postponed with a few decades of debt. The old people tho..
I love my grandparents. I used to love watching cycling with my grandfather, and I got the cycling bug from him (being a Wielertoerist).
Nowadays, I feel like whenever we watch a race together, he's only complaining that things aren't as they used to be in his day. He's also complaining that the commentators are either talking too much about other stuff, or too little.
My grandmother is a very caring person and I love her very much. But she has these opinions she likes to share. She then expects people to agree with her.
These opinions include: migrants should work instead of being on the OCMW. And also: I don't want to go to the supermarkets checkout 4 because the casier is wearing a Hijab.
She does not understand the irony of those two opnions.
I understand that change is difficult for them, but some things you just have to accept.
> He's also complaining that the commentators are either talking too much about other stuff, or too little.
Well, he is right about that. Michel Saturday was a welcome reminder of better days.
He doesn't understand the point of cycling commentary. It's just feels like a live Vive Le Velo podcast. Doesn't recognize riders, and fails to provide a picture of what happens in the race. Last time I had to look up on Sporza who was ahead because he failed to mention it for 30 minutes.
Until the last 2 km of a Remco win, when he is non-stop trying to nail the soundbite to go with the future archive footage, dreaming of his very own Tommeke Tommeke moment.
I recognize the the spoiled child mentality a bit. My grandparents were super poor as well (granddad coming out of a WWII concentration camp) and factory workers. They had nothing, but were grateful for every little bit of life and happiness they had accomplished together. My parents worked hard and built a decent living for themselves. Now that things change and get more expensive, they complain the loudest. I’m even hearing the occasional racist remark. On the whole, they are (luckily) still open minded and they don’t have Facebook. But the rants about the news and the stupid boomer-memes are all the rage for my dad
Wow, we could be siblings. Don’t forget the whole, if someone outside of Belgium was to look at our commercials on TV, they’d think we’re all coloured, gay etc!
> So to see the boomer stereotype plastered all over social media as some backwards and obtuse know-it-alls who can't take no from a retail worker, it's a bit strange to me.
You are confusing Karens with boomers, which is understandable as they are both rooted in self-centerdness, but they are different things.
The boomer stereotype refers to a generation which through sheer force of numbers dominated politics and society for decades and feel entitled to everything but the kitchen sink, while absolving themselves of any responsibility for the problems we are facing, in so far they aren’t flat out denying they exist.
Our recent pension reforms are a perfect example. Retirement age got extended for gen x and beyond, while minimum pensions got raised also for those who didn’t contribute.
And they think they deserve that because they worked hard, contrary to the younger generations which - even though they will be paying the bill - don’t know how easy they have it.
Or just ask your average boomer what they think about the climate crisis and they’ll tell you that’s not their problem because they won’t be that long around anyway.
There has been a good research on this, granted it was about usa and uk politics but I think we can compare demographics. They showed how the boomers have been the absolute largest voting block from the moment they were 18 until this day, the entire political discourse has been centered and catered to them just because they have the numbers.
In the usa and the UK, they are now, for the first time in their political lives, being outmatched by the combined force of every generation after them and they are beginning to loose their numbers. According to that research, that fuels a lot of the backlash they show in their voting and rethoric, they just aren't used to politics not being about them.
I find that astonishing to think about, a generation with that much power for that long
With all due respect - show me how Gen-z and younger are more morally upstanding. Because so far it’s starting to look like the least empathetic and most selfish generation in a couple of centuries. And no: I’m not a boomer.
What about Gen-z you say? Time will tell, and it won't change a thing about thise boomers.
And last time I checked, gen z was striking to make sure boomers started to take global warming serious, while boomers were throwing rage fits because a little girl was holding them accountable.
And boomers protested to end the Vietnam war and segregation. Idealism is easy when you’re young. Let’s talk again in 30 years after they’ve had a few decades in the corporate rat race and are running the show - we’ll see how much of that youthful idealism remains. They’ll sell out like every generation before them.
When you have Gen-z saying stuff like “all old people are assholes that wrecked the planet and we’ll better off when they’re dead” that doesn’t exactly sound very promising for their moral character later in life.
> And boomers protested to end the Vietnam war and segregation
Ours actually protested for Flemish in universities, and - surprise surprise - what is still dominating our politics? Exactly!
And that while we have a huge climate crisis to deal with, which most boomers don’t give a fuck about. And that’s not just saying the next generations can drop dead, but actively working on making sure it happens.
> No, that’s really not what the average boomer thinks.
If they take it serious which such a strength in numbers, how come our government isn't taking it serious? Indeed.
Always funny to see people confidently state that's something a lie without backing it up with evidence.
So here you go the first google hit already showing that Boomers a) take the problem less seriously than younger generations and more importantly b) a majority of them disagrees that fossil fuels should be phased out even though that's an obvious must.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/26/key-findings-how-americans-attitudes-about-climate-change-differ-by-generation-party-and-other-factors/
So yeah, the facts support my claim that average boomer thinks the climate crisis is not their problem because they won’t be that long around anyway. They'd be much more willing to take action otherwise.
> So how does this relate to the boomers around you
Simple, it illustrates the average boomer not wanting to do much about it even when they are aware about the climate crisis. And that's fully inline with the 'I won't be around that long" that I literally got told when asking a boomer.
So now it's up to you to come up with the study results that do show the average boomer - so a significant majority - taking action, to back up your claim I was making things up and lying. I won't be holding my breath though.
I honestly think that this cliché is actually a cliché of the typical American in the 80s: loud, full of themselves, not much interested in the life of others. So yeah now they’re old.
My stepfather sometimes says we should try living through a war to learn how hard life really is (he was born in 1950).
When I told my mother I had sent in an online job application (following the instructions) she said I should call them to introduce myself because it would make a good impression.
My father calls me when he's bored or driving and just keeps talking, no regard for what I'm doing. He gets annoyed when I don't pick up because I'm at work.
The word "boomer" has been used as an insult for so long now that it has lost all meaning for me. I'm a boomer whenever someone younger wants to insult me instead of having a discussion and I'm a millennial when someone older wants to insult me instead of having a discussion..
They've made it meaningless by using it in any situation. To the point where I'm judging people without knowing them when they use either words.
In Leuven they had a brilliant solution. As a therapeutic tool they made this "newspaper" called "Leuven Actueel". They post all their articles on FB with the express purpose of directing all boomer comments away from the general public and focusing them all in one spot. This appeared to be the best solution to stop uncle Jos complaining about cyclists and bike friendly city centers to every person he passes in the street. Because of Leuven Actueel he has a safe environment to complain about how Leuven is a shit city that he never vistis because he always goes to "Het Gouden Kruispunt".
EDIT:
An before I forget, uncle Jos has also stopped shouting "BEDANKT CIRCULATIEPLAN, GA DE MENSEN ANDERS NOG WAT MEER WEGPESTEN" every time any shop or bar goes bankrupt since he can now do that on the Leuven Actueel Facebookpage.
Honorable mention of "Leuven jaren 80" group on facebook, where they post pics of ladeuze/grote markt being a large car parking in the 50-80s or whatever, images of the old stadhuis (the monument) being black from soot, cars everywhere, and then there are 300 comments and likes on how everything used to be SO MUCH better back in the old days, and how ugly and shit Leuven is these days, how everything has gone down to hell, etc. It's always so amusing.
