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Utter and complete rubbish. The 'boomers' invented most of the 'computer stuff' you use, most 'developers' today are hacks (granted, some are amazing). Boomer

Utter and complete rubbish. The 'boomers' invented most of the 'computer stuff' you use, most 'developers' today are hacks (granted, some are amazing). Boomers had difficult upbringing, brought real social change, lived through - and ended the Cold War. Female boomers were expected to be secretaries - and had to fight for the right just to do normal jobs in the workplace. Even the boys - were expected to do the same jobs their fathers did, mostly boring labour - and only a fraction of them got to go to University. There was no such thing as 'startups' back in the day - there were zero opportunities for middle class young people to generate wealth or do globally impactful things. They lived during the draft, and 50 000 of them died in Vietnam. Millenials are born into massive entitlement, wealth , privilege and opportunity. You get bored easily, and don't want to do the same job for more than a year - but expect loyalty and long term employment? Yes - boomers had steadier work - but it was also incredibly boring, stagnant - and in real wages, pay was crap. Boomers could own a small, shoddy home in the suburbs, and were able to have 'a fridge' and 'an oven' and 'a car' - even though they were all crap by today's standards - that was 'The American Dream' and they were generally happy. If you are born past the fall of the Berlin wall in America - unless you are from a ghetto - you do not know hardship. As for real estate: the average home price in the US is about $200K. You can afford a home. You just can't be 'Instagram baller'. As for 'higher positions' - do you think the 'Greatest Generation' just handed over their choice positions to the 'Boomers'? Or do you think it took mostly a lifetime of work and loyalty? If you don't like your job make yourself CEO of your own company. What's stopping you? American Millenials have more opportunity than any group of people in the entirety of history - enough with your complaining.

