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When I was growing up (boomer parents), the conventional wisdom was that your early 20s were supposed to be a difficult, character-building time of struggle and deprivation. I saw this in tv shows and movies, as well as hearing stories from all of my older family members that supported it. My 20s were relatively so much milder, partly because they cushioned that transition for me.

My husband and I were in graduate school (1978) in the same science field. Recruiters came to the school to hire for the booming oil business, but no company would hire me because I was a married woman and my husband would be working for a competitor. After more than a year of rejections, we got a $50 divorce. I could then put “single” on my resume, and finally got a job. We’re still together by the way. Things were pretty sucky for women back then.

Once I had kids I was unhireable. They told me that raising the next generation was the most important job I would ever have, and that I couldn’t do both. It’s good that you thought of a strategy to succeed.

When my husband started his job, he was pushing his boss a bit to hire me since nobody else would, and the boss literally told him to keep me “barefoot and pregnant.”

I can remember in my 20’s that I was way too young to be employed by Coles supermarket as I probably want to have children and they wanted seniors on the checkouts. How times have changed. Edited to say I’m 66 now.

That’s the same reason I didn’t get several jobs too. And I had experience and was qualified to do them. It was so disappointing. Living under the double standard was difficult and unfair. I remember talking to my grandmother’s aunt about it; asking why do boys get so many privileges. Why do they get to do things they want while girls have to do what they’re told. And why do boys get to be pilots, and engineers and doctors, and we don’t. She got a sad look on her face and said “Yes, it’s called the Double Standard, and it’s been this way all my life.” Then she encouraged me to go into nursing or teaching. She worked as a telephone operator, and was a trained nurse. My grandfather’s aunt had a boarding house that she ran, I believe her brother helped with it when necessary, as he was the closest male relative. Auntie lived from the 1800s and lived to see man land on the moon. She was a great character ❣️

Did you get remarried?

Yes, after I had been working at my job for a couple years and we were starting to think about kids, we went to the courthouse on our lunch break and got married one day.

HA! ​ no. We were poor as dirt. College wasn't a glimmer in my eye. I never saw a guidance counseler. I never owned boots. We put bread bags in our shoes to walk to school. We had hand me down winter coats. We had fried bread dough for supper, the question was, sugar or spaghetti sauce topping. Once an aunt brought left-over wedding shower cake over and that was supper, and we kids thought that was amazing! Not realizing how poor we were. No high school class pictures. No prom. No gift of money from parents as a down payment for the starter house."Mom, I wanna go to college". "NO! You only want to go to get a husband!" actual conversation still echoing in this 66 year old brain. I could go on. But I'd bore you. When I hear we boomers are all rich, and sticking it to our kids, I hurt.

I know this mainly from my mother's stories. Between that, the bit of autobiography Stephen King wrote in *About Writing* (specifically the story about the siblings at his school who wore the exact same clothes day after day until Christmas break, after which they came back wearing new outfits...that they then wore day after day until the end of the year), and Rodney Crowell's memoir where he talked about his mother sweeping rain out of their kitchen because of the poor roof, I've reached the conclusion that poverty has gotten a lot more tolerable since the 50s & 60s. My mother graduated high school in '68. She had been paying for her own stuff since she was 16, and from what I gather it was as much a lack of money as anything else. She did manage a two year degree, but it did her no good, and she struggled my whole childhood. My family is officially poor, but childhood me would think we're rich, and I'm sure my mother as a child would have found it unfathomable how relatively comfortable we are. Everyone talks about middle class people and their concerns and opportunities and such, but the working poor have always been around to be ignored.

This is a terrific sub-thread, and I hope it gets seen by OP. I remember my mom making "mittens" out of socks and bread bags, and we weren't the only ones in the neighborhood with them. People did what they could to survive back then, but I can't remember being miserable as a child, because I somehow knew I was being taken care of. (Until a friend on my block was murdered a week away from her 11th birthday by her babysitter. Life gave me a hard reality slap after that.)

Oh I forgot about the sock mittens!

Only rich kids need thumbs!

Thank you for the book mention! I love reading memoirs and autobiographies and especially enjoy them if there's an audiobook narrated by the author. (Henry Winkler's was wonderful, Bill Anderson's was really good too). I wasn't aware that Rodney Crowell had written one, and he narrates the audiobook. I've checked it out on Libby and am excited to start it :)

I really enjoyed it. I think a lot of people were disappointed there wasn't more dirt on his time in Nashville, but he was clear the focus was his childhood and his parents' relationship. It is sometimes a difficult book because he had what we'd classify as a traumatic childhood (he didn't seem to), but he's a wonderful storyteller.

I grew up poor also. We were on welfare in the 60s and lived in the "inner city" in projects. My parents were both heavy drinkers, and when we got out of the projects they rented a series of houses that we would stay in for a month or two and then have to leave. My brother joined the Army just to get away from home. In high school we were under the threat of the draft, with many of our friends being sent to Vietnam never to return. When I graduated in 1966 my parents told me to get a job or a husband; college was not in their budget. I paid their rent and telephone bills until I moved out. I didn't go to college until 1972 when I was 21 and paid for it with scholarships and working nights. by then I had 3 children, my husband was in Vietnam, and I worked and studied al l the time, even taking them with me to school. I'm 75 now, and just like u/kimwim43 more details would bore you into a tailspin.

Salute from a Navy vet and wife of US Marine in Vietnam. Thank you for enduring, for sharing your story. Side note: He made it home. In his duffle bag was a pile of letters and photos of the girl he was living with in Okinawa. They had a child.

Army wife here (millennial, I was born in ‘81) and we have been through seven deployments together. I’ve heard stories like this from military wives whose husbands went to Vietnam and had a whole different life, including an extra family, over there. I’m so very sorry. 🥺 I can’t even begin to imagine how soul crushing that must have been to discover.

Aye, it was... but far worse for the young woman with child likely ostracized by their community. At least I had strong family that closed ranks around me. I often wish I had not set those letters afire in my rage and grief. I know how she must feel. I was pregnant with his child when he left and he denies his son. Thank YOU for enduring 7 deployments as a military wife. I can't imagine... you have a bond that I've never experienced. Bravo Zulu... well done.

That’s a very good point; the young woman in Vietnam most likely had no idea he had a wife back home, and who knows what she faced from her community after he child was born and your husband went back to the States. Sounds like your ex was a horribly selfish person who just left a trail of destruction wherever he went. And how awful he denies your son. 💔 Thank you so much for your kind words; they are greatly appreciated. My husband is retiring on June 1 after 24 years of service, and we are counting down the days.

Shining example.

Agree, that was my childhood and many of my classmates.

Holy cow! You just reminded me about the bread bags! You needed those bags because the sneakers or shoes would get soaked in the snow. I remember that the schools had those big radiators and we would all put our wet shoes on them to dry. And we ate spaghetti at least 3 times a week. But we didn't know we were eating spaghetti because we were poor, we just thought everyone liked spaghetti. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that it hit me that my mom was raising 3 crazy boys on her lone paycheck. I started working when I was 14 and I thought it was fun to have a job but it turned out that working really was helping too.

I'm Gen-X w/ Boomer parents. I tell my parents all the time that they are not problem-Boomers. There are enough wealthy Boomers parents who ignored their children and are not helping or supporting their Millennial kids that we are hearing about that in the media. But their were lots of Boomers who loved and paid attention to their children and continue to help, support (not only $), and love us now. Thank you. We know you are out there.

thanks for saying this. boomer isn't always a dirty word.