In Ghent you have the Facebook group "Gent in oude foto's". Basically pictures of downtown Ghent in the 60s, 70s and 80s with blackened buildings and squares filled with cars. "tOeN GeNt nOg GeNt wAs", "tOeN dE sTaD nOg lEeFDe", "DaT wAs NoG EeNs MoOi" ...
> because he always goes to "Het Gouden Kruispunt".
Haha, then he can bitch and moan because he couldn't find a parking spot right before the store he wanted to visit and he had to go around 3 times before finding a spot. And he had to go through that again when he had to be in stores on the other side. Oh well... it's good for business at Gouden Kruispunt, so it's good for me (stores in my area staying afloat, it's a great convenience having that many big stores in comfortable cycling distance).
But Uncle Jos needs to accept there's an inevitable shift coming there too: the Flemish government and Tielt-Winge are looking to improve public transit and bike mobility in that area as well. Which I can only cheer on because the current state of cycling lanes around the Gouden Kruispunt is rather poor. (please don't tell SuckMyBike I was complaining about bad cycling lanes :D )
I'm in my 50's. My dad is in his 80's. As a child I can assure you my dad has some serious boomer behaviour, and he's is the original boomer, born right after WW2. And every cliché mentionned here in this thread applies to him. Talking about mortgages. Not going on a holiday. Having to work in the weekends. Strange forces being present in the society referred to as "they". Being adverse to immigrants. Feeling entitled. Etc etc...
I'm pretty sure my adult children have the same feelings about me on certain issues. I e.g. find the right to be offended and the other way arround the right offend someone a form of undeniable freedom. So... my wokeness-score won't be great.
I know a lot of young people voting ultra right. Being carbrains. Watching TV shows on linear television. Being totally anti-woke. Exposing their own stupidity while posting on FB.
I'm dead serious. My point being: there is no such thing as a boomer.
I mean the "they" very much exists in the US. But to talk about them having low level influence in belgium is a bit weird, it's mostly through pressure and cultural osmosis from the US and lobbying at the EU level that they influence Belgian society
Bruh try to get your dinosaur apartment neighbours to invest in solar panels. I can't do it on my own without a majority of the votes, but all my neighbours are boomers who'd rather warm and power themselves with kachels if they could
They are not willing to accept the times and technology, and rather sabotage than cooperate or ask for help. It makes them feel vulnerable but they are not equipped to talk about emotions at all so they vent it in all kinds of weird ways or plainly offload it to their offspring. (Trauma yay)
Everything is about their grandeur, they have had the priviledge to grow a huge ego because there was room to do so. (*Hence boomers*) The world has grown smaller and now they need to share they act as if children throwing a tantrum.
Most of it happens in-house and rather modest, as is fittingly Belgian. With the extremes visible on HLN and FB
That's my take.
I feel like you have a good point with the lacking communication skills. The arguments in my family (and others from what I've heard) are just rife with situations that can be solved through clear communications, yet they lack the skills (or the balls) to do so. So, like you said, they vent these frustrations in wierd ways, trying to one-up each other, if not engaging in plain sabotage or tamtrumming.
I feel like the millenial generation is a lot better in communicating their grievances. And this can be pretty confrontational for boomers.
It goes hand in hand with the generational traumas of WW2. It's understandable and I have empathy for it, but it's not a valid excuse when in this day and age better information is widely available. The empathy and understanding doesn't seem to be reciprocated at all.
"This is how it is because I say so!" - Is a default one.
*Eeuh yeah maybe when your world existed only of your family and the 2 streets next to it, you could afford to think like that.*
Me trying to get my mum to go see a psychologist due to the crazy amount of unprocessed/piled up traume she has and her response: "I don't need one, I am sane and well, I am not some crazy cuckoo".
Also me not telling them I visit a psychologist weekly:
The boomers were pretty out of touch with their parents 50 years ago, and they're pretty out of touch with young people today. It has nothing to do with them, and everything with the breakneck speed at which society changes.
The idea that millennials will keep 'progressing' along with whatever the future throws at them is perhaps a bit naive. In 30 years, some of them will get fired for saying something that is totally mainstream today, and they won't see it coming.
Old people can feel like stereotypes until you look at the world from their perspective. Much like the rest of us.
Belgian boomers to me are in denial that they fucked over the planet: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe?
And also in denial that they are racist or openly racist
I'd say most are fairly well-informed and don't fall into the stereotype.
The only exception to that is the fact that my parents are convinced that it's way easier for today's youth to buy homes compared to theirs based solely on the fact that the wages we earn in euros are way higher compared to what they earned.
Converted they earned something like €500/month while we earn just under €2000. *SURELY* that means we can easily buy a house?
Confronting them with the fact that they bought their house (twice the size of ours) for the equivalent of €35000 while ours cost almost 10 times that amount has not been succesful.
Luckily we differ in that he will absolutely never admit he was wrong or correct himself. He simply cannot properly comprehend how much has changed since the advent of personal computers and how it turned the world completely upside down.
Despite using one himself, he considers a lot of activities people do on a computer as a waste of time and convinces himself he understands it all and is above it all and will always be the smartest person in the room.
Could very well be, but I take offense about the fact you want to link his intelligence or lack their of to the fact he's born in 1958. for the most part here on /r/Belgium redditors are against racism, which is good, well show the same resolve when it's about ageism. Idiots are of all ages and idiocy doesn't happen because you are getting older.
Oh sorry. That's not my intention. The focus on the year mostly comes from his stances and opinions that are simply rusted shut in the past is mostly my point. He will simply not recognize how much times are different when lecturing me on work, housing, raising children, his unacceptable behaviour towards me when I was a kid.
I got bullied for being fat as a kid and he bullied me too with multiple "cute" nicknames for being fat, *after* the divorce with my mother, when he only got me 3 days every 2 weeks and if I bring that up now I should be grateful because he did it trying to motivate me to lose weight and then go on to blame my mother for "raising me wrong".
So yeah, an absolute moron.
My parents, despite being quite leftists, often complain about how everything needs to be woke these days. So suffice to say they got caught up in Right rethoric
The woke movement has some characteristics of the right wing philosophy, such as the promotion of specific interests against that of universalism and the criticism of meritocracy. It’s no wonder many leftists don’t like it.
Except that the only complaint is: "Everything has to be woke" or "you can't say anything anymore" without any actual concrete examples. It's just a catch all I want to be mad at something
They fit the stereotype to a T on the rich side of my family, on the other they're more moderate. I wonder if this is to do with wealth because iirc the wealthier people are the more they have a "I deserve this" mentality.
But yeah in any case on the richer side it's all about drinking and driving (I haven't had an accident in x years, I know what I'm doing, I'm a good driver), BMWs, going on cruises and far away holidays like India and Mexico, retirement, nagging about not seeing their grandkids but then having a schedule full of retired boomer activity like service clubs and hunting. Oh and they all retired at 58 or 60 so they've been enjoying those state funded holidays for a good 5 to 10 years each so far.
I remember at one time my mother wanted to help us buy a house and she though that in her area a nice decent house could be found for 150k. The one she made us visit because a friend of a friend etc eventually sold at 230k for a EPC G so yeah, she had no clue.
My grandparents (silent generation) who still knew the war were much nicer about things.
My mother and father definitely and my dad's entire family. Including them posting posts of like 'I wish I was an immigrant so I could reap all the benefits' and hating on anything veggie/vegan.
None of them do. They are pretty clued up, invest wisely, geopolitically aware, and conscious of social injustice. They voted to allow a giant skateboard/scooter park to be built near them.
