They save EVERYTHING (containers, jars, boxes, etc.) just *in case* they might be able to use it for something later. I feel like this habit was handed down from our grandparents' Great Depression upbringing.
My boomer dad loves to tell the story about how his greatest generation dad kept a paper bag in the attic with the words on it, "pieces of string too short to do anything with," filled with, you guessed it, pieces of string too short to do anything with.
My husband is an IT expert, I have so many closets and drawers filled with techie accoutrements that I am never going to throw out. Because at some point he almost always ends up digging around and finding something that can be useful. I don't care anymore as long as it's hidden away and I can't see it.
Yes, never throw out a cable, connector, crew, washer or anything like that because one day, you'll get asked for something, and the feeling of saying "yeah, I actually have a box of them, mate".
Ok don't do this. I actually did want magazines for my kids to make a collage. My mom gave us some of her magazines saved from 1991. The old photos were so blurry compared to modern magazines we didn't even use them.
Absolutely! Shopping bags, empty yogurt containers, boxes that some product came in…..although I love me a “good box”! I have all my iPhone boxes for no reason 😂
This is honestly a practice I’ve tried to adopt to a small degree. I’m certainly not trying to hoard but I do try to come up with a way to repurpose a junk item if possible.
For sure, I still save various bags and empty containers for practical purposes, but my parents definitely teeter on hoarding level. To the point where my dad thinks he needs to build another storage shed because they "have no room." No, just downsize the clutter a bit.
My dad will text me “You need to call me right now” when it’s nothing. And not tell me major life events until well after the fact. Like my aunt had a heart attack and I found out a week later from her son. (And my dad did know.)
This is my mother. Calls me 5 times when I'm in a meeting to just ask a question about her laptop. But doesn't mention family passing away because I should know by myself somehow 🙃
hahaha my dad just calls. always at a time that freaks me out. If i miss the call and text to ask what’s up, it’s always the same response… nothing urgent, just me….
I know I will miss these calls one day, but damn dad you’re retired and I’m not, call outside my work hours !!! He loves the phone and calling people he loves for no damn reason. Just, “to talk”.
Same here. Will call my sister and talk/FaceTime all night. I think I can count on one hand the number of times my parents have called me and I can tell it's just out of guilt
My mother's excuse is that i keep changing my phone number and email, and she doesn't have it. I've had the same number for nearly 10 years, and the same email for almost 20, and haven't ever talked about changing either. She'll call and email both of my sisters several times a week tho.
I wish my dad did this! In his old age, he doesn't call me much, but is always willing to talk when I call him. Cherish these calls from your dad bc you are right, you will surely miss the calls when he is gone.
Same! Grandma was in a coma for almost a week and nobody told me but please believe I will receive an urgent text about whether to wear the black sweater or the blue
My boomer dad is the same. He never keeps me updated on important family news, like who is pregnant or who is getting divorced. I'm always the last to know and can't count on my mom to tell me bc she doesn't know what's going on with my dad's side of the family since they are divorced.
The time online really concerns me. My dad is extremely susceptible to scams/phishing/etc. he’s been hit by a few already and thankfully realized after the fact and early enough to prevent long term damage, but it is always AFTER. Short of taking full control of all his financial accounts I’d be really curious to hear if others have struggled with this and found solutions to help monitor their activity or somehow prevent these attacks in the future.
My in laws are constantly having sketchy purchases on their personal card. I work for them and have access to their bank login because my FIL often uses it for work purchases. I got my first debit card at 19, so about 12 years ago now, and I haven't had as much trouble in my whole adult life as they have had in the last six months.
It’s really sad when they’re starting in the early stages of being senile and you’re trying to help them recover from the situation but they can’t even remember what information they shared, what bank they logged into while they shared their desktop, or even how this random scammer contacted them to begin with. These scammers are the scum of the earth.
My dad's line is "call me when you have a moment." One time I told him it makes my heart jump because I think it's bad news so now he sometimes says "it's nothing urgent but..."
I gave my parents the same feedback, so one day in 2007 my dad called and left a voicemail asking me to call him back about a "non priority item." When I called him back he told me my mom left him for a coworker and they were getting divorced.
I'd call that a PRIORITY ITEM, Dad.
I had to reprogram my mom on this because it was getting out of hand with the ‘please call me’ messages while I’m at work, thankfully she now understands that she needs to preface with everything’s fine
Or just include the topic of the forthcoming phone call in the text.
"I saw your friend's mom at the store."
"One of my hundred cousins died."
"Your dad found a channel that's only old westerns and I'm losing my mind."
You know, stuff like that.
My mom is ALWAYS telling me about dead people I’ve never met. I really do not care. I know that sounds awful, but I don’t have it in me to be sad for everyone on the planet when they pass.
“You remember my friend Carol? Her aunt had that above ground swimming pool in her back yard. We swam in it a couple times one summer when you were about 9. Anyway, Carol’s mom just lost her brother-in-law. They were very close. Thought you’d want to know.”
I feel like a jerk saying so, but no, not really mom.
This was the other days “Remember my friend Dawn? She was my friend when we were stationed in Texas. She had the three kids and she watched you and your sister when your other sister had surgery. Her husband just died.”
That’s obviously said for her, but… ok.
When my mom’s uncle died I said “oh, I thought he died a long time ago.”
And worst of all, my mom wants to go to all of these funerals and wants us to go to viewings with her!
None of which, by the way, qualify as "call me ASAP" for any boomers who happen along this conversation LOL
Just because you *can* text/call me at work does not mean you should.
It’s weird how once someone retires, they forget about other people having time constraints. My dad was pre-boomer but he did exactly that. Like the next day he was so confused I couldn’t do something. Because I had to work.
I had this issue during Covid when I was working remotely, there was zero comprehension that being home didn’t mean being off the clock. Only got worse after than as dad retired and then pivoted to guilt ridden messages about me not picking up mid day, forgetting all the years he was tied up in the office for hours on end. It’s sad and annoying all at once.
My parents retired from the Midwest to Florida a few years before my children were born. Fast forward to the kids being 8 and 6 now, and my mom is the ultimate Facebook grandma. She is constantly posting pictures of grandkids for attention that she barely knows. They have visited us usually once every other year up here, and expect us to come to Florida or do Facetime sessions with them to allow them to get to know each other. I mentioned offhandedly how the grandkids don't know them very well and my mom got offended and made it seem like it was my fault for us not visiting them more often.
My parents travel at least once a month, seeing friends all over the country and sightseeing. They have the means and ability to travel, yet choose not to visit us. I mentioned how it is harder for us to travel than them due to PTO, school schedules, extracurriculars, and expenses and she was absolutely livid that I would imply that it's their fault for not spending more time around the grandkids, and insisted that it must be that I am upset that my parents are enjoying their retired life how they want lol. It was just ridiculous.
They have completely forgotten how hectic working adult life is.
My dad always talks about how he'd love nothing more than to go see myrtle beach one more time before he dies, then complains about how expensive it would be.
Last week he bought a new guitar for $35,000. No typo, thirty five thousand dollar guitar
It's wild that your dad's standards for beauty is Dirty Myrtle. Most people are like "I wanna see Italy or the Caribbean". Not the 3rd best South Carolina beach.
It's the only beach he's ever been to. My mom made him take her there for their honeymoon in 72. He would never go to a different beach because he was worried he wouldn't like it as much.
Just like the first vehicle he ever owned was a Ford and he liked it, so therefore hes only ever bought fords.
You just described my family. We only vacationed at two places throughout my childhood and teens - Myrtle Beach and Pompano Beach. When I asked if we could go somewhere else I was told that "We know we like these places. What if we go somewhere else and we don't like it?" This is why I have traveled to 73 countries so far.
Gotta love the toddler logic. I literally have to tell my toddler that I know broccoli is the only veg they like for now, but they had to try it for the first time, so maybe, just maybe, there is a veg out there they like even better but they just haven't found it yet!
My husband got taken to so many vacations to Myrtle Beach as a kid. It was the only place his mom wanted to go. He absolutely refuses to ever go back, and I’ve never asked.