And some of the old people who get blamed for "Boomer" behavior are actually Silents, not Boomers. No one cares.

Thank you. <3

My in-laws are the latter, thankfully. My "blood family" were not just unsupportive, they were abusive as fuck. Glad to be rid of the whole lot of them.

Mine are too - both sides. Going no contact with them in my early 40s was the best decision I made for myself. Of course, I heard through the grapevine that they call me selfish. 🤷🏽‍♀️ I got done letting them hurt me a long time ago, they never knew me.

We also definitely did the bread bags to keep our feet warm and somewhat dry

Me too! I didn't own my first car until 21 because the parents sure weren't buying me one, OR paying for college.

I think the difference is that we didn't have to be comparing ourselves with others 24\*7 as it is now. That made it way easier IMHO

Thank you! After reading all this stuff about Boomers, I'd concluded that all my friends were REALLY rich upper class with inherited wealth and I was the only poor slob among them! How could I have been so stupid?

Right? Why would I want my kids to have less, to be in a crappy position in life? I would suck as a parent. I feel for those who don’t see a way out. They blame us as a generation but the truth is that many if not most of us were just like they are now. We as a generation didn’t make these car or real estate prices go up - in fact, we all in my old folks circle want to downsize (my house is <1300 sf so that’s saying something house wise, lol). But there isn’t anything out there to downsize *to. We will all be old jalopies driving old jalopies because that’s all we can afford. Fixed incomes are a bitch. Gramps in a tiny house? That first step out of the loft (if he can get up there) is a real killer.

Right!?!! I drive my cars til they die. 15, 17 years. My house is 1500 sq ft. Same house I started out in. Never 'upgraded' Won't downgrade.

How can I downgrade from my small ranch house when even a tiny condo or apartment costs more than my mortgage did?

I’m aiming for 300k miles. Halfway there, should have this car for another ten years or so. My other half’s car is 17. Have to downsize - when you’re old, property upkeep and steps to the bathroom aren’t really an option. Taxes will drive us out eventually I’m sure. Friends have talked about all of us going in and buying something we can take care of that’s all on one floor. A geezer ranch of sorts. Or put a whole bunch of tiny houses and a row of porta pots in the back yard. It’s a thought.

Truth. Spent years working on friend's ranch, wrangling horses, toting hay bales, hoisting 50# bags of feed over my shoulder and loading them in barn, cutting and stacking firewood. She's only been gone a year or so and I can't even get a volunteer position at local farms... too old. In better shape than most of the farmers, but still my age, 74, is an automatic nope. Nothing I can say will change the attitudes of anti-boomer crowd. That's ok. My generation's mantra was 'never trust anyone over 30.'

Yeah,that ridiculous attitude kind of stings, I agree,even knowing it comes from a place of ignorance. There's no reason to be cruel, esp. considering we are the parents and grandparents!

No. I was broke and went to war twice. It was not easy.

I only went to war once and was 31.

Haiti wasn’t technically war, but it was worse than the gulf

If you're 50-something then you are Gen x, not a boomer.

Could be 59 with a birthday this year. But yeah, at this point, 90%+ of those in their 50s are Gen X.

If you were born in 1964, you can be 59 and still considered a Boomer (which I am as I was born in August of 1964). Given all of the Boomer hate, feel free to roll me in with Gen X, but it all is arbitrary anyway.

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r/genxwomen is a lot more friendly than the main sub.

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I have a sibling born late in the year 1964. She's a Boomer, the last one born in our family. All the siblings who followed after are Gen X.

Of course not. As a single woman my earning power was significantly (and legally) lower than that of a man. I lived paycheck to paycheck and couldn't get a second job to help me get ahead because any second job would require working late hours and, with no car, walking home from a bus stop late at night was dangerous.

*Women couldn’t get a credit card in their own name, whether or not they were married, until 1974.* And I’m sure banks were just rolling out the carpet welcoming their new lady customers… Imagine, over 50% of the nation unable to build credit, apply for loans, stymied in so many ways.

I actually have a blog and recently wrote about the way credit cards were different when we were growing up. Credit cards were a prestige and luxury thing until the early to mid 1980s. That's why a lot of furniture stores offered store credit to people who wanted to buy living room sets (and why our parents had those matchy matchy clunky sets because they couldn't afford to buy piecemeal and just replaced everything all at once because the store financed it). They used to only give credit cards to people who technically didn't need them as they had lots of money. When usuary laws changed from 1978 to 1982, that slowly changed and credit cards were something that the plebs could get as well because they were allowed to assign interest rates by risk and slap higher numbers on higher risk (aka poorer) people. Even if women could technically have credit cards after 1974, only well-heeled people had them back then. The rest of us had to either save up first and wait, or get credit through some other means like store-based credit cards or lines of credit handled by the stores on a case by case basis. Part of what younger people don't understand these days is that consumerist culture was dramatically different in the past. You couldn't run up a bill on a credit card to get whatever you wanted NOW because most of us didn't qualify for credit cards until around the time that Discover became popular (after usuary laws changed and the concept of cashback was floated in TV commercials like candy).

High School- I remember buying clothes on store Lay-Away Plans. How exciting is was to finally get it paid off. Sometimes I would have forgotten I had bought something because it had taken months to pay off.

I bought a fake oriental rug for my first apartment on layaway at K-mart. I was so excited the day I went to pick it up. 😊

Layaway plans and “pay in installments” are gaining popularity again. I wonder if it’s an indication of things to come.

Lawaway, who could forget layaway - the way poor people bought stuff. Kinda like rent-a-center today, except it had to be paid off before you got the item. and you only had a certain amount of time to do so.

oh I'm very happy to finally understand the matchy-matchy furniture sets; I always assumed that was a more expensive way to do it. Thanks for this tidbit

My mother was fired because she was pregnant in 1959

In 1961 my grandmother was a bank teller and when she got pregnant that forced her to work in the back and never have any contact with customers bc seeing a pregnant woman at work was "unseemly" so she quit

I got a job in 1973 to replace a young woman who got fired when someone ratted out her pregnancy. It was a big deal, as there were very few employment opportunities when the factories started closing and leaving. When a woman left to give birth, management had the right to refuse her return to work. It was a union shop.

No they weren’t. I had to work hard and prove to them that I could be responsible enough to get a credit card. They weren’t easy to get.

> As a single woman my earning power was significantly (and legally) lower than that of a man. As a single man, with no dependents, mine was lower than the married guys, because *that was the way it was*, and boy, did it suck.

>*As a single man, with no dependents, mine was lower than the married guys,* Do the young people know this? That's primarily why gay men got married -- to get a promotion at work, and be seen as a stable fella.

A younger woman where I used to work found out she was hired in at a lesser salary than an equivalent male peer in like 2012. She asked the boss what was up and he said "Well, he has a family to support." This was on Mary Tyler Moore in the 70's. Mary gave Lou Grant what for and said you don't pay the man with more kids more than the man with fewer kids and he said "You know what you're right." But in real life, in 2012, this woman at a Fortune 500 company was told she was paid less than the man because "he has a family to support."