pravda 10y ago
And let's think about what the boomers didn't have. No cell phones. No GPS. No soft contact lenses. No electronic fuel injection (carburetors! yay!) No Google I can keep on going with this for a long time LIFE WAS A LIVING HELL FOR BOOMERS! BE SO HAPPY YOU WERE NOT ONE!
- Aeolun 10y ago
  Not having all of those probably makes live a lot better in a purely professional sense.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  Soft contact lenses existed in the 60's and disposable contacts existed since the early 70's. Just a minor nitpick.
alphonsegaston 10y ago
This response is so stereotypical and contrary to the facts of the conditions of young people today, I have to thank you for demonstrating both my and the parent's points. Thanks for that!
- researcher11 10y ago
  It is so perfectly stereotypical and dicorced from reality part of me thought it was a joke.
  - rustynails 10y ago
    Life is far too simple to flippantly dismiss all those points. In some ways, life was simpler. The pace of life was slower. A good illustration of this is comparing the suicide rates of today. The pressure is much higher today and so are the suicide rates. I also see a lot more bullying and viciousness, especially in the media today. By comparison, newspapers of 50 years ago were much more relaxed and easy going (I studied a years worth of papers recently). There was also more social cohesion, albeit in smaller communities. That feeling of caring makes a huge difference to people's mental well being. I'm inclined to believe that life was generally easier for many boomers (at least from about 1960 onward) than it is today for younger people. When I run a search and find that almost all media outlets still insist that only males do domestic violence, or, boys are (in the last few decades) falling way behind in education because they're suddenly lazy and stupid, I recognise just how collectively nasty we've become. These appalling attitudes must wear the younger generation down. As an older guy, I'm inclined to agree the younger generation have a lot of issues that older people didn't need to worry about. Access to technology not withstanding. However, I totally accept my view is mostly anecdotal (except for suicide rates, domestic violence prejudice and snarky education comments directed at boys by many media outlets).
  - wozer 10y ago
    Hey rustynails: you seem to be shadowbanned.
    - 10y ago
9erdelta 10y ago
Millennials also have helicopter parents. This is a totally new hardship. Being raised in a way that is completely incompatible with reality. Then we get to the "real" world and are told we don't know anything. Well gee thanks dad. Judging by the American economy and the state of world affairs, doesn't seem like boomers are all they crack themselves up to be either.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Millennials also have helicopter parents. Helicopter parenting is not new (except for the name), and is neither unique to nor universal among parents of Millenials. > Judging by the American economy and the state of world affairs, doesn't seem like boomers are all they crack themselves up to be either. To be fair to the Boomers, while they certainly failed to fix it, the damage was mostly done by the "Greatest Generation" (the strong economy the GG often gets credit for was created when the GG were in their youth and the Lost Generation was running the show.)
  - 9erdelta 10y ago
    Sorry I am going to have to disagree. Parents used to be strict, far stricter, sure. But helicopter parents is just pure putting [kids in a bubble](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-the-helicopter-parent-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-the-helicopter-pa...). I do agree that it isn't universal. Anecdotally, my friends who are doing best in life right now are the ones who have less helicoptery parents (obviously not scientific, this is just my observation and trying to make sense of what I'm seeing). One friend in particular, grew up in a rural area and had to work very hard. He's now a PhD and works at Bosch.
zxcvvcxz 10y ago
Not sure how this is being downvoted - the truth hurts. We just have it too damn good, and without any wide-scale struggles to know how good we have it. I would like to a read a serious response from a detractor.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sambodigiorno 10y ago
  I'm your Huckleberry. My parents are late boomers and they and many of their friends were able to sleep-walk into middle class comfort and early retirement. Literally all they had to do was show up for work, 9-5, Monday-Friday and their prosperity was lifted on a rising tide of property prices. When they were in their 20s you applied for a job by sending a CV and covering letter. No three rounds of assessment days and homework assignments. When they left work at the end of the day, it didn't follow them home because technology didn't allow it. And the world of fax machines and mail rooms was limited in the amount of ruthless efficiency pressure it could put on workers. They didn't even need degrees. And my mother is a perfect example of how boomer women being expected to be secretaries is anachronistic SJW nonsense. She never attended university, just started working as a junior claims person at an insurance firm in the 70s, showed up for work for 30 years and ended up in the boardroom with stock options. Never faced any discrimination. And she would be the first to admit she never put much into her career - no need for constant re-training, seminars, conferences, when she was home she was home. While enjoying these comfortable lives, their generation with their hippy views presided over explosive increases in immigration to most western countries, and are the architects of wealth-hoarding tricks like buy-to-let and all kinds of snaky BS union-breaking contract work. The bottom line is, as a young person today you simply couldn't repeat their lives in terms of comfort and financial security. To match it, you'd need to put in several times the effort and hours they did, with a lot more anxiety biting at your heels. The first Millennials came of age to the images of those planes hitting the WTC and, as corny as it is, that was some incredibly apt symbology. The few of us who manage to be "anti-fragile" may make out good from this new era, but that the security of the ordinary middle-class majority has been shattered is indisputable.
- 10y ago
owebmaster 10y ago
> Millenials are born into massive entitlement, wealth , privilege and opportunity Something is strongly wrong with your reasoning if you think that boomers did so much things right and failed miserable in their most important job that is raise kids.

pravda 10y ago

And let's think about what the boomers didn't have. No cell phones. No GPS. No soft contact lenses. No electronic fuel injection (carburetors! yay!) No Google I can keep on going with this for a long time LIFE WAS A LIVING HELL FOR BOOMERS! BE SO HAPPY YOU WERE NOT ONE!

Aeolun 10y ago
Not having all of those probably makes live a lot better in a purely professional sense.
antisthenes 10y ago
Soft contact lenses existed in the 60's and disposable contacts existed since the early 70's. Just a minor nitpick.

alphonsegaston 10y ago

This response is so stereotypical and contrary to the facts of the conditions of young people today, I have to thank you for demonstrating both my and the parent's points. Thanks for that!