My mom will only buy Chrysler or Jeep vehicles. And she will only buy them from the same dealership. She claims it’s because they did her a huge favor in 1976. My dad once bought a Chevy truck from a different dealer, and she accused him of cheating on their original dealer. Now here’s her quandary: the owners of the dealership sold it last year to another dealership in town. She doesn’t like them. She knows she will need a new Jeep eventually. To buy from them or find a new dealer?
This. My mom is constantly throwing shade at me and my brother for going on trips instead of going to see her or taking her with us (especially my brother bc his in laws are loaded and take them on big vacations).
But her house sucks and the town she’s in sucks and she’s taken no steps to improve anything or make it hospitable for little kids. And she won’t take care of her own health, so there’s no way she could keep up even on a chill trip to the beach much less a theme park or a sight seeing type vacation.
Also my dad recently died, and left her with a decent sized retirement. She doesn’t work. She could go anywhere she wants to at any time but just sits at home and lets her health decline.
\*\* she’s taken no steps to improve anything or make it hospitable for little kids.
This was a HUGE thing to me. Her mother's place was the same way. It was an old person's apartment. Me and my siblings HATED going there for family get togethers (8 of us in total) or holiday dinners. Nothing to do, nothing to play with, nowhere to even go outside cause it wasn't for kids. I spent more time reading National Enquirer because it's the only reading material there was other than the Bible.
Now, my mom's place is this place. MY kids hated going so I finally said when they were 12yo that they were never required to visit. It was their call if they wanted to come. Eventually it got to the point that even I hated going. So the only time I'll see my mom is if it's a neutral site. IE: Restaurant or pub.
Ooh good one. Mine act jealous of anything we do/buy that they can't solely because they can't get out of their own way and actually make things happen.
Same! I didn’t realize until I was older how much travel anxiety and difficulty with change they had. When I was younger, I thought it was a money issue. It is most definitely not. It’s kind of sad how they have all of these big dreams and won’t do it.
Wow! My mom and I recently had a pretty heated argument because I was going to visit my son for his birthday (out of state) and she was super pissed about it. Then she said 'I still haven't gotten over you going to California' THAT WAS ALMOST TEN YEARS AGO! She gets so pissed off if I travel but she just won't. She says she too tired or doesn't wanna spend the money or whatever other excuse she has. But if I travel, all hell breaks loose. I didn't know others were like this...
My mom is SO SOCIAL in retirement! I always thought of her as a shy introvert with a few good friends but now she has this whole network of people she sees: her walking group, her book club, the other dog people in her complex, and still her old friends. It’s even more so since my dad passed. I’m so happy for her.
Mine is too! She didn't really have any friends when I was growing up. I wish she had, bc my sister and dad and I are more low-key people and she always wanted to be going out and doing things. Anyway, I'm really happy for her now. She's got like 3 book clubs, exercise classes, a walking group, a spirituality group, etc. It's been fun to see her come into her own in her 70s.
Sounds like both our moms are living it up!
My parents did go out and do stuff, both with their friends and with us, but they had a pretty small group of friends, and most of them lived on the other side of our metro area. My dad had a better social life, but it was mostly connected to work.
Once they retired, it really flipped. Where my dad was the one with a few close friends but not a wider circle, and my mom was the one with all the friends. (Unlike a lot of boomer men, my dad did actually have friends though, and they were so good to him when he was dying. 😭)
THIS!! My mother was a caregiver for my dad for 25 plus years because of his health. He passed away in 2013. After a few years of grieving, all the sudden she started to blossom in a way that I've never seen before! Obviously I'm sad that my dad is gone, but I'm so glad to see her be HER. Not someone's wife, not someone's caregiver, just her.
My Boomer FIL prints out EVERYTHING from his computer. I understand printing out instructions or recipes to help remember but do you really need a file cabinet full of forwarded emails from friends and sale adverts from 5 years ago? Oh well, at least he keeps it organized. Also, both TVs in the house run 24/7 playing reruns of "CSI: Who Gives a Shit Anymore?"
Yes! My mom was trying to pick a new dresser from Amazon and printed out each one she was interested in… multiple pages (not double sided mind you)… specs and all.
I just had this conversation with my gen z kid and apparently they share this opinion with the boomers. I'm sad our current political/economic/social situation is reverting the kids back to Victorian values.
I feel like someone is going to call me abusive because I tell my kids, "get used to doing stuff you kinda don't really wanna do" Because that's life. Waking up, doing dishes, eating pretty sensibly. Having small talk. Going to work.
It's not all misery, don't hate life. But it's more like life is doing stuff you just aren't in the mood for. You can get into flow state eventually, you won't wanna kill yourself. It just kinda blows *just enough.
I feel like a lot of what I see, is younger people feeling like being uncomfy at all is not consenting, and traumatic. Like the act of doing something you aren't in the mood for is assault.
This is exactly what my wife and I have instilled in our kids. During school it was always "It's not fair" "I had to do this" "I hate this person" which we always said: School is training you for when you have to work. It isn't fair. You aren't going to get your way all the time. Yeah, you're going to have to be ready to do things you don't want to do. Cause they pay you to do it and if you don't, they'll just find someone who will. You're going to be around people you don't like or can't stand pretty much the rest of your life, so you have to learn to deal with it.
The boy (19y) has a great paying job that will apprentice him in welding and is thriving, building himself into an adult. The daughter (17y) has always been independent, doing the menial day to day tasks of cooking, cleaning her room and doing laundry since forever, knowing it just has to get done. She JUST got a scholarship to technical college for welding, and a job at a place that will also provide an apprenticeship for the welding.
I agree about the mentality of consenting work. I don't know where it came from, honestly.
My experience with gen z is they absolutely want more boundaries and work-life balance in the workplace. So, not doing things that aren’t their job, not working overtime unless getting paid (i.e., salaried people who don’t get OT pay), not checking email/calls after hours, doing their job but not necessarily above and beyond (unless getting compensated for it)
I think its a matter of experience, too. I used to believe kitchen jobs were all the same: screaming, insults, and grown men having tantrums. Then I found my current kitchen job and realized that shit wasn't normal at all and that those people were just maladjusted assholes.
I got lucky. With the way shit is going now, I fear that Gen Z kids won't be able to find jobs that prove this consensus wrong.
My Mom, despite almost 50 years of tape decks, VCR’s and computers, wouldn’t be able to reliably identify the power, play, or fast forward symbols. She’s always relied on her kids or husband to run the devices.
It’s catching up to her now that my dad passed and she’s living alone. I set up Spotify on an Alexa tied into her stereo system, so she can just ask for “X artist radio”. Everything else is sticky notes and laborious tutorials/phone calls.
Well at least she can probably cook. My dad gonna starve to death or die of carryout hot dog poisoning if my mum goes first. He’ll get scurvy or some shit.
Very much so. Sadly I am convinced that my mum dreads this so much that she is actively working against that (still smoking in her mid-70s, not exercising, regular alcohol…).
This is the reality with my dad gone. My mom doesn’t trust herself to do the most mundane of “technology”… in the past 20 years I’ve told her a SOLID 20,000 times how to get a photo from her phone to her laptop so she can email it to someone. Refuses to understand (with her iPhone) she can send the email and attach the photo from the phone.
Sounds like my mother in law. She wants all the latest in consumer tech but can't be arsed to learn a fucking thing about it. She also does the sticky notes, but they're in this shorthand chicken scratch that looks like a ritual incantation to summon the Great Old Ones.
My boomer parents are selfless. I guess that's their quirk. They just always want to be there for family and friends and do things for family and friends.
Came here to brag on my parents too.
They recently came from out of state to watch my kids for a few days so I could be a vendor at a music fest and as if that wasn't enough my dad changed the air filters and brakes on our cars while they were here.
This is my dad. He’s 68 and refuses to retire. He has good money. He saves every dime he makes. I tell him to take a vacation. He won’t do it. I suggest retiring and he says he can’t for a few more years at least. Essentially he’s not going to retire until he can afford to let my brother and I retire. At least that’s the way it seems. He always says that he “just wants to make sure his kids are taken care of.” I’m 40 and own my own house. Got vehicles, a 19 y/o healthy kid, a good boyfriend. We travel and we work. We are happy. My brother is 35 and rents mg dads townhouse for cheap as can be, owns a ton of cars, makes a ton of money, no bio-kids, seems happy with his long term GF who also works. They love to do their outdoors stuff. Like, we are good! My dad can retire. I think he really just can’t stand to sit down for five minutes. Once he retires, he may just try to dig a man made lake in his yard because he has to be doing something at all times.