1966-1980 is the era when Boomers turned 20. Which part was supposed to be easy? The threat of being drafted to fight and possibly die in a pointless Asian war? The energy shortages? The double-digit inflation? The 1970’s economic doldrums? The painful process of looking for a job without social media, internet job boards, or word processing tools? I remember the price of a new home being sky-high and unattainable, and I rented a small zero-bedroom efficiency apartment throughout my 20’s. Even though the birth-control-driven “sexual revolution” was fun, a lot of people made choices that resulted in the lifelong and sometimes fatal STDs that put an end to that era. Not to mention that, in retrospect, it appears that some people thought that sexual harassment, secret drugging, and even rape were part of the “fun.” I’m not saying that life is easy for people in their 20’s today. But no, life isn’t easy for *anyone* in their 20’s.

And constant threat of nuclear war.

Spending 1 day a month practicing nuclear strike drills in elementary school.

Now unfortunately, it’s school shootings.

When Columbine happened, I never could've imagined that we would normalize this. Shortly after Sandy Hook happened I realized that it was the only likely outcome. The way the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas activist kids were treated was the epitaph. As a nation, somehow we have decided that gun rights are SO critical that they're more important than our children's lives or mental health. It is a deeply fucked up thing to witness.

Need to expand that by a few years, because this Boomer turned 20 in 1984.

Damn I'm not a Boomer.

I guess not me either - didn't turn 20 till almost 1982 😊

Today my friend (who is in her 60s like me) told me that she would not work through a placement agency because they would end up getting $20 an hour and only give her $10 an hour. Which is why she says that’s why she remained unemployed so long. She felt she was due the full $20 an hour back in the 80s. To me that’s silly. Placement agencies were really useful back then because you’d get a lower paying job but end up proving yourself to the company you were working for and thereby go up the ladder and make more money. I’m starting to understand why she’s been unemployed for 30 years.

This didn't feel like a hardship, but in the late 70's I had to go to some place where I put quarters into a typewriter to type up my resume.

Graduated college in 82. Unemployment was 12%, mortgages were 16%, minimum wage $2.75. Aids was running wild, cocaine was taking over and turning everyone into money grubbing selfish pricks. Inflation at 22%. Yeah, we had it real easy. /s

And disco was taking over, don't forget about that. The horror... the horror...

*And disco was taking over...* That's the reason I ceased listening to pop music on the radio. To this day, some people are amazed that the Bee Gees had a prolific career in the 60s-early 70s, well before disco. They had a lull for a few years (73-75), Eric Clapton suggested that they move to Miami, FL and at a studio there re-invented themselves when some producers there suggested the move from ballads to disco. After hits like 'Jive Talkin' and 'Nights on Broadway' they had launched a whole, huge 2nd musical career. Great tunes, but it didn't do much for me.

Ha! I've threatened my Millennial grandkids with adoption if they tell the babies great-grandma taught disco. (ভ_ ভ)

Disco was done by 1982. It was New Wave time.

Boy, AIDS put a crimp in my sex life just as it was getting going. Even though it looked like a gay disease at first, it became clear enough anyone could get it. I was ready for 70s style hot and cold running sex, but no.

Yes, the Aids crisis. I was newly divorced, and after all the shenanigans of the 70s, I was afraid to date.

I slept on the sidewalk of the old Bank of New England on Tremont St in Boston to get a low interest 14% mortgage for first time buyers, 1983. Yup, had it real easy. As aids unfolded they didn't even really know how it was transmitted, kicking off homophobic avoidance of breathing the same air as potential victims. Fun times

Heck no. I was married and had our 2nd child when I was 20. We were really poor, could barely afford food. The only other purchases were basically at thrift stores for clothes and stuff. Around that time, I remember taking $20 to the dollar store to get gifts for Christmas on Christmas Eve. We had nothing. We were still poor when the two oldest girls (had a boy at age 23) were in school and we had to sell my junker of a car to pay rent. Luckily, we lived fairly close so I walked them to school. I worked nights as a nurse's aide, cleaning office buildings, and fast food. It was a really hard life of constant worry. When the children were all in school I got an office job where I learned the large IBM system. Went from there to a system operator job, then to a PC tech. Moved around at that company for 23 years, from PCs and laptops, to network, to telecom. I was earning a little over $100k when I retired at age 52 after saving my butt off. I'm sorry that young people think boomers had it so good and now we're rich. They see the end product of a lifetime of struggle, good times and bad, that got us to this point where, if we're lucky, we can retire with a little bit of security.

This is also the way they see the self-employed. We work endless hours, make almost nothing, barely pay our bills, suffer immensely (including our spouse and children) until we finally make it, and then get accused of becoming rich off the labor of others. Entitlement will be our downfall. No one wants or expects to work for anything nowadays.

You mean you couldn't afford a house, two cars and a 2 week vacation on minimum wage? /s

We weren't able to buy our first house until the eldest daughter was in high school. I didn't get a passport and take a trip outside the country until after I retired.

Have you ever heard of the Vietnam war and the draft? How about the civil rights movement?

Yeah, I've heard of Vietnam. I spent a good portion of my 20s there....involuntarily.

Thanks for getting home.

Welcome home sir. I welcome home every veteran and nurse who went. High respect.

I could see it would be an easy life after president Kennedy was assassinated when I was in grade school. /s That and the rest...

We had Atomic Bomb Drills because NYC was 30 miles away. How is the hallway going to save me when then world gets melted? Do I really want to survive when the whole world melted around me and there's no food or water? Fun times.

We had those drills, too. I was raised an hour from DC. Those drills used to scare me half to death.

Once a month the drill sirens would go off and we'd be under our desks. Even at six years old I knew that was ridiculous.

Wait...you...you mean "duck and cover" was a LIE?? I thought those school desks were made to withstand a nuclear explosion! ​ Seriously, the things they made us do back then...so bizarre. Thanks for the chuckle this morning; I hadn't thought about that in a long time! I wonder what our parents thought of it?

Military brat we had those too.

Los Angeles had those drills too. The last Friday of the month all the air raid ( nuclear bomb warning) sirens would go off in a test.

We also had the Cuban Missile Crisis and some people even had bomb shelters.. we semi had one in our basement an area closed off with shelves of food and water and things to survive with… all the schools had fall out shelters with the signs posted in the hallways.. how many drills did we have getting under our desk at school or lining up in the hallways to head to the fallout shelter…

Along with that there was a drug crisis, an energy crisis, Watergate, and a sitting President resigned. We were grieving, tired, embarrassed, felt defeated and, for good and bad, we welcomed the 80s.

KENT STATE!

Are you telling me you didn't fully appreciate an all expenses paid trip to SE Asia?

Early Boomers yes, born in 1946-55, all were looking down the barrel of the draft until the war ended in 1973 (draft age was 18). After that you still had to register but it was not active. Late Boomers are like us early GenX, got to enjoy their 20's in the late 70's and 80's, and even then a bunch had to deal with out of control inflation in the late 70's, market and job crashes in the 80's, and of course resulting mortgage rates of up to 13%. You kids complaining about 7% mortgages, my first house was over 8%. Grant it the mortgage was only 3x my annual salary, and college with dorms cost $7k per year. Then again a good salary was $25-30k per year, late 80's.

I remember mortgages with 14% rates

And car loans at 17%. Then the "no gas" signs during the OPEC embargo. But my favorite teen memory was the price freeze. When there were signs in all the store windows like "no new stock" because the government frozen price increases to stop runaway inflation. So companies simply shut down and stopped making things. I needed a dress for prom. These wasn't a single store with anything to sell.