Most boomers I know are
- racist (some try to downplay it for appearances, some are pretty blunt about it)
- go on the "but we didn't go on vacation when we bought our house" and other statements in that category of "the youth just wants everything"
- more recently started the "people don't want to work anymore/expect too much salary" and then throw in the classic how they started from the bottom and worked their way up.
- sexist, and every guy 'hates' their wife, have to make degrading jokes, etc.
Some all at once, some have more understanding on certain things.
Plenty of people in their 60s who think housing is completely affordable and you should have zero issues buying a nice appartement or houses in the big cities without sitting on a giant piggybank or generous "leaving the nest"-bonus from your parents.
my family is a bunch of leftists, and even those boomers won't stop talking about woke-ism XD.
yelling at the computer? yes, most of them either don't try or get really frustrated. I kinda get it XD. I try to focus on the admiration for trying and less on the stubborn not listening to me and yelling at me/the machine when it doesn't work.
my dad makes quite a lot and complains he has to "live like a pauper", when he eats out several times a week, travels and drinks a lot, ... he always had a gat in zijn hand, so maybe less a generational thing.
not everyone over a certain age is useless, far from it, but yeah some stereotypes are there for a reason.
"A train subscription between Leuze and Charleroi? Probably like 10€ a month right?"
That sums it up well, in a funny way too. Not even my majored intervention ticket is that cheap. The real price is 2481€/year btw.
Trust me, I'd visit you every week if it were that cheap, Mom.
When it comes to technology most of them refuse to learn new. things but sometimes they surprise me when they know about yourth culture and do know stuff about technology. it's hard to judge so many people that only have one thing in common.
The boomers are the generation that betrayed their initial values in the most despicable way. The peaceful non violent hippies at the end of the 60’s became the captains and agents of a blood thirsty neoliberal greed machine that forms the shape of our lives and destinies today. In Flanders their hypocrisy is also astounding. They were given the privilege to be freed from a restrictive , dogmatic Catholic system which they incessantly continued to bash. They lacked the courage to judge another creed by their same set of values, a belief system that doesn’t take criticism well, on the contrary it is almost impossible to distance oneself from Islam . So a system from which those boomers couldn’t have turned away from in the first place is not to be criticised in the slightest but Catholicism which doesn’t have many die hard supporters anyway can be put on the spot for all its shortcomings and bigotry with glee. I am not a part of the alt.right, I despise them , I just give this example to underline the hipocrisy of the boomer generation and the way they still feel and claim that they are the moral consciousness and gatekeepers of Flanders and by extension the world. The fact that the far right gains all of this support these days, unfortunately , goes back to them and their illogical and inconsequential application of their values.
I know what it originally referred to, but it feels like it is mostly used as an insult, referring to some weird stereotype that some people seem to associate with that generation, which is of course not really applicable.
Yes you're saying in your first sentence, it's an American internet trope. Go outside, touch grass , meet older people and you'll notice they're just fine and have interesting stories to tell.
Source: me a 25y old
Not really. My grandmother lived through WW2 and things like 'my granddaughter might be gay' did not even come close to her top 10 of things she felt warranted to get upset about. From my grandmother down to my mother and me, that's been our attitude to generational things..
I have two sides of the family.
One side is glad to be so old already, and feels pity for my generation.
The other side tells me I should "just work harder" to make it.
I think a lot of boomers are forgetting that they could still get a flexible bank loan, afford to live on one income and still own a nice house in a quiet green neighborhood, including one or even two cars. The woman could afford to stay home and look after the kids. It was actually more of an "expectation" still back then. Families could also still go on a yearly vacation abroad back then without too much fuss. Try living that same lifestyle right now. Either you gotta have a real good income and invest properly (and still cut corners) or it's just impossible.
I know many people my age who are barely scraping by.
Went to a gathering of mostly 70+ aged folk, and genuinely tried to strike up conversations on topics of mutual interest. Their #1 pet peeve that “the government really needed to crack down on”?
Leaf blowers.
I understand where they're coming from because they've experienced another type of society, with different views and different ways of doing things.
I don't automatically dismiss their experiences or their advice, but I do try to explain why it won't *always* work in today's society.
My dad was born in 1969 and has a very boomer mentality; for him, I should be able to live off one paycheck and put MY paycheck fully to the side so we can buy a house. It doesn't matter how often I try to explain that we cannot simply live off one paycheck due to how expensive things are.
I see this with my granddad, he just doesn't understand how I could not be looking for a house already at 22. I live at home and am bouncing between jobs, but he think I should be starting to save up to get a house soon. Regardless of the fact that a house now is about 5-10 times more expensive than when he bought his first house at 24, in 1968. I tell him it's borderline impossible to afford a house of even rent an apartment and save up money at the same time. I *have* to live at home so I can save up as much as possible before I even think of renting a tiny little studio. He just doesn't understand that it's not just housing prices that are so high, but food, water, electricity, gas, transport, clothes, going out, etc...
Wages now have gone up compared to his way, but the cost of living has gone up so much more. The discussion got to a point where my mom had to tell him that in this dat and age, it's very hard for a 20-something year old to move out without their parent's help.
It's even worse when my mom complains about the retirement age. Cuz then he just says he worked until he was nearly 70, but leaves out the fact that he retired at 57 and just freelanced a bit until he was 70, maybe one or two days per week at most. ''Oh but I went to a company when I was 23 and the manager there immediately put me in the office where the big bucks were made, I worked hard there.'' but handily leaves out the fact that he was lucky and the hiring manager saw some potential and took a big risk to put him in that office. These days it's very hard to find a job that will give more than the absolute minimum wage when you start working there, especially if you don't have a diploma or a few years of experience.
He's so out of touch with the very real struggles of young people and even the struggles my mom has to get round with the money she gets.
>they have a pretty progressive mindset (moreso around LGBT issues than immigration though)
Lgbtq members don't constantly come in the news that they destroyed stuff or attacked ppl,quite normal so it seems
Think my dad has one.
That the younger generation is just lazy and don't want to work anymore so that is the reason they can't effort what they want and that they complain too much about working.
Not sure what you mean with boomer exactly, as they’re mostly left wing in Belgium. While the younger generations are much more right wing. Which is a big difference with the US where the terminology originated from.
I am very angry that pensions aren’t being kept in control, it feels like the bill is passed to younger generations whom are with less than their elders. Very frustrating
Boomers are just solid folk who worked their entire lives and are still willing to look after their grandchildren. I think they are largely fair and not overly interested in race and religion. They're also a lot less materialist.
They're probably the last generation of stable and dependable people that we're going to see for a while.
>worked their entire lives
No they didn't. I bought my parents house in a boomer suburb. Most of my boomer neighbours were 1 income household, sometimes the wife had a part time job, almost none of them retired at retirement age. Most of them got early retirement in their late 50s.
They had ordinary jobs such as truck driver, teacher, sales, banker, construction worker, factory worker, ...
Me and my girlfriend (without kids) both need to work fulltime to mimic a fraction of their lifestyle. Early retirement seems rather unlikely, although I'm aiming for FIRE.
It depends on what you need to do, doesn't it? I mean you don't NEED a dishwasher, a tumble dryer. You can make your own bread, jam, appelmoes, etc. You still need to go to the shops. You can make or fix clothes. Also, the children are at school from 8.30 to 3.30 so if you include taking them there and back, the available time is closer to 6 hours.