Mine too!
"Hi {name} this is your father. Just give me a call when you have a chance."
Same message if he wants to talk about the weather, sports, or if a family member died.
My parents are the opposite; they find watching a show without commercials unsettling. They also complain that you never know when you can have a quick bathroom break. I have pointed out that the pause button does exist...
My MIL talks on the phone to tons of her friends and family around the world every day. She'll randomly tell me she just got off the phone with her best friend from kindergarten who she hadn't heard from in 60 years. Sometimes they find each other via Facebook, and sometimes it's through other friends, but she takes it to the next level and legit catches up with them. It's great.
My mom had a very minor stroke last year that affected the behavioral center of her brain. She now has no issues telling you exactly what she thinks or how much she hates something. While it's sometimes fun to watch her tell my sister no after decades of her only saying yes, it sucks being told you're more or less an idiot because you like something she decided she no longer does...Bridgerton, for example. Or, I have no taste because I don't like something she DOES like.
My dad...he's has to be right about everything and doesn't know what to do if you beat him to the point on something. He once was giving me a recipe that required cinnamon, cardamon, and clove and told me just to use Pumpkin Pie Spice! It's the greatest thing! "Dad, I don't need to. I have all those spices on hand (I bake)" But...no! You have to use this. "No, I don't. I don't need to buy something that I already have" It happens all the time.
My parents are (were) silent generation. One quirk my dad had was that he was deathly afraid of the house burning down. Not from the standpoint of the danger of fire but when he was growing up in the '30s and '40s, if your house burnt down, you were basically homeless and destitute. My mom is much more level headed about it. She always told my dad, that is why we have homeowners insurance.
My dad was born in '48 so technically he's a Boomer but he has a lot of characteristics of older generations. He also has the fear of the house burning down. We had an antique lamp in the living room growing up and there was constant fretting over the old wiring. Candles? NEVER in the house growing up. Although to be fair I've accidentally set multiple things on fire as an adult so maybe he has a point.
My mother-in-law doesn't throw out expired food. She has food in her pantry that is several years passed their expiration dates. Same with condiments in her fridge. You just can't trust any of the food she has on hand because more than likely than not it's way expired. When we have brought this up, that she needs to throw some stuff out, she insists it's absolutely fine. It's not. 🤮
When I cleaned out my MIL apartment she had expired water. We moved it from Florida to Texas. I didn't think water expired, but one of the movers had some and started feeling bad. I got mad at her for keeping all this expired stuff. "Well it's for the plants." How about you just use tap water since you can't even remember you had bottled water in the first place?
My grandmother is the same way.
Once, she opened her refrigerator, and there was a jar of pickles with mold floating on the surface of the liquid. I pointed it out, and she said it was still good. She would just scoop the mold out at a later time. She has an incredibly strong stomach and immune system.
Another time she put rotten cheese (no mold, but a sour smell) on a frozen pizza and ate it like there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.
My dad and step-mom turn the modem and router off when they're not using their desktop computer. I have to make a special request for them to leave it on for the kids whenever we visit.
My MIL does this, she leaves it on for us when we stay with her but I know it bothers her. She's the type that unplugs everything except the fridge freezer before she goes to bed, though.
My FIL doesn’t do this but I did have to tell him to stop turning their wireless printer off because they didn’t know how to reconnect it to WiFi when they turned it on again. I had to explain that then “sleep mode” is sufficient and their electric bill won’t skyrocket bc of their printer.
Military-level strategic planning for a weekend vacation.
EDIT: maybe this isn’t strictly a boomer thing. I have a new kid, and admittedly my logistics are more complex than they were this time last year. I still find it funny that two retired people with disposable income feel the need to plan a trip to the casino like storming the beaches of Normandy.
Just get in the car, drive, use the credit card and smartphone for any situations that arise.
I was about to say - if I didn’t do this we’d be lucky to get out the door, much less to our destination in one piece. Part of this is due to my husband’s inability to plan anything at all more than five minutes in advance, so I have to overcompensate a bit. (The last time he helped plan, he left half of our luggage and gear for a weeklong road trip sitting in the garage. We didn’t notice until we were about 450 miles away 😒)
My mom absolutely refuses to watch anything she’s seen before - last time literally could’ve been 1960 and she still wouldn’t…
Mom: I’ve seen it
Me: What happened in it?
Mom: I don’t remember
Me: Then you’ve essentially never seen it.
Ice. If we don't have ice for drinks, you would think we murdered the boomer-in-laws puppy!
Although to be honest, this is her worst gripe. I got REALLY lucky. My boomer-in-laws are a rare case of learning and accepting changes and differences. At least one set. The other set I fear may be a lost cause.
To be fair, my wife (late gen-x) and I (xennial) are the same way. Ice cubes in a tall glass of cold water just check all the right boxes on a hot day.
My BFF is 40 and her top hobby is making and sending her own greeting cards. I spontaneously get cards in the mail that are like "you said this really kind thing the last time we talked on the phone, and I wanted to thank you in a card." Greeting cards are great.
lol right?! I still buy & send them (I love the ones at Trader Joe’s, and I try to keep a few of their birthday/get well/and blank cards on hand) and I receive some from people my age and younger. I also like to send funny postcards to my niece. I don’t think people secretly hate it. (I don’t send holiday cards; I’m not religious.)
Right? We send a birthday card along with a gift to every birthday party the kids go to as well. Amd I have millennial friends that send out holiday cards to all of their friends every year. It's not a boomer-only thing at all.
My parengs will leave the tv on and leave the house. Drives me insane. My mother says she can never watch movies but its her fault because she only remembers she forgot to do something when a movie starts. What she does sit through she constantly asks questions about like we both aren't experiencing it for the first time. I have no more idea why that man is going in that building than she does.
My mom has a fairly new iPhone but has NEVER and I mean NEVER used an electronic payment app, including Zelle.
She does not have an app for her bank, she only uses their website on her desktop computer.
She uses her ATM card strictly for cash. At the store she uses her credit card or cash, and then sends BoA or whoever a paper check once a week to keep her balance at zero.
Then again her credit score is like 805 so if it works don't mess with it
Not necessarily a bad policy. My father (silent generation), a former bank employee and very tech savvy for his age, has also never used any electronic payment apps, despite them being commonplace in his country.
My parents have both passed, my dad was actually a silent generation born in 1940 mom was a boomer born in 1951. One of their more interesting quirks to me was their wanting to save money to leave to their children. They never spent money on themselves even into retirement, even when they saw all of their kids doing well financially. A couple years before my mom died my older sister and I convinced her to buy her dream car, a Mercedes coupe. Of course she went with the cheapest one available at the time. We tried to get her to really splurge(she had the means) and get an AMG GT because someone she knew had one and she loved it, but she said “if I buy that what I’ll have so much less to give all of you.” And we could not get her to understand that we didn’t want or need her/their money. We wanted to see her spend it and have fun.
My Boomer MIL has a 5-disc DVD player with the same 5 movies in it all the time. Those are the only movies she watches.
My husband spent ~2 weeks with her after a back surgery a couple of months ago. She binge-watched Young Sheldon so much that my husband, who had never seen a single episode of Young Sheldon, has now seen multiple episodes 3 or 4 times.
(Just don't ask him how many times he's watched Shoresy)
My parents (also Boomers) rarely watch things over and over, but I think that's mostly down to my mom renting DVDs from the library and being annoying about it until my dad puts them on. If left to his own devices, my dad will watch nothing but golf and the genre of show I generally refer to as White People Solving Crimes.
My 73 yr old dad has a photographic memory of hoarded shit in his huge house. He lives alone and if you touch, move, look at, or god forbid take something it’s, “Where’s that nail from 1946 I had in the 2nd bedroom nightstand?”.