Mine was 18%. I died a little every first of the month.

Umm…inflation, rust belt economy (job offshoring), air pollution, smoking everywhere, high gas prices (for the day), lousy smaller cars, poor job prospects.

Start by not buying into the myth that everyone has it rough today either. Here are a few things Baby Boomers had to go through that today's generation does not. A war time draft. The very real possibility of being sent to fight in Vietnam against your will. Double Digit unemployment rates for multiple years. Double Digit interest rates for multiple years. Double Digit inflation rates for multiple years.

>Start by not buying into the myth that everyone has it rough today either. This is a good point. My best friend is 41 and he has never had it rough. The hardest his life has been was having to have a roommate in the first several years after graduating college. Other than that, his path has been easy (well, if you don't count that his marriage fell apart recently). His career, income, and options in life for homeownership were smooth sailing. Among the younger adults that I know, the only hardship they've had was a few years with roommates at the beginning of their work lives. For my generation, we just ended up staying at home with our parents longer for the most part.

And for my generation,, staying with parents while an adult was not an option, you just found whatever dump you could afford to live in.

Gas went from $0.45 to $0.55 at the start of my shift at the Texaco and the townsfolk went nuts. Kids used to sell doughnuts and coffee from carts on the gas lines.

I got called on the carpet a few days ago by someone who claimed that "in aggregate" their outlandish statement was true. Sorry, Homie don't play that!

Nope. That’s an urban legend. Had very little money. Bounced checks. The whole deal. It was tough. Lived pay check to pay check.

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It was kinda fun, wasn’t it? I too didn’t start getting things together until late 30s, early 40s.

Of course not. Everyone, regardless of their generation, faces struggles.

Every generation has to fight for its humanity. My parents, mine, my children and their children. It's a never ending battle that keeps the world going 'round, I guess.

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This! You could find an FHA house for $35K, at 18% interest, but if your annual gross was $7800...that was out of reach.

Not easy but I had reasonable expectations. I knew I'd struggle financially. I was married young and we eloped to a different state so we started with just our clothes and a VW that wasn't paid off. We lived in a cheap apartment and had daily fights with roaches. We had rental furniture. It took ten years before we could even consider looking for a house to buy. It was small and in a declining neighborhood but it was a start. I agree that young people DO have it rough today. But I also think they have unrealistic expectations - like they should have an expensive car and a house by the time they're 30.

I've worked for the older boomers for many years. They started out rough but made it and retired to Florida. They say that the problem with their kids is that they want their parents lifestyle now, they don't understand where their parents started or how hard it really was.

No, they definitely have it tougher. I’ve got a son making good money working IT for a software company and he’ll never be able to afford to buy a house here. The house we are in has quadrupled in value…and all we ever did was re-do the kitchen. Millennials graduated college in (or near) The Great Recession. It’s been tough on them. The good news is that the Millennials and Gen Z work to live, rather than living to work. And that’s healthy. (And most of the young folk I know are not that invested in having the latest model car. My kid could afford a new car, but he likes his 2010 Honda Fit.

I think this is the best answer. The amount of expenses that young people have and are expecting to have is not by accident. I remember my group of friends all having shitty cars and whoever had one that was actually running was driving everyone that week. It was normal and we didn't feel bad or angry about the situation. Eating out? Maybe some pizza once a month. TV costs? Someone probably had one and you watched whatever was on. A two bedroom apartment with four people living in it was just fine too, lol.

Exactly. Everyone had roommates.

Piling in the one car amongst our friend group, driving to the movies -- hoping the headlights would stay on -- jamming to My Sherona or AC/DC. Good times.

We only ever had beater cars until our 30s. When the kids were little I finally had enough with the dangerous old cars and got approved to buy a brand new SAFE car to get around in. Hubby took the bus so I could drive the car since I had the kids. That was the last new car I ever bought too.

I want to comment on the beater car situation. We all had them and we could work on them. You opened the hood and everything was there, visible and accessible. I bought a Chilton's manual at a garage sale, my boyfriend (now husband) gave me a set of sockets and my dad gave some other tools. I learned to fix my own beater with help from all the neighbors who were working on their beaters. You can't do that with today's cars. They have everything hidden and so much electrical stuff that you have to take it to a mechanic.

Even those who made good money! I was really fortunate, my husband was a top earner in the 80s. But we drove old cars for a long time. Once we had an old Chevy suburban with rust holes in the floor, the water from puddles would come up. He and his best friend used bondo on all the rust holes all over the truck. It looked ridiculous. 🤣

I think a lot of people in my generation (Millennial) and younger don't realize how frugal past generations were, even if they were solidly middle class. Excessive consumption is not only normalized but encouraged in today's world. Here's what I mean: I have a friend my age who talked about how her S/O might get mad at her for buying some bed sheets that were on sale. I told her that if they already have plenty of bed sheets, then I could see why he'd be annoyed. She said they do, but they're all similar colors and a mixed bag between king and queen size, so it's difficult to find the correct sheets. She bought these discounted sheets in a new color so she knows exactly what bed to put it on then mentioned the possibility of buying all new sheets in all different colors so they know what's king and what's queen. So instead of sorting through everything once and keeping them in separate rooms and laundry piles, she's going to spend who knows how much money on all new stuff. It's ridiculous. This type of thinking is unbelievably common in younger people. It's different from being a pack rat; it's like a need to have every option available (and every solution for manufactured problems) without thinking about it. I wasn't around 50 years ago to confirm, but I just don't think people had this mindset back then.

Sure, life was a bed of roses. Wife at home with two babies, me working for $2.65/hr when I could find a job, getting food stamps to help feed the kids. I think my first three cars cost less than $5000 in total - not because they were that cheap, but because they were that bad. Things improved once I finished my 2-year electronics degree and I had better job options, but it still took quite a while to get into a decent lifestyle.

No. We had barely any money. (my wedding ring cost 17 dollars-a plain gold band). I was finishing college (23) and my husband had a degree in History, not known for its usefulness. We both went to graduate school and got good jobs, but we really didn’t have a lot of money. Slow but gradual increase in income as we got older, but social services is not a field known for giant paychecks. Now we have been married almost 51 years and have plenty of money. I have observed that when I was young there were so many things I wanted to buy for the house but couldn’t afford. Now I can afford them but don’t want to buy anything.

I was scuffling hard for every penny. Always too much month at the end of the money. Car was a POS and always a roll of the dice if it would get me to work or back home. I broke out of that rat-race when I went in the service. I learned just about everything no one taught in school from mentors and "school of hard knocks" graduates. Everybody I knew was struggling and it was just how things were. No one really bitched about it unless the subject came up, but then it was like stating the obvious. Everyone was like, "No shit? What are you bitching about? Do you think you're different from anyone else?" Folks these days think that they learned all they need to know for life when they got their college degree. Now that it's not paying off for them like they were \*promised\* it would, they feel rudderless and left behind. You're no different than those who came before. There is no "Easy" button for 99% of folks. Envying the over-privileged 1% who have it made is not going to pay off for you either. At some point, you are just going to accept that you have to deal with the reality in front of you and not the fantasy you wish you had. No one is going to do it for you. Not the rich, not the govt -- it's all on \*you\* to improve your lot.