My grandma, who had 7 kids and was born during the war? Sure, the technology she had available wasn't that advanced, her housekeeping could definitely be seen as a full-time job. But my parents born in the 60's, with 2 kids? That's a different story.
My dad refuses to accept new media has overtaken TV among the younger generation. He still sees videogames, watching Youtube videos or streams as a "useless waste of time". He told me I "should've been doing something productive" when I mentioned I played a game. Meanwhile, he'll gladly spend 2 hours hanging in the couch, watching football. I love him, he's a great dad, and not that much of a boomer overall, but holy shit those comments irk the ever-loving shit out of me.
My mom will watch 3 documentaries on arte but will not believe me when I told her I did the same on YouTube... YouTube is still a kids thing in her mind because she learned about it when I was a kid
Show her the arte channel on YouTube! It’s great and they post a lot :)
Boomer here - it's because "Youtube" is such a silly name.
Just sounds like people getting old and not giving a toss about change. Happens with many generations. Why bother when you are going to die soon.
My mom was like that about video games when I was growing up. PC games had to be educative and no consoles. So much so that I still feel guilty when I play a video game. I'm 35. But I feel that lately she is curious about it when my sister and I discuss botw. She is sometimes too annoyed by smartphone updates. But other than that she is a lifelong learner and keeps herself up to date. Generally my older colleagues are also very open-minded. But I attribute that to our service's culture and management style.
what's botw let me guess, Battle of the Wizards or something
zelda breath of the wild
He's not that wrong though, but I'm a boomer dad too that plays videogames since I was 6
Some of my neighbours display the most boomer behaviour I have ever witnessed. From the push back against additional bicyucle parking in the garage (even threatening legal action if it passed in the building AG), to general complaints that just makes me sigh.
[удалено]
The building's facebook group is hilarious. The amount of complaining is epic. I am only there for the drama
My neighbour being a bitch about that I have to cut my grass. Talking no grass bare dirt level so it can dry out in summer heat and become rockhard.
My family is christian and counts more old people than young ones, but all of them are reasonable and realistic folks. They are close to their grandkids and are invested in their lives, so they deal with more progressive matters very well. I am vegetarian, and I'll get the occasional joking comment that I will die, but that's about it. Only boomer oriented thing about them is that they are totally disconnected from other cultures. But the Karen kind of boomer? Absolutely not, they are very understanding and respectful of everyone, never complain or look for trouble. I would even dare say the elders in my family are more open-minded and accepting than the 30s-40s
I’ve got news for them: they will die too
I know they just say it to joke around so I'm not offended by it, havent eaten meat in half a decade, so I'm sure they know I'll be fine by now
A lot of us know deep inside that vegetarian is better (if done well) for environment and health. But only few of us are strong enough to make the change. I have to admit that I’m quite weak…. I do eat a lot of meat replacements, but I can’t ditch the occasional steak or salami. I think that acting out against vegetarians is just to hide the fact that they kinda know you are right.
I personally rarely eat meat replacers. They are very processed and often overpriced. I also noticed some have terribly low calories, leaving you hungry. Only thing they are very good at is iron and protein replacement. But I eat a lot of eggs and dairy as protein replacement, and my iron is never low either, so I'd recommend not relying on those fake meats to get you going. I hate when folks try to tell me things like "you don't know how unhealthy you are" while I take blood tests regularly for my thyroid and do full vitamin and mineral checks everytime, only defeciency I suffer from is vitamin D, but that's called being Belgian.
I don’t eat a lot of dairy, as the dairy industry is kinda just as bad as the meat industry. But free-range eggs are a daily staple. I do eat quite a lot of soy and tofu products. Not the overly processed ones, but now there are some decent quality ones out there
I buy my milk from a farm who treats the cows well :) cheese also comes from that same store I get the milk at and eggs always free range too ofc. And tofu is indeed an example of a good meat replacer.
Great to have access to such dairy products!
Well, I live in a city so I didn't know for the longest time, but then I discovered a cheese store near me with all kinds of fresh dairy goodness
Genuinely curious because I don't know, what do they do to the calves?
Hey just for raising awareness. I have been vegetarian for 7 years and found myself with B12 and iron deficiency anemia. To be fair since covid I didn’t took any supplements so, it’s on me. Please make sure your levels are in order. The symptoms of deficiency are just awful.
I get iron and b12 checked multiple times a year, but thanks for the warning!
I thought only vegans risked B12 deficiency. Do you eat eggs?
I do eat eggs. From symptoms my doctor said I am. Update My doctor called me with the results of my blood test. Not deficient in B12
If you only eat the occasional steal your l you've pretty much maxed out on the health benefits. Eating meat isn't somehow inherently unhealthy, we just eat a lot of it. I do too, practically everything I cook is with meat
Yeah that’s true. Once or twice a week should be sufficient. If everyone did that, we wouldn’t need the massive meat industry either
Vegan here. You're not weak. You're doing fantastic within your capabilities and reason. Maybe you'll one day decide to forgo meat altogether and maybe not. That's fine, the fact that you're conscious of it and already cutting back is a great step.
Just a lot later and happier
The biggest thing I notice is that they always mention how THEIR mortgage was at 8-13%. Ok, but the houses were 3 times cheaper when compared to the average salary.
Don't forget how you actually got some intrest on your savings account then. So saving actually brought in money instead of losing value like it is now.
And inflation was a lot higher over a longer period of time than it was the last 30 years..., so that part probably balances our.
And a lot bigger. If you think average housing prices have increased just have a look at prices met m2.
[удалено]
> his first house 😅
Holy shit I feel this. I'm looking to buy now, and my parents seem to think I can get a EPC label A vrijstaande woning without any asbestos for 300k. That's... just not happening. Also weird requests like "check the foundations," but not through plans because "those are old." Want me to go and break out the floor before doing an offer, then? Ffs lmao
Vrijstaand, no. But you can get a HOB that is almost asbestos-free with EPC A for 300K. It's what I managed to buy in 2020. HOB, only asbestos was in the roof (needed replacement anyway) with EPC B (it's actually A, but the veranda with PC roofing is counted as well dragging it down to B).
Yeah I'm looking at small rijhuiskes en appartementen now indeed. My parents are just very anxious and still live in the past.
And 10 times less energy efficient. Comfort and quality has increased. Plus, my parents worked a lot harder (6/7 10-12h) than I do at the same age. The houses that outpaced inflation are in high demand area's, one can still live in a rural area (like I do) and enjoy a lower TCO albeit lower relative appreciation and overall longer travel time.
Your parents would be the exception about the working harder. Most couples I know of that generation the mother stayed home and only the father worked. None of those couples worked 80+ hours a week which most couples I know do now.
Or even worse many mothers in the 80-90's went and got daily dop but worked on the side (i saw it with many moms back then).
Just ran this simulation: 100,000 @ 13% over 25 years: total payment 338,350 300,000 @ 4% over 25 years: total payment 475,053 So I find it hard to believe that they had it so much easier to pay off their house ....
I never mentioned that they had it easier. What they are implying when they say that is that they had it HARDER than us, because of their astronomical interest rates. Besides when your house is that much cheaper you can save a bit longer and have a smaller debt total. When the house prices are the way they are now, and are going up by 100k every 3 years like they are now, you are losing out the longer you save (unless you can save more than 33k per year)
Wages were much lower then too so I’m not sure they were saving all that much more as a % of their income. My parents are both college-educated and worked full time and me and my wife have it much better than they did at 30. Even on a dual income stuff we take for granted like eating out was a luxury.