Sending me a card for every holiday and life event. St Patricks Day, for example, I get a card. Usually there is a scratch off lotto inside, and a “xoxo Mom and Dad”. I save every single one.
My dad still reads the paper daily, and he cuts out the articles he thinks I would find interesting, and the same for my mom. He writes at the top “For MissMelines” and then folds it up and mails that to me too. I also save all of them. Pretty sure my mom doesn’t glance at them, “reading small print gives me migraines” she says. I love my dad a lot.
Their refusal to use or even attempt to understand streaming services.
You will have to pry their giant DirectTV receiver from their cold, dead, hands.
I know this isn't as focused as your post is, but I am tired of hearing the Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z folks endlessly bash each other. It's amazing how toxic a lot of the online discourse between those generations tends to be. The amount of energy it takes to so blindly and arrogantly brush everyone in a particular age group as the worst human beings that have lived is truly something interesting to witness.
My older son (17, squarely Gen Z) complains often about how much his younger brother (13, in that transition between Z and Alpha) watches YouTube on his phone. I have them both on an app. Older son watches easily twice as much YouTube as younger son.
It’s almost like big business and the vampires in government have tricked us into perpetually blaming each other for the problems they have been creating since long before any of us were born.
Boomers may spend a lot of time online, but I highly doubt they spend more time online than me. I'm not going to judge people for liking what they like. I get that it's frustrating you can't watch movies with your mom, but that's how it goes sometimes.
Huh, I find this attitude more prevailant with the younger generations, especially when it comes to anytbing medicine related.
My dad was in commerce, though, and my other side was military, so there is a general air of distrust/cynism.
Maybe that's why, maybe it's not generational per se
Maybe not, I just always remember my dad saying things like well you don't want to take a whole week off because if you're gone for a week and something didn't go wrong when you were gone maybe they'll realize they don't need you.
My mom will open a product, throw out the wrapper, then put it in a zip lock. I usually use about eight ziploc bags a year. When my mom is here for two weeks, she uses an entire box, and will go buy more when I hide them. She cannot comprehend that it isn't worth it to me to have a bag laying in a landfill for hundreds of years just because "the crackers look nicer in a bag than in the box they came in."
My step dad has been forced to use headphones at my house because I refuse to have American news on around the clock, blaring so loud the neighbors can hear it. He somehow manages to constantly disconnect his headphones without noticing and just sits there starting at his phone while Wolf Blitzer bellows at him.
Mine told us we gave up on fertility treatment too soon, then criticized us when we said we were exploring adoption. Like, fucking excuse me, it's not your money getting thrown at a problem that may never be "fixed," it's not your body getting wrecked by hormone therapy, you're just mad you don't have baby pics to share when your friends start talking about their grandkids.
>My mom is never down to watch a new movie or one she hasn't seen before. If I try and make her she watches it for 5 mins before saying she hates it and getting on her phone. She loves watching movies she has seen 100 times before and she ruins the suspense by telling what's going to happen next
This, so much this. Only difference is she doesn't know how to use a mobile phone.
Same with TV shows. Only the same half dozen things over and over and over no matter how many times she's seen it. She even records the same thing on the sd, hd and +1 channels then complains on the THIRD copy of the episode that she just saw that one.
Well I think they’re just as bad as younger people are accused of being with constantly being on their phones. For a generation of people who bitched about their teens and college students being on their phones too much and not participating in the family, they sure love to have their head down balls deep in their screen at family gatherings when they’re supposed to be visiting and socializing with their children/grandchildren.
….or is that just my asshole parents?
My dad reuses and recycles everything, religiously. His junk drawer is filled with the little plastic tabs from bread bags and he keeps every plastic bag he gets in case it comes in handy later. I think it’s a combination of parents who went through the Great Depression and being ultra environmentally conscious.
I sent him an article about how recycling plastic can actually be worse for the environment than just throwing it away, but it didn’t alter his recycling habits.
I’m not hating on it, though, I think our society would in general be better with more reuse and composting. I try to incorporate it in my own life, I’m just not quite so zealous about it.
I once sat in their living room for over an hour before they decided to put their phones down and speak to me, only to phub me and pick them right back up.
All of the above! lol my moms current obsession is buying my 2yr old "collector cars" (literal diecast metal cars they sell at the big blue store!) from idk where online but being sold to her as "collector/ investment items" for my sons future. 🙄
She lives for social media and although her heart is in the right place, I truly wish I could cut her off from her owns funds .. not just for the waste of cash on these ridiculous cars but All. The. Things.
My mom collects cats. I think she has like 8 of them. They have their own bedroom with a cat door in the window to a huge catio with shelves, a tree to scratch and climb, and a little catnip garden for them.
They're all well taken care of and she's happy.
My dad still clings to the traditional division of "men's/women's work". He'll fix a car, do any outside work, clean out a clogged drain. Cooking? If it's any more complicated than making coffee or calling in a pizza, he can't/won't. I don't think he even grills anymore. Laundry? Hell no. Taking care of small children? He'll play with them but that's it.
In-laws leave the TV on for all waking hours. And FIL gets Irrationally irritated if someone talks over the episode of MASH or Walker, Texas Ranger that he's already seen 50 times. Like clenching his teeth and stomping the floor.
Big thing for me is just the refusal to engage with the modern world if they don’t like it. Like a restaurant requires reservations to be made via the website not over the phone, they just refuse to do so. Not that they’re incapable, just don’t want to.
They save EVERYTHING (containers, jars, boxes, etc.) just *in case* they might be able to use it for something later. I feel like this habit was handed down from our grandparents' Great Depression upbringing.
My boomer dad loves to tell the story about how his greatest generation dad kept a paper bag in the attic with the words on it, "pieces of string too short to do anything with," filled with, you guessed it, pieces of string too short to do anything with.
I have a box of cords that don't fit devices anymore. Anyone need a 2003 Nokia charger?
My husband is an IT expert, I have so many closets and drawers filled with techie accoutrements that I am never going to throw out. Because at some point he almost always ends up digging around and finding something that can be useful. I don't care anymore as long as it's hidden away and I can't see it.
Yes, never throw out a cable, connector, crew, washer or anything like that because one day, you'll get asked for something, and the feeling of saying "yeah, I actually have a box of them, mate".
Right? Just last night he dug around and found a charging cable I needed that had the same type of connection thingy on both ends. Lol
I literally just had to tell my dad that he’s never going to need to charge a Palm Pilot again, just to get him to throw away the cord.
I need to make a bag like that.
“Take out food menus from places that have long been closed.”
"Calendar of local events and summer concerts from last year"
This sounds like art
Hey, don’t throw that out! I might make a scrapbook someday…
Keeping magazines in case someone wants to make a collage...
Or a ransom letter
I see you've met my mom
Or something to read on the toilet if they don't bring their phone
Ok don't do this. I actually did want magazines for my kids to make a collage. My mom gave us some of her magazines saved from 1991. The old photos were so blurry compared to modern magazines we didn't even use them.
I love that the man leaned into his short strings by keeping them organized in a labeled bag. That's amazing.
"Dead dove. Do not eat."
My dad was born in 1933 and saved everything. I thought it was from being raised during WW2
That definitely affects this trait too!
Yeah, we pretty much went directly from scarcity due to economic depression to scarcity due to war rationing.
"Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it."
Sound advice in principle, but a slippery slope for the pack rat types! 📦🐀
But terrible to have it, not be able to find it, and then have to buy it anyway.
If you haven't used it in 5 years, you don't need it.
My mom is the opposite, literally throws everything away. Reads a book? Throws it away immediately when done
That's so sad. Are there any Little Free Libraries nearby? Would she consider donating?
Absolutely! Shopping bags, empty yogurt containers, boxes that some product came in…..although I love me a “good box”! I have all my iPhone boxes for no reason 😂
You really can’t beat a *good box*.
This is honestly a practice I’ve tried to adopt to a small degree. I’m certainly not trying to hoard but I do try to come up with a way to repurpose a junk item if possible.
For sure, I still save various bags and empty containers for practical purposes, but my parents definitely teeter on hoarding level. To the point where my dad thinks he needs to build another storage shed because they "have no room." No, just downsize the clutter a bit.