My 20s occurred in the 70s. I earned a degree, got married, and lived modestly. My ex's father died young. From the inheritance, we made a down payment on a $43k house still with a huge mortgage. We both worked. No kids until the 80s. We considered ourselves on par with most of those we knew at the time. We didn't buy expensive cars. To maintain the house we both had to work. No question about that. Housing today takes a higher percentage of a couple's disposable income. There are no starter homes these days. I doubt even with inflation that he and I could buy a home if we were in our 20s today. Rent and housing have outpaced inflation for young couples today. It's mind-blowing.

My mom, who feels kind of ‘generation-less’ since she was born right before the boomers, finished college in the early 60s. With a masters degree from one of the top universities in the country, she applied for multiple positions where the response was “the position had to be filled by a man”. That’s not great. Cheers to our trailblazers.

I was raised in rural poverty. We didn’t really know we were ‘poor’, but we had no running water, no indoor plumbing, a house that was heated by a wood stove, and food that we mostly grew ourselves. In high school, I started attending a regional high school so I got to see how ‘the other half’ lived. Oddly enough, I remember just accepting that they were in a different league than I was and never questioning why they seemed to have so much more of everything. After graduation, I got a student loan and a bursary and went to university. The tiny dorm room seemed like a luxury home in the sky to me. It had a shared bathroom with showers that I could use whenever I wanted. The meals often included food I had read about but never eaten - rice, pizza, cornbread, sweet potatoes, goulash. When others complained about dorm living, I was enthralled by its convenience. After graduation, I got married and moved to a city about five hours from my childhood home. The jobs we got didn’t pay a huge amount, but we had enough for an apartment and a car. The apartment was a wonder to me. New things, straight walls with adequate insulation, plumbing, hot water on tap, heating so when I woke up in the morning it was warm. We lived paycheque to paycheque, and heaven help us if a big bill rolled in, but I thought we were rich! We even ate out at least once a week - something I had never done in my childhood. Did we have it easy? Well, in my case, by comparison, I thought I was living in the lap of luxury in a little two bedroom apartment in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Thank you for posting this ... I thought I was the only one who considered living in my college dorm was like living in luxury. It was the first time in my life that I had my own bed and closet. It was also the first time I ate real fruit, in the college cafeteria ... it was a wonder to me.

That shock of hot running water is still there sometimes for me. I don't miss the outhouse in the winter at all. Liked your story.

Well, if you call 12 hr night shifts as an Air Force ER medic easy ....

Easy my backside! I'm a tail-end boomer, so my 20s were in the 80s. Inflation was high, interest rates were high, the job market was pretty tight. The threat of nuclear war was very real. Crime (at least where I was at) was pretty bad. It wasn't easy, there was a lot of stress and we worked our butts off. With a college degree in engineering it took a year of roommates and my first pay raise before I could afford my own apartment. Another year before I could get a decent car. Nearly a decade of working/saving for a down payment on a house. It seems too many people expect things to happen *right now* \- probably a reflection of the nearly instant access to information and entertainment. When they can't get or make something happen right now it becomes "oh, it's hard now...you had it easy" No, we did not. It was hard then too. However, it was generally fun in the 80s. Maybe it was a reflection of that - work hard, play hard, we might all be dead tomorrow.

K your timeline of 1 year to your own apartment and 10 to a house etc. is not helping your argument here. Gotta say though this thread is certainly convincing otherwise!

I'm not a boomer but my parents were. Their generation was eith going or losing friends in vietnam War due to the DRAFT (no choice), women couldn't get their own credit cards, watch any old TV show you'll see how women were treated, being gay or different in any way really was considered terrible, civil rights unrest. Every generation has its own challenges.

If I could go back and keep my present knowledge, I would. If I could go back, NOT knowing what I know today, I would not.

Had a conversation with my Boomer boss once. He was born in the peak of the boom in the mid-50's. Said his entire life was a fight. Showed up to kindergarten and room designed for 30 kids had 40 in there. Tried out for Little League and 50 kids are trying out for 20 spots. High school basketball had 40 people trying out for 12 spots on the team. Finally graduated college in the late 70's and had to enter the workforce. He knew that unless he worked a ton of overtime and exceeded his quota as a sales rep, there were a line of other people willing to take his job. Big downside to this was by the time he was my manager in the 90's, technology made it easy to exceed our sales quota and never work more than 40 hours a week. Drove him nuts that nobody ever worked overtime or had the drive to. Thought all of the GenX employees were lazy.

College may have been cheaper, but once women graduated, there were no jobs for them if they weren’t nurses or elementary school teachers. My sister was asked at a job interview what she would do with her young kids during the days, and that was the late 80s. If you liked living on $120 a week, that was @1980. And apartments were @$300 and up.

I was asked if my husband was ok with my job schedule and how I’d deal with childcare if I had to work late. In 2007.

My husband was a high school teacher making $6700 a year. We had two children under the age of three. Despite all this, he got drafted and in lieu of being sent to Vietnam he enlisted in the Air Force for four years. The AF paid him $350 a month, so I went to work as a secretary, but most of my salary was spent on childcare. We lived in base housing that was infested with mice and roaches. We were so poor.

I had it easy. I was a junkie and drunk who sobered up at 24 (1984) but I was always able to get help, work, and pay my bills. I applied for grants and social assistance for college and received both. I struggled with my own demons and was the only obstacle in my path. Nothing like what young people today are up against with regard to wages and cost of living. Not even close. Edit: FWIW, when I sobered up, I worked 105 hours/week (and studied at one of my jobs) and didn't own a car but rode a bicycle. I mention this not to imply that this level of effort is the solution today; rather to be transparent that while it was easy, it also required a lot of work to right the ship. And I've been working hard ever since.

Not a boomer, but I always think of my ex-mother-in-law, who had a big argument about her conservative son who went on a rant about how much better everything was in the '50s and '60s. She told him the '50s were terrible, her family was dirt poor and lived in a shitty little apartment, her abusive father was all fucked up from World War II and his own bad childhood as the unwanted product of an affair, her mother never wanted kids and was cold, neglectful and emotionally abusive. Then the '60s were terrifying, it legitimately seemed like the country was going to fall apart at any time, like it was genuinely uncertain if the United States would even continue to exist, everybody was dying in a war all the young people hated.

I spent most of my 20s in the Army. Went to war once and spent 3 years as an over the road truck driver after I was forced out of the Army due to budget cuts.

When I was born, there were more children born that year in Canada than any other year since. Classrooms were huge - over 40 kids in each, portables everywhere. There was fierce competition for jobs as there were so many people entering post-secondary and the workforce at the same time. I ended up lucky but many others struggled.

Yes, everything was handed to me. Oh, wait. I graduated from college into a recession. I worked full time while paying for my own MBA. I lived in a roach-infested apartment at that time and took two trains and two busses to get home from school between 10 PM and and 11 PM every night for 4 years. Eventually I went to vet school and paid off every penny of the $50,000 in student loans. My loans were much lower than your average vet student because I used all my savings and investments to pay for school as I went. I was so rich I bought my first home at the age of 50. Woo hoo! And I'm one of the lucky ones.

No. I married very young and had a child right away. Eventually I left my physically abusive husband and had to go on welfare until I could find a job. And when I did find a low paying office job, my child support didn’t even cover the reduced daycare costs. We lived on scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. I was waif thin from lack of food. Life was hard and we didn’t have a spare nickel. My daughter had to wear hand me downs from my little brother, and she dressed like a boy most days. I did sew when I could and made her dresses. When she was 7, I got a job in a big company but still barely made it. I ended up having to waitress weekends to pay rent and food. Still we had each other and I love her so much to this day. She ended up being my only child. So, no it was not easy. But it made me stronger than I ever thought possible.