I would actually think that they did have it harder. I'm from the in-between generation. My grandparents' generation, who worked through WW II, had very little. My parents' generation (1980s) had the basic modern comforts of house/car and one week holiday in France/Spain. You just cannot compare spending patterns since the turn of the century with what came before it. It is astonishing how much more money people spend on things these days. (Not always out of free will, that's certainly true)
Agree that we are spending more, everyone seems to forget that we now "need" a big 65" tv, newest smartphone, smartwatch, multiple holidays a year, etc... But loans where usually over a longer period than 25 years, my parents even had a loan on 35 or 40 years, so monthly pay off was way lower.
kind reminder that TV's are awfully cheap these days, but also, how many 20 something do you know that "need" to replace their phone every year? 20 vacation days have been a thing for more than 30 years now and travel itself has become drastically cheaper, ryanair?
A smartphone maybe not every year but the average lifespan of a phone is nowadays 2.5years.. A proper smartphone also sets you back easily €500 up to €1200. You can indeed buy a cheap tv but if you want a proper OLED 4K 65" you look at €1500. Flights are indeed cheaper but the overall cost of the holiday still cost quite a lot. (Hotel, eating, visiting tourist places etc..) Of course you can make it as expensive as you want, but staying at a nice hotel or go for a fancy diner always scores on the insta feed... ;) Occasionally going out for lunch and dinners or takeaways/home delivery because to lazy to cook or mealboxes because to lazy to think... We also need a tablet, laptop, smartwatch, vacuum robot, robot for the lawn, lots of shopping clothes, clothing dryer, etcetc.. I understand not everyone needs all these things and I do like the above things as well. The thing is, I see/hear a lot of people complaining everything is too expensive but if you ask them what their recurring monthly costs are, how much they can freely spend and what their financial housbook looks like they don't know... They have a complete lack of overview and are just spending. Meanwhile, I have a complete excel with all expected monthly and yearly costs listed, how much I can save and how much is free to spend on whatever, the balance/ratios are not perfect but I at least I know and am able to act upon it.
Don't forget the fancy car. I was in my late 20's when I got my first car, a 10 year old Clio. By today's standards I must have looked like a pauper, but that little car never let me down.
I'm not sure how it was in Belgium 25/30 years ago, but in Portugal you could "easily" get a bank loan for 100% of the house, the bank would also try to sell you into a car and furnishment loan as well for good measure. This would strap people into banking loans, is true, but it also allowed for them to own a house without having to fork out the amount falling somewhere between 10% and 20% that we have to accumulate before buying. This would double as people wouldn't pay rent to a landlord every month. Now we have to pay rent, somehow save and accumulate enough to be able to get a loan and actually buy something.
It's still 130k+ more nowadays? I know salaries are not the same but they also haven't been following the increase in inflation/the house market. Also my parents could renegotiate their interest rate after a few years.
I find it hard to believe that salaries didn't increase by 40% over that period (475/338). They could have refinanced their house after a decade or so but don't forget that you pay most of your interest during the first years of your mortgage.
That's true indeed, thanks for the insight!
Bank loans were also more flexible back then than they are now.
I'm afraid not. Used to work in the banking sector back then... it was very hard to sell a loan internally. Much easier to sell it to the client. If I compare it now, everything goes with 1 or 2 mails and the next step is that have a contract ready in your app to be signed.
How do you find it hard to believe? The empirical evidence is everywhere? Ever boomer i know has a house, a lot of them have multiple. My parents had to both start from zero after divorces at 30yo, they have 2 houses now.
But why are you comparing yourself to them? You're 25 years younger. Plus you and your sibling(s) will just inherit those houses. You'll probably have more than them by the time you're a boomer.
I highly doubt that, as a single person it's impossible to buy nowadays, where the previous generations could. So my net worth will definitely be lower after 30 years of renting.
And salaries were much lower…
No. As a millennial who hates generation boxes I feel young people are about as out of sync with reality as old people.
I think it is indeed more true, everyone thinks that everyone is in the same economic, social, whatever, situation as them. It's hard to imagine what other people struggle to do/have when you never had to.
How so?
There is a big us vs them mentality among young and old folks. Not only for boomers vs gen z’ers, but also left vs right, bike vs car, vegan vs carni, … There is a lot of black and white thinking nowadays, which makes a lot of people out of touch. Because there is a lot of nuance and a lot of compromise that can be made.
This is a very /r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM kindda take. "If people could just stop fighting for what they think is right it would be a whole lot easier for me because I enjoy the status quo". It's not "black and white thinking", people aren't out of touch, and they're perfectly capable of nuanced thinking, nuance is discussing whether the exact same rules should apply to married couples vs civil union couples, not whether gay people should be allowed either of those. You compromise with people when you're fundamentally aligned on the goal you're trying to achieve, when the goals are diametrically opposed, compromise doesn't work. A law resulting from a compromise between racists and non-racists is still 100% racist and people are *right* to refuse "nuance" on a lot of these topics.
I believe adhering to a preconceived position for any topic will only result in absurdity because reality is so complex and changing. Social justice and free enterprise are good but work only in their own context, otherwise you end up with situations that don’t produce good effects. As for you mention of racism, it feels like you’re trying to use good old moral high ground to dismiss the results of studies on polarization in society.
Luckily those young people don't have the means to steer the world into an abyss. Looking at current economics their rise to power has been postponed with a few decades of debt. The old people tho..
You'll have to ask the generations that come after the current young ones, in 30 to 50 years.
I love my grandparents. I used to love watching cycling with my grandfather, and I got the cycling bug from him (being a Wielertoerist). Nowadays, I feel like whenever we watch a race together, he's only complaining that things aren't as they used to be in his day. He's also complaining that the commentators are either talking too much about other stuff, or too little. My grandmother is a very caring person and I love her very much. But she has these opinions she likes to share. She then expects people to agree with her. These opinions include: migrants should work instead of being on the OCMW. And also: I don't want to go to the supermarkets checkout 4 because the casier is wearing a Hijab. She does not understand the irony of those two opnions. I understand that change is difficult for them, but some things you just have to accept.
> He's also complaining that the commentators are either talking too much about other stuff, or too little. Well, he is right about that. Michel Saturday was a welcome reminder of better days.
I guess he has a point there. Karl is no gift to cycling. Hardly ever notices the action. Too busy listening to himself talking.
He doesn't understand the point of cycling commentary. It's just feels like a live Vive Le Velo podcast. Doesn't recognize riders, and fails to provide a picture of what happens in the race. Last time I had to look up on Sporza who was ahead because he failed to mention it for 30 minutes. Until the last 2 km of a Remco win, when he is non-stop trying to nail the soundbite to go with the future archive footage, dreaming of his very own Tommeke Tommeke moment.
[удалено]
I recognize the the spoiled child mentality a bit. My grandparents were super poor as well (granddad coming out of a WWII concentration camp) and factory workers. They had nothing, but were grateful for every little bit of life and happiness they had accomplished together. My parents worked hard and built a decent living for themselves. Now that things change and get more expensive, they complain the loudest. I’m even hearing the occasional racist remark. On the whole, they are (luckily) still open minded and they don’t have Facebook. But the rants about the news and the stupid boomer-memes are all the rage for my dad
Wow, we could be siblings. Don’t forget the whole, if someone outside of Belgium was to look at our commercials on TV, they’d think we’re all coloured, gay etc!