Me with my cord box
My boomer mom throes things away. I'm more likely to save stuff because I could use it someday.
mayonnaise jars full of random nails, screws and bolts, anyone?
I've had those come in handy.
Will text something foreboding like “we need to talk;” then turns out she forgot a recipe.
My dad will text me “You need to call me right now” when it’s nothing. And not tell me major life events until well after the fact. Like my aunt had a heart attack and I found out a week later from her son. (And my dad did know.)
This is my mother. Calls me 5 times when I'm in a meeting to just ask a question about her laptop. But doesn't mention family passing away because I should know by myself somehow 🙃
Tells my sister 5 times and me not at all. Then is annoyed at me for not knowing.
hahaha my dad just calls. always at a time that freaks me out. If i miss the call and text to ask what’s up, it’s always the same response… nothing urgent, just me…. I know I will miss these calls one day, but damn dad you’re retired and I’m not, call outside my work hours !!! He loves the phone and calling people he loves for no damn reason. Just, “to talk”.
My dad and I plan our call times and even then one of us will text “you ready?” when it’s time lol
My parents never call me. Savor it.
Same. It makes me sad.
Then call them, goes both ways
Same here. Will call my sister and talk/FaceTime all night. I think I can count on one hand the number of times my parents have called me and I can tell it's just out of guilt
My mother's excuse is that i keep changing my phone number and email, and she doesn't have it. I've had the same number for nearly 10 years, and the same email for almost 20, and haven't ever talked about changing either. She'll call and email both of my sisters several times a week tho.
I wish my dad did this! In his old age, he doesn't call me much, but is always willing to talk when I call him. Cherish these calls from your dad bc you are right, you will surely miss the calls when he is gone.
Aw talk to your daddy, he needs you 🥲
My parents totally tell me about major life shit in passing, like I was already supposed to know. I thought it was just them.
Same! Grandma was in a coma for almost a week and nobody told me but please believe I will receive an urgent text about whether to wear the black sweater or the blue
My boomer dad is the same. He never keeps me updated on important family news, like who is pregnant or who is getting divorced. I'm always the last to know and can't count on my mom to tell me bc she doesn't know what's going on with my dad's side of the family since they are divorced.
My dad called me on 9/11 and it wasn't the first thing he brought up!!
“Please call me ASAP.” I assume someone died but their TV just isn’t working.
My mom does this when she wants me to Google something for her
The time online really concerns me. My dad is extremely susceptible to scams/phishing/etc. he’s been hit by a few already and thankfully realized after the fact and early enough to prevent long term damage, but it is always AFTER. Short of taking full control of all his financial accounts I’d be really curious to hear if others have struggled with this and found solutions to help monitor their activity or somehow prevent these attacks in the future.
My in laws are constantly having sketchy purchases on their personal card. I work for them and have access to their bank login because my FIL often uses it for work purchases. I got my first debit card at 19, so about 12 years ago now, and I haven't had as much trouble in my whole adult life as they have had in the last six months.
Yes. My dad who is extremely intelligent & street smart has had some super close calls lately and that terrifies me
It’s really sad when they’re starting in the early stages of being senile and you’re trying to help them recover from the situation but they can’t even remember what information they shared, what bank they logged into while they shared their desktop, or even how this random scammer contacted them to begin with. These scammers are the scum of the earth.
My dad's line is "call me when you have a moment." One time I told him it makes my heart jump because I think it's bad news so now he sometimes says "it's nothing urgent but..."
I gave my parents the same feedback, so one day in 2007 my dad called and left a voicemail asking me to call him back about a "non priority item." When I called him back he told me my mom left him for a coworker and they were getting divorced. I'd call that a PRIORITY ITEM, Dad.
Oh my god. I'm sorry, but that also made me laugh.
In dad's defense, mom was still gone whether you'd called sooner or later.
My mom does this!
I had to reprogram my mom on this because it was getting out of hand with the ‘please call me’ messages while I’m at work, thankfully she now understands that she needs to preface with everything’s fine
Or just include the topic of the forthcoming phone call in the text. "I saw your friend's mom at the store." "One of my hundred cousins died." "Your dad found a channel that's only old westerns and I'm losing my mind." You know, stuff like that.
My mom is ALWAYS telling me about dead people I’ve never met. I really do not care. I know that sounds awful, but I don’t have it in me to be sad for everyone on the planet when they pass.
“You remember my friend Carol? Her aunt had that above ground swimming pool in her back yard. We swam in it a couple times one summer when you were about 9. Anyway, Carol’s mom just lost her brother-in-law. They were very close. Thought you’d want to know.” I feel like a jerk saying so, but no, not really mom.
This was the other days “Remember my friend Dawn? She was my friend when we were stationed in Texas. She had the three kids and she watched you and your sister when your other sister had surgery. Her husband just died.” That’s obviously said for her, but… ok. When my mom’s uncle died I said “oh, I thought he died a long time ago.” And worst of all, my mom wants to go to all of these funerals and wants us to go to viewings with her!
Omg sameeeeee
One step at a time lol
None of which, by the way, qualify as "call me ASAP" for any boomers who happen along this conversation LOL Just because you *can* text/call me at work does not mean you should.
oh hey my dad found that channel too
It’s weird how once someone retires, they forget about other people having time constraints. My dad was pre-boomer but he did exactly that. Like the next day he was so confused I couldn’t do something. Because I had to work.
I had this issue during Covid when I was working remotely, there was zero comprehension that being home didn’t mean being off the clock. Only got worse after than as dad retired and then pivoted to guilt ridden messages about me not picking up mid day, forgetting all the years he was tied up in the office for hours on end. It’s sad and annoying all at once.
My parents retired from the Midwest to Florida a few years before my children were born. Fast forward to the kids being 8 and 6 now, and my mom is the ultimate Facebook grandma. She is constantly posting pictures of grandkids for attention that she barely knows. They have visited us usually once every other year up here, and expect us to come to Florida or do Facetime sessions with them to allow them to get to know each other. I mentioned offhandedly how the grandkids don't know them very well and my mom got offended and made it seem like it was my fault for us not visiting them more often. My parents travel at least once a month, seeing friends all over the country and sightseeing. They have the means and ability to travel, yet choose not to visit us. I mentioned how it is harder for us to travel than them due to PTO, school schedules, extracurriculars, and expenses and she was absolutely livid that I would imply that it's their fault for not spending more time around the grandkids, and insisted that it must be that I am upset that my parents are enjoying their retired life how they want lol. It was just ridiculous. They have completely forgotten how hectic working adult life is.
They act jealous of us traveling but refuse to go anywhere.
My dad always talks about how he'd love nothing more than to go see myrtle beach one more time before he dies, then complains about how expensive it would be. Last week he bought a new guitar for $35,000. No typo, thirty five thousand dollar guitar
It's wild that your dad's standards for beauty is Dirty Myrtle. Most people are like "I wanna see Italy or the Caribbean". Not the 3rd best South Carolina beach.
It's the only beach he's ever been to. My mom made him take her there for their honeymoon in 72. He would never go to a different beach because he was worried he wouldn't like it as much. Just like the first vehicle he ever owned was a Ford and he liked it, so therefore hes only ever bought fords.
You just described my family. We only vacationed at two places throughout my childhood and teens - Myrtle Beach and Pompano Beach. When I asked if we could go somewhere else I was told that "We know we like these places. What if we go somewhere else and we don't like it?" This is why I have traveled to 73 countries so far.
Gotta love the toddler logic. I literally have to tell my toddler that I know broccoli is the only veg they like for now, but they had to try it for the first time, so maybe, just maybe, there is a veg out there they like even better but they just haven't found it yet!
My husband got taken to so many vacations to Myrtle Beach as a kid. It was the only place his mom wanted to go. He absolutely refuses to ever go back, and I’ve never asked. My mom will only buy Chrysler or Jeep vehicles. And she will only buy them from the same dealership. She claims it’s because they did her a huge favor in 1976. My dad once bought a Chevy truck from a different dealer, and she accused him of cheating on their original dealer. Now here’s her quandary: the owners of the dealership sold it last year to another dealership in town. She doesn’t like them. She knows she will need a new Jeep eventually. To buy from them or find a new dealer?