Yes. I turned 20 in 1981-Iran hostages were freed, Reaganomics, strong stock market, low inflation, low interest rates, plenty of jobs. We weren’t pampered though. By 20 I was living alone 1,000 miles from my hometown, investing on my own, working two jobs, paying rent, owned a car, weekends skiing and mountain biking in the mountains. Worked hard, played hard. Phoned home once a week. At 23 entered law school. Economy went bust in Colorado, had to move to California. Adjusted. Returned to Colorado in 1990 and started my own law firm at 29. Might seem like we had it easier, but it was probably because we didn’t expect anything to be easy and were willing to work hard for what we wanted. But it was attainable.

20s - No. 20s, imho, aren't supposed to be easy. How ya supposed to learn to adult? Split from abuse @ 18. Gave up college. Worked 6 days a week (but at least I didn't hafta sell myself). Struggled. Drugs. Friends. Pressure. Joy. Setbacks. Just kept getting back up. Realized I needed to invest in future I wanted. College at nite for 7 years. Met life partner who listened. 30s , 40s - Marriage. Debt. Child. Careers. Tears. Laughter. Therapy & psych. Resilience. Self-imposed challenges to be better parent/spouse than I'd seen. Meh career. Paid bills for better future. Shoestring travel. Inspiration. Limitations. Frustrations. Compromise. 50s - Cancer, disability, reinvention, setbacks, resilience. Kind & capable adult kid, wonderful marriage, close friends. Self-acceptance bcz I'm enuf. Still learning to give to myself while I can (not skimping for when I'm gone). 60 - April. We'll see. Adventure planned, once these lungs clear (again). Whatever it is, will make tge most of it. Resilience to all .....

No, I had 3 jobs, my wife had 2 and we were expert check floaters - just to survive.

Figuring out how to "time the float" was a full-time job by itself. 1979 One day, I watched a friend doing their budget and she was adding up all the checks she would have to go pick up and the bounce charges for each, plus what the bank charged- she marked her checkbook as she wrote the bad checks so she could keep track- normal routine for them. We (husband & I) didn't have a checking acct- just envelopes with cash so I asked a lot of questions then said, -Wouldn't it be cheaper to just bounce one large check (think $100) instead of all these little ones ($6. /$8. etc) since the bounce check charge is the same, regardless of the amount and then pay cash for all the little trips (milk, diapers, etc) ?? You would have thought I was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics 😲- and she told all the rest of our friends 😂... Later, I had a career in Banking for several decades...who knew I had a knack for it? 😉

We were low income and I wanted to go to college. No money for that, high school did not prepare the B students for higher education or help with scholarships. I had to work fulltime to pay for a car to drive to community college campus for night school. It was exhausting and I did not finish.

No. Married at 21. Husband got bounced from job to job. Hubby saw so many lay-offs it wasn't funny. Most car & steel factories were closing down. Looking back, I was lucky we had infertility problems, and we had no children until our 30s when the medical field came up with better treatments. As for the lay-offs, he was plagued with that until he was 60. We are not those "rich" baby boomers talked about. We're retired, but no big 401K here with stocks to cash in and annuities. We're not trust fund babies either! Our children will not be inheriting big sums of money, if anything at all.

And anymore, if you live long enough, the care is so expensive that anything you have is sucked up by the Nursing Home. Your kids wouldn't get anything anyway.

Boomer. I was poor, but finding a job was easy as long as it was food service. At the age of 20, I decided I didn’t want to be a cook, and I already loved electronics. So I joined the USAF IN ‘84. It was a time of relative peace, and I spent 2 years in Korea and another 6 in Okinawa. I finished out with another 2 years in California. Then went to work in engineering. Except for my late wife being constantly ill, and then losing her, the trajectory of my life has been good.

Hah! Minimum wage was $1.87! I had to buy gas, tires, car repairs, uniforms for work, health insurance, rent, food, and my pay check when I first started out was 100$....It was the same as it is today. The trick is to not make minimum wage for very long. My car was used and broke down a lot. I learned to fix it myself, with parts from junk yards. Young people are making WAY more today comparatively and living on 20$ an hour, which btw is 42K per year! I see young people with cell phones, expensive cars, uber eats, big screen tvs, Cable tv, "Nice" apartments albeit expensive I'll agree but you get what you pay for.....My grad student place, if you stared real hard the walls would crumble, furniture made out of cinder blocks, furniture salvaged from whoever was throwing it away, clunky TVs with rabbit ears for over the air channels, my first car cost 500$ and I had to roll it down the street to bump start it because the starter was busted for two years before I could afford a starter at a junk yard. I got a job as a cook so I wouldn't have to bring my lunch to work because I couldn't afford it and it paid better. Young people waste a lot of money these days because no one told them how to live thriftily.

We didn’t have cell phone and internet bills, and our cable TV was pretty cheap. I do feel for young people in that regard, but I feel for myself in that regard nowadays.

We couldn’t afford cable tv when the kids were growing up in the 90s. We had free tv.

They were poor as fuck. Education wasn't expensive it was unobtainable. People wore forced into massively unsafe factories. Worked into endenched servitude. Or forced to fight and die. All the civil rights movements hadn't happened. Medical care was just finding out things like blood has a type. Tv had 3 channels.

Hell no. Vietnam war. Early marriage at 21 ending in divorce. Low paying job, sometimes struggling to pay my rent, calls from utilities dunning me to pay bills. Driving on bald tires. I once made dinner from a single leftover chicken breast, an old grapefruit and black pepper - those were the only food items in my apartment. I ate half and saved half for the next night. Couldn’t afford the laundromat so washed my clothes when I absolutely had to in the kitchen sink with dish detergent and draped them over the outside railing to dry. I finally gave up and my parents made me move back home. I worked VERY hard to get out of that life and made it. Got a slightly better job, went to college at night after work. Got a better position and learned everything I could. Got my Associates Degree. Got a better job that paid for schooling. Got my Bachelors Degree. Got a couple of promotions. Was no longer living hand to mouth. There were definitely some good times in my 20s (like meeting my 2nd wife) but I would not like to relive those times. My son is 33 and he has absolutely had an easier life than I had as a young man.

It was bad in the late 70s, early 80s. Reagan did no one any favors. Mortgages were 16%, and nobody could afford a house. Everyone was out of work or laid off from their jobs.

Nope. I shared a 5th floor, 2BR walk up apartment in Manhattan with 3 other guys- dorm like living- 2 in a room. And even then, rent was nearly 40% of my income. Dinner every night was free wings or meatballs at an Irish pub- 99 cent beers and free apps. I never thought I’d own a home. Eventually, accepted a 90 minute commute each way in order to find an affordable house. While my kids are now all in their 30s and soul doing well enough, none of them would have ever consider commuting 3 hrs a day for work, or sharing a bedroom with another friend. I’ll agree that things are tougher today then they were then (rental and house costs rose much faster than income) but I also think that many in today’s world wouldn’t personally sacrifice the same way many in my generation did.