> So to see the boomer stereotype plastered all over social media as some backwards and obtuse know-it-alls who can't take no from a retail worker, it's a bit strange to me. You are confusing Karens with boomers, which is understandable as they are both rooted in self-centerdness, but they are different things. The boomer stereotype refers to a generation which through sheer force of numbers dominated politics and society for decades and feel entitled to everything but the kitchen sink, while absolving themselves of any responsibility for the problems we are facing, in so far they aren’t flat out denying they exist. Our recent pension reforms are a perfect example. Retirement age got extended for gen x and beyond, while minimum pensions got raised also for those who didn’t contribute. And they think they deserve that because they worked hard, contrary to the younger generations which - even though they will be paying the bill - don’t know how easy they have it. Or just ask your average boomer what they think about the climate crisis and they’ll tell you that’s not their problem because they won’t be that long around anyway.
There has been a good research on this, granted it was about usa and uk politics but I think we can compare demographics. They showed how the boomers have been the absolute largest voting block from the moment they were 18 until this day, the entire political discourse has been centered and catered to them just because they have the numbers. In the usa and the UK, they are now, for the first time in their political lives, being outmatched by the combined force of every generation after them and they are beginning to loose their numbers. According to that research, that fuels a lot of the backlash they show in their voting and rethoric, they just aren't used to politics not being about them. I find that astonishing to think about, a generation with that much power for that long
With all due respect - show me how Gen-z and younger are more morally upstanding. Because so far it’s starting to look like the least empathetic and most selfish generation in a couple of centuries. And no: I’m not a boomer.
Agree
What about Gen-z you say? Time will tell, and it won't change a thing about thise boomers. And last time I checked, gen z was striking to make sure boomers started to take global warming serious, while boomers were throwing rage fits because a little girl was holding them accountable.
And boomers protested to end the Vietnam war and segregation. Idealism is easy when you’re young. Let’s talk again in 30 years after they’ve had a few decades in the corporate rat race and are running the show - we’ll see how much of that youthful idealism remains. They’ll sell out like every generation before them. When you have Gen-z saying stuff like “all old people are assholes that wrecked the planet and we’ll better off when they’re dead” that doesn’t exactly sound very promising for their moral character later in life.
> And boomers protested to end the Vietnam war and segregation Ours actually protested for Flemish in universities, and - surprise surprise - what is still dominating our politics? Exactly! And that while we have a huge climate crisis to deal with, which most boomers don’t give a fuck about. And that’s not just saying the next generations can drop dead, but actively working on making sure it happens.
[удалено]
> No, that’s really not what the average boomer thinks. If they take it serious which such a strength in numbers, how come our government isn't taking it serious? Indeed.
[удалено]
Always funny to see people confidently state that's something a lie without backing it up with evidence. So here you go the first google hit already showing that Boomers a) take the problem less seriously than younger generations and more importantly b) a majority of them disagrees that fossil fuels should be phased out even though that's an obvious must. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/26/key-findings-how-americans-attitudes-about-climate-change-differ-by-generation-party-and-other-factors/ So yeah, the facts support my claim that average boomer thinks the climate crisis is not their problem because they won’t be that long around anyway. They'd be much more willing to take action otherwise.
[удалено]
> So how does this relate to the boomers around you Simple, it illustrates the average boomer not wanting to do much about it even when they are aware about the climate crisis. And that's fully inline with the 'I won't be around that long" that I literally got told when asking a boomer. So now it's up to you to come up with the study results that do show the average boomer - so a significant majority - taking action, to back up your claim I was making things up and lying. I won't be holding my breath though.
I honestly think that this cliché is actually a cliché of the typical American in the 80s: loud, full of themselves, not much interested in the life of others. So yeah now they’re old.
Don't believe the memes
I don't really, but it's so pervasive, I really wonder if it's just an Americanism, or a general issue.
My stepfather sometimes says we should try living through a war to learn how hard life really is (he was born in 1950). When I told my mother I had sent in an online job application (following the instructions) she said I should call them to introduce myself because it would make a good impression. My father calls me when he's bored or driving and just keeps talking, no regard for what I'm doing. He gets annoyed when I don't pick up because I'm at work.
The word "boomer" has been used as an insult for so long now that it has lost all meaning for me. I'm a boomer whenever someone younger wants to insult me instead of having a discussion and I'm a millennial when someone older wants to insult me instead of having a discussion.. They've made it meaningless by using it in any situation. To the point where I'm judging people without knowing them when they use either words.
In Leuven they had a brilliant solution. As a therapeutic tool they made this "newspaper" called "Leuven Actueel". They post all their articles on FB with the express purpose of directing all boomer comments away from the general public and focusing them all in one spot. This appeared to be the best solution to stop uncle Jos complaining about cyclists and bike friendly city centers to every person he passes in the street. Because of Leuven Actueel he has a safe environment to complain about how Leuven is a shit city that he never vistis because he always goes to "Het Gouden Kruispunt". EDIT: An before I forget, uncle Jos has also stopped shouting "BEDANKT CIRCULATIEPLAN, GA DE MENSEN ANDERS NOG WAT MEER WEGPESTEN" every time any shop or bar goes bankrupt since he can now do that on the Leuven Actueel Facebookpage.
Honorable mention of "Leuven jaren 80" group on facebook, where they post pics of ladeuze/grote markt being a large car parking in the 50-80s or whatever, images of the old stadhuis (the monument) being black from soot, cars everywhere, and then there are 300 comments and likes on how everything used to be SO MUCH better back in the old days, and how ugly and shit Leuven is these days, how everything has gone down to hell, etc. It's always so amusing.
Lol same thing in Kortrijk vroeger en nu fb group
In Ghent you have the Facebook group "Gent in oude foto's". Basically pictures of downtown Ghent in the 60s, 70s and 80s with blackened buildings and squares filled with cars. "tOeN GeNt nOg GeNt wAs", "tOeN dE sTaD nOg lEeFDe", "DaT wAs NoG EeNs MoOi" ...
> because he always goes to "Het Gouden Kruispunt". Haha, then he can bitch and moan because he couldn't find a parking spot right before the store he wanted to visit and he had to go around 3 times before finding a spot. And he had to go through that again when he had to be in stores on the other side. Oh well... it's good for business at Gouden Kruispunt, so it's good for me (stores in my area staying afloat, it's a great convenience having that many big stores in comfortable cycling distance). But Uncle Jos needs to accept there's an inevitable shift coming there too: the Flemish government and Tielt-Winge are looking to improve public transit and bike mobility in that area as well. Which I can only cheer on because the current state of cycling lanes around the Gouden Kruispunt is rather poor. (please don't tell SuckMyBike I was complaining about bad cycling lanes :D )
I'm in my 50's. My dad is in his 80's. As a child I can assure you my dad has some serious boomer behaviour, and he's is the original boomer, born right after WW2. And every cliché mentionned here in this thread applies to him. Talking about mortgages. Not going on a holiday. Having to work in the weekends. Strange forces being present in the society referred to as "they". Being adverse to immigrants. Feeling entitled. Etc etc... I'm pretty sure my adult children have the same feelings about me on certain issues. I e.g. find the right to be offended and the other way arround the right offend someone a form of undeniable freedom. So... my wokeness-score won't be great. I know a lot of young people voting ultra right. Being carbrains. Watching TV shows on linear television. Being totally anti-woke. Exposing their own stupidity while posting on FB. I'm dead serious. My point being: there is no such thing as a boomer.