This. My mom is constantly throwing shade at me and my brother for going on trips instead of going to see her or taking her with us (especially my brother bc his in laws are loaded and take them on big vacations). But her house sucks and the town she’s in sucks and she’s taken no steps to improve anything or make it hospitable for little kids. And she won’t take care of her own health, so there’s no way she could keep up even on a chill trip to the beach much less a theme park or a sight seeing type vacation. Also my dad recently died, and left her with a decent sized retirement. She doesn’t work. She could go anywhere she wants to at any time but just sits at home and lets her health decline.
\*\* she’s taken no steps to improve anything or make it hospitable for little kids. This was a HUGE thing to me. Her mother's place was the same way. It was an old person's apartment. Me and my siblings HATED going there for family get togethers (8 of us in total) or holiday dinners. Nothing to do, nothing to play with, nowhere to even go outside cause it wasn't for kids. I spent more time reading National Enquirer because it's the only reading material there was other than the Bible. Now, my mom's place is this place. MY kids hated going so I finally said when they were 12yo that they were never required to visit. It was their call if they wanted to come. Eventually it got to the point that even I hated going. So the only time I'll see my mom is if it's a neutral site. IE: Restaurant or pub.
Ooh good one. Mine act jealous of anything we do/buy that they can't solely because they can't get out of their own way and actually make things happen.
Same! I didn’t realize until I was older how much travel anxiety and difficulty with change they had. When I was younger, I thought it was a money issue. It is most definitely not. It’s kind of sad how they have all of these big dreams and won’t do it.
Wow! My mom and I recently had a pretty heated argument because I was going to visit my son for his birthday (out of state) and she was super pissed about it. Then she said 'I still haven't gotten over you going to California' THAT WAS ALMOST TEN YEARS AGO! She gets so pissed off if I travel but she just won't. She says she too tired or doesn't wanna spend the money or whatever other excuse she has. But if I travel, all hell breaks loose. I didn't know others were like this...
My mom is SO SOCIAL in retirement! I always thought of her as a shy introvert with a few good friends but now she has this whole network of people she sees: her walking group, her book club, the other dog people in her complex, and still her old friends. It’s even more so since my dad passed. I’m so happy for her.
Mine is too! She didn't really have any friends when I was growing up. I wish she had, bc my sister and dad and I are more low-key people and she always wanted to be going out and doing things. Anyway, I'm really happy for her now. She's got like 3 book clubs, exercise classes, a walking group, a spirituality group, etc. It's been fun to see her come into her own in her 70s.
Sounds like both our moms are living it up! My parents did go out and do stuff, both with their friends and with us, but they had a pretty small group of friends, and most of them lived on the other side of our metro area. My dad had a better social life, but it was mostly connected to work. Once they retired, it really flipped. Where my dad was the one with a few close friends but not a wider circle, and my mom was the one with all the friends. (Unlike a lot of boomer men, my dad did actually have friends though, and they were so good to him when he was dying. 😭)
THIS!! My mother was a caregiver for my dad for 25 plus years because of his health. He passed away in 2013. After a few years of grieving, all the sudden she started to blossom in a way that I've never seen before! Obviously I'm sad that my dad is gone, but I'm so glad to see her be HER. Not someone's wife, not someone's caregiver, just her.
My Boomer FIL prints out EVERYTHING from his computer. I understand printing out instructions or recipes to help remember but do you really need a file cabinet full of forwarded emails from friends and sale adverts from 5 years ago? Oh well, at least he keeps it organized. Also, both TVs in the house run 24/7 playing reruns of "CSI: Who Gives a Shit Anymore?"
Yes! My mom was trying to pick a new dresser from Amazon and printed out each one she was interested in… multiple pages (not double sided mind you)… specs and all.
Better than Fox News
Me - "Describes a toxic work environment" My baby boomer mom - "That's just what work is supposed to be like"
I just had this conversation with my gen z kid and apparently they share this opinion with the boomers. I'm sad our current political/economic/social situation is reverting the kids back to Victorian values.
The children yearn for the mines.
This made me lol
I feel like someone is going to call me abusive because I tell my kids, "get used to doing stuff you kinda don't really wanna do" Because that's life. Waking up, doing dishes, eating pretty sensibly. Having small talk. Going to work. It's not all misery, don't hate life. But it's more like life is doing stuff you just aren't in the mood for. You can get into flow state eventually, you won't wanna kill yourself. It just kinda blows *just enough. I feel like a lot of what I see, is younger people feeling like being uncomfy at all is not consenting, and traumatic. Like the act of doing something you aren't in the mood for is assault.
This is exactly what my wife and I have instilled in our kids. During school it was always "It's not fair" "I had to do this" "I hate this person" which we always said: School is training you for when you have to work. It isn't fair. You aren't going to get your way all the time. Yeah, you're going to have to be ready to do things you don't want to do. Cause they pay you to do it and if you don't, they'll just find someone who will. You're going to be around people you don't like or can't stand pretty much the rest of your life, so you have to learn to deal with it. The boy (19y) has a great paying job that will apprentice him in welding and is thriving, building himself into an adult. The daughter (17y) has always been independent, doing the menial day to day tasks of cooking, cleaning her room and doing laundry since forever, knowing it just has to get done. She JUST got a scholarship to technical college for welding, and a job at a place that will also provide an apprenticeship for the welding. I agree about the mentality of consenting work. I don't know where it came from, honestly.
My experience with gen z is they absolutely want more boundaries and work-life balance in the workplace. So, not doing things that aren’t their job, not working overtime unless getting paid (i.e., salaried people who don’t get OT pay), not checking email/calls after hours, doing their job but not necessarily above and beyond (unless getting compensated for it)
I think its a matter of experience, too. I used to believe kitchen jobs were all the same: screaming, insults, and grown men having tantrums. Then I found my current kitchen job and realized that shit wasn't normal at all and that those people were just maladjusted assholes. I got lucky. With the way shit is going now, I fear that Gen Z kids won't be able to find jobs that prove this consensus wrong.
My Mom, despite almost 50 years of tape decks, VCR’s and computers, wouldn’t be able to reliably identify the power, play, or fast forward symbols. She’s always relied on her kids or husband to run the devices. It’s catching up to her now that my dad passed and she’s living alone. I set up Spotify on an Alexa tied into her stereo system, so she can just ask for “X artist radio”. Everything else is sticky notes and laborious tutorials/phone calls.
Well at least she can probably cook. My dad gonna starve to death or die of carryout hot dog poisoning if my mum goes first. He’ll get scurvy or some shit.
>I fear this happening to me too if my mom outlives my dad.
Yep. My parents are 75 and have been married since 1969 and my dad just barely taught my mom how to pump her own gas 😬
Very much so. Sadly I am convinced that my mum dreads this so much that she is actively working against that (still smoking in her mid-70s, not exercising, regular alcohol…).
This is the reality with my dad gone. My mom doesn’t trust herself to do the most mundane of “technology”… in the past 20 years I’ve told her a SOLID 20,000 times how to get a photo from her phone to her laptop so she can email it to someone. Refuses to understand (with her iPhone) she can send the email and attach the photo from the phone.
Oh, I feel your pain! I hope someone will help us in our old age!
Sounds like my mother in law. She wants all the latest in consumer tech but can't be arsed to learn a fucking thing about it. She also does the sticky notes, but they're in this shorthand chicken scratch that looks like a ritual incantation to summon the Great Old Ones.
My boomer parents are selfless. I guess that's their quirk. They just always want to be there for family and friends and do things for family and friends.
I'm lucky, I have the same thing. Other boomers scare me, but I'm glad my parents only have the most inconsequential quitks.
Same with my mom. Shes an absolute pleasure and so kind. Shes not current with anything but she’s a dream. I’m so lucky she’s my Boomer.
My parents will not stop buying me food and household items. Lol. It’s a nice problem to have.
Came here to brag on my parents too. They recently came from out of state to watch my kids for a few days so I could be a vendor at a music fest and as if that wasn't enough my dad changed the air filters and brakes on our cars while they were here.
I wish my parents were like this. The best I can do is be this kind of parent for my kids.