researcher11 10y ago
It is so perfectly stereotypical and dicorced from reality part of me thought it was a joke.
- rustynails 10y ago
  Life is far too simple to flippantly dismiss all those points. In some ways, life was simpler. The pace of life was slower. A good illustration of this is comparing the suicide rates of today. The pressure is much higher today and so are the suicide rates. I also see a lot more bullying and viciousness, especially in the media today. By comparison, newspapers of 50 years ago were much more relaxed and easy going (I studied a years worth of papers recently). There was also more social cohesion, albeit in smaller communities. That feeling of caring makes a huge difference to people's mental well being. I'm inclined to believe that life was generally easier for many boomers (at least from about 1960 onward) than it is today for younger people. When I run a search and find that almost all media outlets still insist that only males do domestic violence, or, boys are (in the last few decades) falling way behind in education because they're suddenly lazy and stupid, I recognise just how collectively nasty we've become. These appalling attitudes must wear the younger generation down. As an older guy, I'm inclined to agree the younger generation have a lot of issues that older people didn't need to worry about. Access to technology not withstanding. However, I totally accept my view is mostly anecdotal (except for suicide rates, domestic violence prejudice and snarky education comments directed at boys by many media outlets).
- wozer 10y ago
  Hey rustynails: you seem to be shadowbanned.
  - 10y ago

9erdelta 10y ago

Millennials also have helicopter parents. This is a totally new hardship. Being raised in a way that is completely incompatible with reality. Then we get to the "real" world and are told we don't know anything. Well gee thanks dad. Judging by the American economy and the state of world affairs, doesn't seem like boomers are all they crack themselves up to be either.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> Millennials also have helicopter parents. Helicopter parenting is not new (except for the name), and is neither unique to nor universal among parents of Millenials. > Judging by the American economy and the state of world affairs, doesn't seem like boomers are all they crack themselves up to be either. To be fair to the Boomers, while they certainly failed to fix it, the damage was mostly done by the "Greatest Generation" (the strong economy the GG often gets credit for was created when the GG were in their youth and the Lost Generation was running the show.)
- 9erdelta 10y ago
  Sorry I am going to have to disagree. Parents used to be strict, far stricter, sure. But helicopter parents is just pure putting [kids in a bubble](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-the-helicopter-parent-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-the-helicopter-pa...). I do agree that it isn't universal. Anecdotally, my friends who are doing best in life right now are the ones who have less helicoptery parents (obviously not scientific, this is just my observation and trying to make sense of what I'm seeing). One friend in particular, grew up in a rural area and had to work very hard. He's now a PhD and works at Bosch.

zxcvvcxz 10y ago

Not sure how this is being downvoted - the truth hurts. We just have it too damn good, and without any wide-scale struggles to know how good we have it. I would like to a read a serious response from a detractor.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sambodigiorno 10y ago
I'm your Huckleberry. My parents are late boomers and they and many of their friends were able to sleep-walk into middle class comfort and early retirement. Literally all they had to do was show up for work, 9-5, Monday-Friday and their prosperity was lifted on a rising tide of property prices. When they were in their 20s you applied for a job by sending a CV and covering letter. No three rounds of assessment days and homework assignments. When they left work at the end of the day, it didn't follow them home because technology didn't allow it. And the world of fax machines and mail rooms was limited in the amount of ruthless efficiency pressure it could put on workers. They didn't even need degrees. And my mother is a perfect example of how boomer women being expected to be secretaries is anachronistic SJW nonsense. She never attended university, just started working as a junior claims person at an insurance firm in the 70s, showed up for work for 30 years and ended up in the boardroom with stock options. Never faced any discrimination. And she would be the first to admit she never put much into her career - no need for constant re-training, seminars, conferences, when she was home she was home. While enjoying these comfortable lives, their generation with their hippy views presided over explosive increases in immigration to most western countries, and are the architects of wealth-hoarding tricks like buy-to-let and all kinds of snaky BS union-breaking contract work. The bottom line is, as a young person today you simply couldn't repeat their lives in terms of comfort and financial security. To match it, you'd need to put in several times the effort and hours they did, with a lot more anxiety biting at your heels. The first Millennials came of age to the images of those planes hitting the WTC and, as corny as it is, that was some incredibly apt symbology. The few of us who manage to be "anti-fragile" may make out good from this new era, but that the security of the ordinary middle-class majority has been shattered is indisputable.
10y ago

owebmaster 10y ago

> Millenials are born into massive entitlement, wealth , privilege and opportunity Something is strongly wrong with your reasoning if you think that boomers did so much things right and failed miserable in their most important job that is raise kids.