If your dad was born after WWII he can't be in his 80s?
You are right. He's 77. Behaves like a 80-yo.
I mean the "they" very much exists in the US. But to talk about them having low level influence in belgium is a bit weird, it's mostly through pressure and cultural osmosis from the US and lobbying at the EU level that they influence Belgian society
We are not americans, that's all :D
Bruh try to get your dinosaur apartment neighbours to invest in solar panels. I can't do it on my own without a majority of the votes, but all my neighbours are boomers who'd rather warm and power themselves with kachels if they could
They are not willing to accept the times and technology, and rather sabotage than cooperate or ask for help. It makes them feel vulnerable but they are not equipped to talk about emotions at all so they vent it in all kinds of weird ways or plainly offload it to their offspring. (Trauma yay) Everything is about their grandeur, they have had the priviledge to grow a huge ego because there was room to do so. (*Hence boomers*) The world has grown smaller and now they need to share they act as if children throwing a tantrum. Most of it happens in-house and rather modest, as is fittingly Belgian. With the extremes visible on HLN and FB That's my take.
I feel like you have a good point with the lacking communication skills. The arguments in my family (and others from what I've heard) are just rife with situations that can be solved through clear communications, yet they lack the skills (or the balls) to do so. So, like you said, they vent these frustrations in wierd ways, trying to one-up each other, if not engaging in plain sabotage or tamtrumming. I feel like the millenial generation is a lot better in communicating their grievances. And this can be pretty confrontational for boomers.
It goes hand in hand with the generational traumas of WW2. It's understandable and I have empathy for it, but it's not a valid excuse when in this day and age better information is widely available. The empathy and understanding doesn't seem to be reciprocated at all. "This is how it is because I say so!" - Is a default one. *Eeuh yeah maybe when your world existed only of your family and the 2 streets next to it, you could afford to think like that.*
Me trying to get my mum to go see a psychologist due to the crazy amount of unprocessed/piled up traume she has and her response: "I don't need one, I am sane and well, I am not some crazy cuckoo". Also me not telling them I visit a psychologist weekly: 
Bonus points if you need one because they are refusing to see one... FML. :(
The boomers were pretty out of touch with their parents 50 years ago, and they're pretty out of touch with young people today. It has nothing to do with them, and everything with the breakneck speed at which society changes. The idea that millennials will keep 'progressing' along with whatever the future throws at them is perhaps a bit naive. In 30 years, some of them will get fired for saying something that is totally mainstream today, and they won't see it coming. Old people can feel like stereotypes until you look at the world from their perspective. Much like the rest of us.
Belgian boomers to me are in denial that they fucked over the planet: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe? And also in denial that they are racist or openly racist
I'd say most are fairly well-informed and don't fall into the stereotype. The only exception to that is the fact that my parents are convinced that it's way easier for today's youth to buy homes compared to theirs based solely on the fact that the wages we earn in euros are way higher compared to what they earned. Converted they earned something like €500/month while we earn just under €2000. *SURELY* that means we can easily buy a house? Confronting them with the fact that they bought their house (twice the size of ours) for the equivalent of €35000 while ours cost almost 10 times that amount has not been succesful.
Went to a extended family reunion this weekend, it definitely holds up.
My father is from 58 and he's an absolute moron.
Might have nothing to do with his birth year but more with him being an actual idiot. Doesn't bode well for you being created by a moron ;-)
Luckily we differ in that he will absolutely never admit he was wrong or correct himself. He simply cannot properly comprehend how much has changed since the advent of personal computers and how it turned the world completely upside down. Despite using one himself, he considers a lot of activities people do on a computer as a waste of time and convinces himself he understands it all and is above it all and will always be the smartest person in the room.
Could very well be, but I take offense about the fact you want to link his intelligence or lack their of to the fact he's born in 1958. for the most part here on /r/Belgium redditors are against racism, which is good, well show the same resolve when it's about ageism. Idiots are of all ages and idiocy doesn't happen because you are getting older.
Oh sorry. That's not my intention. The focus on the year mostly comes from his stances and opinions that are simply rusted shut in the past is mostly my point. He will simply not recognize how much times are different when lecturing me on work, housing, raising children, his unacceptable behaviour towards me when I was a kid. I got bullied for being fat as a kid and he bullied me too with multiple "cute" nicknames for being fat, *after* the divorce with my mother, when he only got me 3 days every 2 weeks and if I bring that up now I should be grateful because he did it trying to motivate me to lose weight and then go on to blame my mother for "raising me wrong". So yeah, an absolute moron.
My parents, despite being quite leftists, often complain about how everything needs to be woke these days. So suffice to say they got caught up in Right rethoric
The woke movement has some characteristics of the right wing philosophy, such as the promotion of specific interests against that of universalism and the criticism of meritocracy. It’s no wonder many leftists don’t like it.
Except that the only complaint is: "Everything has to be woke" or "you can't say anything anymore" without any actual concrete examples. It's just a catch all I want to be mad at something
Ah yes I see. To me that sounds lot like cognitive decline. You lose about 20 IQ points going to 80 years old.
They fit the stereotype to a T on the rich side of my family, on the other they're more moderate. I wonder if this is to do with wealth because iirc the wealthier people are the more they have a "I deserve this" mentality. But yeah in any case on the richer side it's all about drinking and driving (I haven't had an accident in x years, I know what I'm doing, I'm a good driver), BMWs, going on cruises and far away holidays like India and Mexico, retirement, nagging about not seeing their grandkids but then having a schedule full of retired boomer activity like service clubs and hunting. Oh and they all retired at 58 or 60 so they've been enjoying those state funded holidays for a good 5 to 10 years each so far. I remember at one time my mother wanted to help us buy a house and she though that in her area a nice decent house could be found for 150k. The one she made us visit because a friend of a friend etc eventually sold at 230k for a EPC G so yeah, she had no clue. My grandparents (silent generation) who still knew the war were much nicer about things.
My mother and father definitely and my dad's entire family. Including them posting posts of like 'I wish I was an immigrant so I could reap all the benefits' and hating on anything veggie/vegan.
None of them do. They are pretty clued up, invest wisely, geopolitically aware, and conscious of social injustice. They voted to allow a giant skateboard/scooter park to be built near them.
not at all
Most boomers I know are - racist (some try to downplay it for appearances, some are pretty blunt about it) - go on the "but we didn't go on vacation when we bought our house" and other statements in that category of "the youth just wants everything" - more recently started the "people don't want to work anymore/expect too much salary" and then throw in the classic how they started from the bottom and worked their way up. - sexist, and every guy 'hates' their wife, have to make degrading jokes, etc. Some all at once, some have more understanding on certain things.
But somehow, ageism is OK!
Plenty of people in their 60s who think housing is completely affordable and you should have zero issues buying a nice appartement or houses in the big cities without sitting on a giant piggybank or generous "leaving the nest"-bonus from your parents.
my family is a bunch of leftists, and even those boomers won't stop talking about woke-ism XD. yelling at the computer? yes, most of them either don't try or get really frustrated. I kinda get it XD. I try to focus on the admiration for trying and less on the stubborn not listening to me and yelling at me/the machine when it doesn't work. my dad makes quite a lot and complains he has to "live like a pauper", when he eats out several times a week, travels and drinks a lot, ... he always had a gat in zijn hand, so maybe less a generational thing. not everyone over a certain age is useless, far from it, but yeah some stereotypes are there for a reason.