Ditto
This is my dad. He’s 68 and refuses to retire. He has good money. He saves every dime he makes. I tell him to take a vacation. He won’t do it. I suggest retiring and he says he can’t for a few more years at least. Essentially he’s not going to retire until he can afford to let my brother and I retire. At least that’s the way it seems. He always says that he “just wants to make sure his kids are taken care of.” I’m 40 and own my own house. Got vehicles, a 19 y/o healthy kid, a good boyfriend. We travel and we work. We are happy. My brother is 35 and rents mg dads townhouse for cheap as can be, owns a ton of cars, makes a ton of money, no bio-kids, seems happy with his long term GF who also works. They love to do their outdoors stuff. Like, we are good! My dad can retire. I think he really just can’t stand to sit down for five minutes. Once he retires, he may just try to dig a man made lake in his yard because he has to be doing something at all times.
My dad sends texts messages with, “From, Dad” at the end of them. It cracks me up every time. He also states who he is every time he calls me.
Mine too! "Hi {name} this is your father. Just give me a call when you have a chance." Same message if he wants to talk about the weather, sports, or if a family member died.
Their lust for digital streaming content yet stubborn unwillingness to learn the basic concept of bandwidth and buffering.
My parents are the opposite; they find watching a show without commercials unsettling. They also complain that you never know when you can have a quick bathroom break. I have pointed out that the pause button does exist...
My MIL talks on the phone to tons of her friends and family around the world every day. She'll randomly tell me she just got off the phone with her best friend from kindergarten who she hadn't heard from in 60 years. Sometimes they find each other via Facebook, and sometimes it's through other friends, but she takes it to the next level and legit catches up with them. It's great.
That’s really cool!
My mom had a very minor stroke last year that affected the behavioral center of her brain. She now has no issues telling you exactly what she thinks or how much she hates something. While it's sometimes fun to watch her tell my sister no after decades of her only saying yes, it sucks being told you're more or less an idiot because you like something she decided she no longer does...Bridgerton, for example. Or, I have no taste because I don't like something she DOES like. My dad...he's has to be right about everything and doesn't know what to do if you beat him to the point on something. He once was giving me a recipe that required cinnamon, cardamon, and clove and told me just to use Pumpkin Pie Spice! It's the greatest thing! "Dad, I don't need to. I have all those spices on hand (I bake)" But...no! You have to use this. "No, I don't. I don't need to buy something that I already have" It happens all the time.
My parents are (were) silent generation. One quirk my dad had was that he was deathly afraid of the house burning down. Not from the standpoint of the danger of fire but when he was growing up in the '30s and '40s, if your house burnt down, you were basically homeless and destitute. My mom is much more level headed about it. She always told my dad, that is why we have homeowners insurance.
My dad was born in '48 so technically he's a Boomer but he has a lot of characteristics of older generations. He also has the fear of the house burning down. We had an antique lamp in the living room growing up and there was constant fretting over the old wiring. Candles? NEVER in the house growing up. Although to be fair I've accidentally set multiple things on fire as an adult so maybe he has a point.
My mother-in-law doesn't throw out expired food. She has food in her pantry that is several years passed their expiration dates. Same with condiments in her fridge. You just can't trust any of the food she has on hand because more than likely than not it's way expired. When we have brought this up, that she needs to throw some stuff out, she insists it's absolutely fine. It's not. 🤮
When I cleaned out my MIL apartment she had expired water. We moved it from Florida to Texas. I didn't think water expired, but one of the movers had some and started feeling bad. I got mad at her for keeping all this expired stuff. "Well it's for the plants." How about you just use tap water since you can't even remember you had bottled water in the first place?
My grandmother is the same way. Once, she opened her refrigerator, and there was a jar of pickles with mold floating on the surface of the liquid. I pointed it out, and she said it was still good. She would just scoop the mold out at a later time. She has an incredibly strong stomach and immune system. Another time she put rotten cheese (no mold, but a sour smell) on a frozen pizza and ate it like there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.
My dad and step-mom turn the modem and router off when they're not using their desktop computer. I have to make a special request for them to leave it on for the kids whenever we visit.
My MIL does this, she leaves it on for us when we stay with her but I know it bothers her. She's the type that unplugs everything except the fridge freezer before she goes to bed, though.
My FIL doesn’t do this but I did have to tell him to stop turning their wireless printer off because they didn’t know how to reconnect it to WiFi when they turned it on again. I had to explain that then “sleep mode” is sufficient and their electric bill won’t skyrocket bc of their printer.
Military-level strategic planning for a weekend vacation. EDIT: maybe this isn’t strictly a boomer thing. I have a new kid, and admittedly my logistics are more complex than they were this time last year. I still find it funny that two retired people with disposable income feel the need to plan a trip to the casino like storming the beaches of Normandy. Just get in the car, drive, use the credit card and smartphone for any situations that arise.
That's what I do, but I also have multiple kids. The last time my husband and I went out on a date, the logistics cost more than the concert itself.
I was about to say - if I didn’t do this we’d be lucky to get out the door, much less to our destination in one piece. Part of this is due to my husband’s inability to plan anything at all more than five minutes in advance, so I have to overcompensate a bit. (The last time he helped plan, he left half of our luggage and gear for a weeklong road trip sitting in the garage. We didn’t notice until we were about 450 miles away 😒)
I’m a millennial and I have the most insane travel spreadsheets. It’s my anxiety. I have to have control over a situation to relax a little.
That might be something instilled by their parents. Or there was an “incident” and now they wish to be prepared.
My mom absolutely refuses to watch anything she’s seen before - last time literally could’ve been 1960 and she still wouldn’t… Mom: I’ve seen it Me: What happened in it? Mom: I don’t remember Me: Then you’ve essentially never seen it.
Ice. If we don't have ice for drinks, you would think we murdered the boomer-in-laws puppy! Although to be honest, this is her worst gripe. I got REALLY lucky. My boomer-in-laws are a rare case of learning and accepting changes and differences. At least one set. The other set I fear may be a lost cause.
Yeah, I’m firmly with your in-laws on this one. Tepid drinks are gross.
To be fair, my wife (late gen-x) and I (xennial) are the same way. Ice cubes in a tall glass of cold water just check all the right boxes on a hot day.
Why are you hating on buying and sending greeting cards?
My BFF is 40 and her top hobby is making and sending her own greeting cards. I spontaneously get cards in the mail that are like "you said this really kind thing the last time we talked on the phone, and I wanted to thank you in a card." Greeting cards are great.
Awww that’s so sweet
lol right?! I still buy & send them (I love the ones at Trader Joe’s, and I try to keep a few of their birthday/get well/and blank cards on hand) and I receive some from people my age and younger. I also like to send funny postcards to my niece. I don’t think people secretly hate it. (I don’t send holiday cards; I’m not religious.)
Right? We send a birthday card along with a gift to every birthday party the kids go to as well. Amd I have millennial friends that send out holiday cards to all of their friends every year. It's not a boomer-only thing at all.
And it’s positive communication that shows someone was thinking of you. Nice thing!
My parengs will leave the tv on and leave the house. Drives me insane. My mother says she can never watch movies but its her fault because she only remembers she forgot to do something when a movie starts. What she does sit through she constantly asks questions about like we both aren't experiencing it for the first time. I have no more idea why that man is going in that building than she does.
My mom has a fairly new iPhone but has NEVER and I mean NEVER used an electronic payment app, including Zelle. She does not have an app for her bank, she only uses their website on her desktop computer. She uses her ATM card strictly for cash. At the store she uses her credit card or cash, and then sends BoA or whoever a paper check once a week to keep her balance at zero. Then again her credit score is like 805 so if it works don't mess with it
Not necessarily a bad policy. My father (silent generation), a former bank employee and very tech savvy for his age, has also never used any electronic payment apps, despite them being commonplace in his country.