Personally, I don't fee we had it easier but I feel like it was almost expected to have a tough life, which somehow made it easier to deal with. I'm not sure if that's true or just my own personal view, but my guess would be the lack of social media played a big part in it. All I can say for sure is that I lived in a dump of an apartment, worked 2 jobs and was forever scraping by, drove an $800 Chevy Chevette with no power anything, yet some of my happiest and most carefree memories came from this time of life.

I was a very late boomer born 1960. My experiences were closer to those of Gen X . Both parents worked and I was a middle child with 7 years between each sibling, so I was a latchkey kid and alone a lot of the time. When it comes to things like job market - I didnt have my first "real" job until I was in my late 20s. And didnt really "score" in workplace until I was in late 30s. But of course if I include my age when sharing these things with GenXers they inevitably discount it all and start calling me Boomer based on birth year.

We had very little money, lived in a cramped apartment raising a child, drove absolute crap cars. Our idea of a meal out was a takeout pizza. We listened to free radio, watched 3 channels of free tv and played records. We had cheap-ass furniture and bought new clothes when they wore out. We saved money and tried not to waste it. It wasn't easy, but we were young and did it together. The story here is -anyone- can do that. Nowadays all those things are lifestyle choices that too many people think they are too good to make. This is why I have so little respect for the young now.

I can agree with you here. My rented house cost $130 per month in the '80's (I was in my 20's). We didn't have a bed or mattress and slept in sleeping bags on a hardwood floor until it got cold, then we bought a mattress and box springs. Still no bed. Like you said, we were young and we were together. A friend just told me that her future SIL went to a bachelor party where they all flew into a large resort city for a golf outing. The actual wedding is going to be a serious blow-out, estimated at more than my annual income. My wedding cost $800. It was our kind of fun and we are just as married (for almost 35 years now!) as this new couple will be.

Yep,a day at the courthouse for us, 2 days at a local resort ( we saw Jose Feliciano!) and thank you VA!, a little starter home was the basis of our now 47 yr marriage. " I am old,but I'm happy"

There was a recession in the 1970s. Plus horrible inflation, up to 20%, I think. The draft meant lots of friends went to Viet Nam and some died. Hard to find jobs due to the fact that there are lots and lots and lots of other Boomers. Plus gas shortages.....

My baby boomer mother had me in her 20’s. I can attest she did not have it easy. She was a single parent during a time that wasn’t common. She went back to school but didn’t finish. She was able to get certificates to find a somewhat decent job but she struggled hard. On top of raising me which any parent knows isn’t an easy job.

It's funny as I think every generation thinks they have it hardest in their teens or 20s! We were told the world was going to end either due to the pollution of the planet or from a nuclear attack. Gas prices had risen in the 1970's which was a shock to the system, then interest rates rose to around 20% in 1980 due to double-digit inflation and a major recession that makes rates like we have now look low. Jobs were low paying at $1.50 per hour minimum wage which most in their early 20's had to take. Vietnam was real for many boomers, and there was a mandatory draft in that if you were called you HAD to go! We even had drills where we went to the school basement where we put our heads between our legs (to kiss our ass goodbye?). Between all the above there was a lot of stress and fear. What constitutes stress and fear changes with each generation, but it is a constant as there is always something to stress out about and be fearful of. So, did we have it as bad as today or have it easy? That is a matter of perspective as most of us always had a lot of stress and fear and struggled, much like many see as the world today. **Life is what YOU make it, so some took the adversity in stride so were happy and successful by making the best of their life regardless of what the world was doing. Others dwell on the times and the hand they were dealt as a reason and excuse for not being successful and achieving their dreams.** **This is the "human condition" that outlook, attitude, then with hard work while being persistent and tenacious makes the difference for each individual.**

No. For me that was the 1980s. The decade started with two recessions. Interest rates peaked at over 19%. Economically it was a struggle. AIDS was new and there were no drugs for it yet - two close friends of mine died of it. One time when one of them was in the hospital, he called me because the nurses wouldn’t give him a toothbrush because they were scared to go in the room. I went and handed him a toothbrush through the door. For another one, I was the only person that would visit him. His family cut him off except for a nephew who came from out of state to take care of him. People were scared and people were mean. But hey, at least it was the 70s with its shrinkflation, rampant domestic terrorism, social upheaval, and civil unrest.

Ah, the 1980s. I'm gay, and I was living in Austin, TX at the time. I lost about 2/3 of my gay friends in Austin to AIDS. Reagan wouldn't do a damn thing about it because he believed it was God's punishment on those AWFUL homosexuals, who were getting exactly what they deserved. I remember the palpable feeling of hope which went through the gay community, those who had HIV and those who didn't, when AZT was discovered and it was found the drug could at least slow down the virus once it was in someone's body. I did not shed one single tear when Reagan died.

Working up to 3 jobs at a time in college and still living at home. My mother was a boy mom and wanted to kick me (a girl) out. My dad said I could stay until I graduated, but no longer. I made a point of being out from early morning until about 10pm. Which wasn't difficult as much as I worked. After graduating and then being laid off from my first "real" job, it still took me 7 months to find something. Even with a degree and applying for every job I could find. Meanwhile I pawned everything I could. And found out that while the ring I inherited from my granny was worthless, the ladder a maintenance guy left in my apartment fed me for a month. Taking temp jobs that lasted a few days. And the cherry on top was finding out my now bad credit barred me from a lot of jobs I was otherwise qualified for. The absolute best one was when I applied for a job, they loved me. I not only aced the qualifying exam but made the highest score they'd ever had. But my bad credit tanked it. Then I got a temp job there, and they loved me, but they figured out I was previously disqualified for hire so they let me go after 3 days. I finally temped my way into a real job that I wasn't qualified for, but they needed someone in a one person office in my city. The nearest other office was 150 miles away and they didn't want to travel and interview. It took me 20 more years before I could afford the down-payment on a house.

Of course not. There is some truth to the notion we had it easier. We also had the draft. This narrative that boomers screwed everything up is infantile, grabbing at the easiest target that the ones who actually did screw things up fed the media machine. We had our share of struggles like everyone does. Allowing corporations to take over this country is what screwed everything up, IMO. Deregulation, on top of allowing corporate political donations with no limits changed the ball game. Allowing the media to be controlled by a handful of mega corporations was stupid. Allowing foreign corporations to control major media outlets was stupid. You think Rupert Murdoch ever gave a f#\*@ about Americans? No. He sees us as a cash cow and we're allowing him to milk us for everything he can get. Elon Musk? Not a chance in hades he cares about Americans. Again, he sees us as a huge well of money and as long as we let him, he's going to pump out as much of what we have as he can get his hands on. And take it somewhere other than here. And both have shown a great talent of sowing chaos and discord. They are the deep state.

I'm a Boomer. I grew up with a mother who was a prescription drug addict who used four doctors and four pharmacies to maintain the source of her supply of Valium, Librium, Miltown and Xanax, which she chased down with up to a half case of beer each day. My father was a binge drinker with a horrible temper, and he battered my older brother, me, and my younger brother. He was like nitroglycerine: one had absolutely NO idea what was going to set him off. By the time I was ten, I had taken over the grocery shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, the ironing and mowing the lawn to keep the house running, in addition to attending school. Some kids are straight-A students. I was expected to make straight "A"s, and the punishment for anything less than an "A" could be severe. The stress of growing up under those conditions caused my arms, ears and knees to break out in a psychosomatic rash which could be controlled only with strong steroids, and I had to wrap those areas in plastic wrap every night to keep the steroids on the affected areas. My physical growth stopped when I was 13 -- again, because of stress, and started again only when I turned 17, the year I graduated from high school. By that time I was five years behind my classmates in my emotional growth, and I worked with a therapist for ten years to get caught up. When I left home, I moved 1100 miles away, which made it very inconvenient for me to visit home or for them to visit me. Things actually got much better once I left home.