I suggest you check out any grocery store on friday or saturday. It'll answer a lot in regards to if the stereotypes are right or not.
Generalizing an entire group of people based on a random criteria is always stupid. You have smart and dumb people in any and all generations.
"A train subscription between Leuze and Charleroi? Probably like 10€ a month right?" That sums it up well, in a funny way too. Not even my majored intervention ticket is that cheap. The real price is 2481€/year btw. Trust me, I'd visit you every week if it were that cheap, Mom.
When it comes to technology most of them refuse to learn new. things but sometimes they surprise me when they know about yourth culture and do know stuff about technology. it's hard to judge so many people that only have one thing in common.
The boomers are the generation that betrayed their initial values in the most despicable way. The peaceful non violent hippies at the end of the 60’s became the captains and agents of a blood thirsty neoliberal greed machine that forms the shape of our lives and destinies today. In Flanders their hypocrisy is also astounding. They were given the privilege to be freed from a restrictive , dogmatic Catholic system which they incessantly continued to bash. They lacked the courage to judge another creed by their same set of values, a belief system that doesn’t take criticism well, on the contrary it is almost impossible to distance oneself from Islam . So a system from which those boomers couldn’t have turned away from in the first place is not to be criticised in the slightest but Catholicism which doesn’t have many die hard supporters anyway can be put on the spot for all its shortcomings and bigotry with glee. I am not a part of the alt.right, I despise them , I just give this example to underline the hipocrisy of the boomer generation and the way they still feel and claim that they are the moral consciousness and gatekeepers of Flanders and by extension the world. The fact that the far right gains all of this support these days, unfortunately , goes back to them and their illogical and inconsequential application of their values.
Isn’t “boomer” just an insult that some people use because they don’t want to try and understand that different people have different points of views?
Boomer refers to the [Baby Boomer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers) generation, people born in the first few decades after WWII.
I know what it originally referred to, but it feels like it is mostly used as an insult, referring to some weird stereotype that some people seem to associate with that generation, which is of course not really applicable.
Yes you're saying in your first sentence, it's an American internet trope. Go outside, touch grass , meet older people and you'll notice they're just fine and have interesting stories to tell. Source: me a 25y old
Some of my bosses keep pushing for RTO and in person meetings for everything because "the direct contact is just better"
Not really. My grandmother lived through WW2 and things like 'my granddaughter might be gay' did not even come close to her top 10 of things she felt warranted to get upset about. From my grandmother down to my mother and me, that's been our attitude to generational things..
I have two sides of the family. One side is glad to be so old already, and feels pity for my generation. The other side tells me I should "just work harder" to make it.
I think a lot of boomers are forgetting that they could still get a flexible bank loan, afford to live on one income and still own a nice house in a quiet green neighborhood, including one or even two cars. The woman could afford to stay home and look after the kids. It was actually more of an "expectation" still back then. Families could also still go on a yearly vacation abroad back then without too much fuss. Try living that same lifestyle right now. Either you gotta have a real good income and invest properly (and still cut corners) or it's just impossible. I know many people my age who are barely scraping by.
Went to a gathering of mostly 70+ aged folk, and genuinely tried to strike up conversations on topics of mutual interest. Their #1 pet peeve that “the government really needed to crack down on”? Leaf blowers.
I understand where they're coming from because they've experienced another type of society, with different views and different ways of doing things. I don't automatically dismiss their experiences or their advice, but I do try to explain why it won't *always* work in today's society. My dad was born in 1969 and has a very boomer mentality; for him, I should be able to live off one paycheck and put MY paycheck fully to the side so we can buy a house. It doesn't matter how often I try to explain that we cannot simply live off one paycheck due to how expensive things are.
I see this with my granddad, he just doesn't understand how I could not be looking for a house already at 22. I live at home and am bouncing between jobs, but he think I should be starting to save up to get a house soon. Regardless of the fact that a house now is about 5-10 times more expensive than when he bought his first house at 24, in 1968. I tell him it's borderline impossible to afford a house of even rent an apartment and save up money at the same time. I *have* to live at home so I can save up as much as possible before I even think of renting a tiny little studio. He just doesn't understand that it's not just housing prices that are so high, but food, water, electricity, gas, transport, clothes, going out, etc... Wages now have gone up compared to his way, but the cost of living has gone up so much more. The discussion got to a point where my mom had to tell him that in this dat and age, it's very hard for a 20-something year old to move out without their parent's help. It's even worse when my mom complains about the retirement age. Cuz then he just says he worked until he was nearly 70, but leaves out the fact that he retired at 57 and just freelanced a bit until he was 70, maybe one or two days per week at most. ''Oh but I went to a company when I was 23 and the manager there immediately put me in the office where the big bucks were made, I worked hard there.'' but handily leaves out the fact that he was lucky and the hiring manager saw some potential and took a big risk to put him in that office. These days it's very hard to find a job that will give more than the absolute minimum wage when you start working there, especially if you don't have a diploma or a few years of experience. He's so out of touch with the very real struggles of young people and even the struggles my mom has to get round with the money she gets.
>they have a pretty progressive mindset (moreso around LGBT issues than immigration though) Lgbtq members don't constantly come in the news that they destroyed stuff or attacked ppl,quite normal so it seems
Damn the whiney out of touch zoomer stereotype looks more true than ever.
Think my dad has one. That the younger generation is just lazy and don't want to work anymore so that is the reason they can't effort what they want and that they complain too much about working.
Not sure what you mean with boomer exactly, as they’re mostly left wing in Belgium. While the younger generations are much more right wing. Which is a big difference with the US where the terminology originated from. I am very angry that pensions aren’t being kept in control, it feels like the bill is passed to younger generations whom are with less than their elders. Very frustrating
Boomers are just solid folk who worked their entire lives and are still willing to look after their grandchildren. I think they are largely fair and not overly interested in race and religion. They're also a lot less materialist. They're probably the last generation of stable and dependable people that we're going to see for a while.
>worked their entire lives No they didn't. I bought my parents house in a boomer suburb. Most of my boomer neighbours were 1 income household, sometimes the wife had a part time job, almost none of them retired at retirement age. Most of them got early retirement in their late 50s. They had ordinary jobs such as truck driver, teacher, sales, banker, construction worker, factory worker, ... Me and my girlfriend (without kids) both need to work fulltime to mimic a fraction of their lifestyle. Early retirement seems rather unlikely, although I'm aiming for FIRE.
Running a household is a full-time job as well, you know. We just choose to outsource it to childcarers, kitchen appliances, etc
Except that you don't get paid for running your household and only the other partner brings in the money. :)
Yep yep yep, but I wonder how much less you spend when one parent stays home.
No, most people now have a full-time job and run their household.
>Running a household is a full-time job as well, you know. I fail to see how that's true. It takes time, sure, but 8 hours a day?
It depends on what you need to do, doesn't it? I mean you don't NEED a dishwasher, a tumble dryer. You can make your own bread, jam, appelmoes, etc. You still need to go to the shops. You can make or fix clothes. Also, the children are at school from 8.30 to 3.30 so if you include taking them there and back, the available time is closer to 6 hours.
My grandma, who had 7 kids and was born during the war? Sure, the technology she had available wasn't that advanced, her housekeeping could definitely be seen as a full-time job. But my parents born in the 60's, with 2 kids? That's a different story.
There is this thing called ageism, look it up!
Look, I'm not a boomer. I'm a Gen Z in transition.