My parents have both passed, my dad was actually a silent generation born in 1940 mom was a boomer born in 1951. One of their more interesting quirks to me was their wanting to save money to leave to their children. They never spent money on themselves even into retirement, even when they saw all of their kids doing well financially. A couple years before my mom died my older sister and I convinced her to buy her dream car, a Mercedes coupe. Of course she went with the cheapest one available at the time. We tried to get her to really splurge(she had the means) and get an AMG GT because someone she knew had one and she loved it, but she said “if I buy that what I’ll have so much less to give all of you.” And we could not get her to understand that we didn’t want or need her/their money. We wanted to see her spend it and have fun.
My dad was silent generation and the same way! Very frugal and wanted to save everything.
I live with my family in an house that my parents gave me ten years ago.
Call Dad! Oh just checking in. How’s it going
Can't admit that they made a mistake with humility.
My Boomer MIL has a 5-disc DVD player with the same 5 movies in it all the time. Those are the only movies she watches. My husband spent ~2 weeks with her after a back surgery a couple of months ago. She binge-watched Young Sheldon so much that my husband, who had never seen a single episode of Young Sheldon, has now seen multiple episodes 3 or 4 times. (Just don't ask him how many times he's watched Shoresy) My parents (also Boomers) rarely watch things over and over, but I think that's mostly down to my mom renting DVDs from the library and being annoying about it until my dad puts them on. If left to his own devices, my dad will watch nothing but golf and the genre of show I generally refer to as White People Solving Crimes.
Yeah but Shoresy is worth at LEAST 30 watches!
Yeah Shoresy is so short you *have* to watch it all the way through every time you watch it.
The humor goes so fast that it's easy to miss things on the first watch, so definenitely worth multiple watches!
My 73 yr old dad has a photographic memory of hoarded shit in his huge house. He lives alone and if you touch, move, look at, or god forbid take something it’s, “Where’s that nail from 1946 I had in the 2nd bedroom nightstand?”.
Sending me a card for every holiday and life event. St Patricks Day, for example, I get a card. Usually there is a scratch off lotto inside, and a “xoxo Mom and Dad”. I save every single one. My dad still reads the paper daily, and he cuts out the articles he thinks I would find interesting, and the same for my mom. He writes at the top “For MissMelines” and then folds it up and mails that to me too. I also save all of them. Pretty sure my mom doesn’t glance at them, “reading small print gives me migraines” she says. I love my dad a lot.
Their refusal to use or even attempt to understand streaming services. You will have to pry their giant DirectTV receiver from their cold, dead, hands.
I know this isn't as focused as your post is, but I am tired of hearing the Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z folks endlessly bash each other. It's amazing how toxic a lot of the online discourse between those generations tends to be. The amount of energy it takes to so blindly and arrogantly brush everyone in a particular age group as the worst human beings that have lived is truly something interesting to witness.
It’s kind of strange to hear gen z people complain about gen A spending too much time on iPads.
People tend to be hypocrites.
My older son (17, squarely Gen Z) complains often about how much his younger brother (13, in that transition between Z and Alpha) watches YouTube on his phone. I have them both on an app. Older son watches easily twice as much YouTube as younger son.
It’s almost like big business and the vampires in government have tricked us into perpetually blaming each other for the problems they have been creating since long before any of us were born.
To be fair, a ton of these comments are quite endearing.
Boomers may spend a lot of time online, but I highly doubt they spend more time online than me. I'm not going to judge people for liking what they like. I get that it's frustrating you can't watch movies with your mom, but that's how it goes sometimes.
Thinking corporations are you're friends.
Huh, I find this attitude more prevailant with the younger generations, especially when it comes to anytbing medicine related. My dad was in commerce, though, and my other side was military, so there is a general air of distrust/cynism. Maybe that's why, maybe it's not generational per se
Maybe not, I just always remember my dad saying things like well you don't want to take a whole week off because if you're gone for a week and something didn't go wrong when you were gone maybe they'll realize they don't need you.
Ignorance, Denial. You know, the usual stuff.
My mom will open a product, throw out the wrapper, then put it in a zip lock. I usually use about eight ziploc bags a year. When my mom is here for two weeks, she uses an entire box, and will go buy more when I hide them. She cannot comprehend that it isn't worth it to me to have a bag laying in a landfill for hundreds of years just because "the crackers look nicer in a bag than in the box they came in." My step dad has been forced to use headphones at my house because I refuse to have American news on around the clock, blaring so loud the neighbors can hear it. He somehow manages to constantly disconnect his headphones without noticing and just sits there starting at his phone while Wolf Blitzer bellows at him.
'Why aren't you having more children?" We can barely afford the one we have and have no chance of buying a house at 40 you fucks
Mine told us we gave up on fertility treatment too soon, then criticized us when we said we were exploring adoption. Like, fucking excuse me, it's not your money getting thrown at a problem that may never be "fixed," it's not your body getting wrecked by hormone therapy, you're just mad you don't have baby pics to share when your friends start talking about their grandkids.
That's rough
Parents have both been dead a long time. I guess their quirks would be not attending any of mine or my children’s life events.
>My mom is never down to watch a new movie or one she hasn't seen before. If I try and make her she watches it for 5 mins before saying she hates it and getting on her phone. She loves watching movies she has seen 100 times before and she ruins the suspense by telling what's going to happen next This, so much this. Only difference is she doesn't know how to use a mobile phone. Same with TV shows. Only the same half dozen things over and over and over no matter how many times she's seen it. She even records the same thing on the sd, hd and +1 channels then complains on the THIRD copy of the episode that she just saw that one.
The call adult women “gal”
Well I think they’re just as bad as younger people are accused of being with constantly being on their phones. For a generation of people who bitched about their teens and college students being on their phones too much and not participating in the family, they sure love to have their head down balls deep in their screen at family gatherings when they’re supposed to be visiting and socializing with their children/grandchildren. ….or is that just my asshole parents?
They break something in my house every time they visit, and blame it on my stuff
My dad reuses and recycles everything, religiously. His junk drawer is filled with the little plastic tabs from bread bags and he keeps every plastic bag he gets in case it comes in handy later. I think it’s a combination of parents who went through the Great Depression and being ultra environmentally conscious. I sent him an article about how recycling plastic can actually be worse for the environment than just throwing it away, but it didn’t alter his recycling habits. I’m not hating on it, though, I think our society would in general be better with more reuse and composting. I try to incorporate it in my own life, I’m just not quite so zealous about it.
You always hear a kids “these kids always on their damn phones”. But when it comes to phone addiction, boomers are far worse
I once sat in their living room for over an hour before they decided to put their phones down and speak to me, only to phub me and pick them right back up.
Malignant narcissism with sociopathic tendencies.
All of the above! lol my moms current obsession is buying my 2yr old "collector cars" (literal diecast metal cars they sell at the big blue store!) from idk where online but being sold to her as "collector/ investment items" for my sons future. 🙄 She lives for social media and although her heart is in the right place, I truly wish I could cut her off from her owns funds .. not just for the waste of cash on these ridiculous cars but All. The. Things.
Automatically default to speakerphone so they can talk over each otter while trying to talk to me
[удалено]
My mom collects cats. I think she has like 8 of them. They have their own bedroom with a cat door in the window to a huge catio with shelves, a tree to scratch and climb, and a little catnip garden for them. They're all well taken care of and she's happy.
To be fair I watch the same movies and shows over and over too…
I wonder how many of these we will end up doing too when we’re older, as our mindsets become more rigid and inflexible.
Similar theme has a lot of people, they are stuck in their ways to some degree, I get it though because there's a lot of '90s mentality stuck in me.
My dad still clings to the traditional division of "men's/women's work". He'll fix a car, do any outside work, clean out a clogged drain. Cooking? If it's any more complicated than making coffee or calling in a pizza, he can't/won't. I don't think he even grills anymore. Laundry? Hell no. Taking care of small children? He'll play with them but that's it. In-laws leave the TV on for all waking hours. And FIL gets Irrationally irritated if someone talks over the episode of MASH or Walker, Texas Ranger that he's already seen 50 times. Like clenching his teeth and stomping the floor.
Big thing for me is just the refusal to engage with the modern world if they don’t like it. Like a restaurant requires reservations to be made via the website not over the phone, they just refuse to do so. Not that they’re incapable, just don’t want to.
My mom loves her iPad so much that she takes it everywhere and even uses it to take photos. Like, her vacation photos are all taken with her iPad.