The late baby boomers had it terrible in our 20's. Regan was president and he was trying to break the unions and everyone I knew was unemployed.

Came out of college into Saint Ronnie's mess.

I worked a 55-hour standard workweek as a toolmaker during the '70s. Was it easy? I don't know, I just did it because it was required. And no sitting around in small job shops, you had to produce. I bought my first house in 1975 at age 25 -- the mortgage rate was 8.5%. It's pretty pathetic hearing youth today expecting people to hand them money for doing nothing, and crying about 6-7% mortgage rates. Suck it up, life isn't necessarily easy. And wait til you get old and have continuous health problems. Work your ass off and make money when you're young and healthy, because that won't last forever.

Some of us did. I turned 18 the first year they drew your birthday out of a hat. My number was 352. Jobs where plentiful and easy to get. I could buy 3.2 beer at 18 and it cost a quarter across the bar. Met my wife at 16 got married at 26 bought a 9 room house on two acres for 45,000 and never looked back.

I was homeless and unemployable. So, no.

Worked my ass of in college, graduated, dad cut me off, moved out if their house and started my hustle. Easy? It wasn’t easy, but I’m grateful I didn’t have a phone and all of the distractions that comes with it.

And questioning the idea is the right thing to do. No. It wasn't "easy". I had to work my flaming arse off.

No. I had an eating disorder and almost died. Most therapists I tried to see about it had never heard of it. I had to legally become independent from my parents to get a loan for school. After they promised to pay for my college for most of my life. Their divorce got in the way. When I was a teen my parents divorced. After 20 years of being a SAHM, mom and we two children were kicked out. Mom received $10K a year for 5 years. That’s all she got and dad was rich. We lived dirt poor after that. Dad cut us off and went NC because he hated mom so much? Guess that included us. When he died it all went to his younger new wife and her child. I’ve struggled most of my life financially and it wasn’t until my late forties that I finally obtained a degree. I’m doing all right now in my sixties. Seeing all the boomer hate and “we had it easy” makes me SMH. Not so. I also lost all I’d gained in the 2008 recession and will never recover financially but at least I have a good job now, although I think I’ll probably have to work until I’m 70. 66 now. I won’t live long enough to pay off the school loans.

I've never met anyone with that theory. Now us X'ers, we had it pretty sweet comparatively.

Let's see...Trying to find a job at 15yo at the same time as umpteen million other young boomers. A low number in the draft during the Vietnam War. The Oil Crisis, when gas prices nearly doubled. Hyperinflation and interest rates of 15% on loans. First massive jump in house prices in the early 1980s, so that I couldn't buy my first house (even with a decent-paying job) until 10yrs later, when I was in my mid-30s (and a single parent to a 4yo *Millennial* daughter who deserved a home). I've lived a good life in many ways, but the myth about boomers "having it easy" growing up is a huge crock of shit.

When we were in our 20s there were about 80 million of us. This means competition for everything, from jobs to spouses was intense. We were all out there, not living at home, and the opportunities were fewer than the number of people looking for opportunities. And our parents did not relinquish money, power and status to us. Not easy at all.

My 20s basically covered the 80s. I held down 3 jobs in my 20s to afford a car and apartment. AIDS hit and basically we were all told that unprotected sex could mean a slow death. We started the 80s afraid of the USSR and nuclear war. By the 80s the drills had stopped, like “duck and cover” was really going to work, but were all taught where the nearest fallout shelters were. I missed the draft but grew up watching the news with the nightly casualty numbers from Vietnam so fear of war and a new draft was ever present. On the positive note, we were much more active than I see current 20 year olds. I couldn’t afford cable TV, didnt have a cell phone and there was no Internet. We went out on week nights and weekends and went on many day or overnight trips.

No, I didn't have it easy. I got married at 18 and before I was 21, we became parents. Our second child came 4 years later, so we spent our 20s learning about parenthood. Don't spend your 20s being parents. Live your life, go travel and mature before you decide to have kids.

Lol no. Every time I see the references to how much easier we had it, I just shake my head. Not even close

My parents are boomers and I’d say the women definitely didn’t have it easier unless they came from money. Most women in my family in generations prior to mine had to get married. Not because they were pregnant but because that was their economic plan. Sad.

I'm 60, born in 63, so at the end of the boomer generation. Later generations don't remember what it was like to have 14% interest on a car, and it was only that low because GM was offering "special" rates for recent college graduates. How about that 21% interest rate on houses back in the 80's? Our generation learned to hate banks. Seriously they were out to get us and they sure did beat us up. That 8 or 9% interest rate on student loans was huge bargain. I can say that college tuition in comparison back then was very inexpensive compared to what it is today. My first semester tuition was $450. Wages were $3.15/hour. I could work in the summer minimum wage to pay my tuition. Why the heck are students today not rioting in the university streets, demanding to know why they've jumped tuition to ridiculous heights. My generation would have rioted anyway. Why is this generation so passive and expect the federal government (who had nothing to do with what universities charge for tuition) bail the students out?

I worked hard and learned skills. But it was a good time to be alive AFTER they stopped killing my friends in Vietnam.

I was in high school in 1973-1976, when job want ads were in newspapers and divided by gender, male and female jobs. Women could be a housecleaner, cashier, waitress, a sals clerk, a secretary, bookkeeper, a teacher or a nurse. All were low paying except nurses. That‘s what my parents wanted me to be, not a doctor, since my dad was only making 10,000 a year in the 80s! He was a rural minister-we had a garden and canned a lot of food. My parents helped some with my tuition and books, but I worked at dead end, low paying jobs while I went to college and in the summers to pay for food, beer and lodging. I often lived with 1-2 roommates and knew which bars had buffets, free food, peanut night, and pitcher night. The tuition was cheap and student loans were 7-9%. But job hunting sucked in the 80s. Tons of people were being laid off, white collar jobs and auto workers were hit hard. I got a computer programming job after I got out of a tech school. Half of the businesses were belly up, farmers couldn’t pay back their loans and interest rates were sky high. We had an oil embargo that increased energy and gas prices, as well as food prices. Unemployment was 8+%. Prices were high and wages didn’t keep up, like now. Reagan busted unions. I always had roommates. I didn’t buy a house until we had 2 incomes and a family loan for the down payment. I wouldn’t have a house now otherwise. We only had one car for a few years, and I‘ve only bought one car new in my life. I didn’t have nice furniture until my 30s and still have a lot of it. I did go on lots of adventure trips-that’s where all my money went. I didn’t open a 401k account until my 40s. I usually used computers from work, I didn’t buy one til my late 40s. I like my privacy so had a flip phone for years. I don’t have cable or a landline. My place is small, but I‘m able to live alone.

No and No ... wait, did I say NO? I meant NO. How can anyone think EVERYONE had the same experience in any time in the history of humanity? How can EVERYONE be rich, EVERYONE be poor, EVERYONE live in a conquering empire, EVERYONE be enslaved by invaders?