Lucky for me my parents were both “I didn’t save anything for retirement, my kids will take care of me when I’m older”, so I don’t have to suffer through this.
My grandparents from one side of the family left me nothing, and the other side left two weeks rent. I know the direct descendants come first but at least give the grandkids 15% or something, it would have helped so much. We’re all working twice as hard to afford half the lifestyle our parents had
My father would endlessly yap about his retirement plan and 401k and all shit like that, as if the US Dollar is going to still be a currency in circulation in 2030.
Reading this thread, I feel like having a nice rant:
“Waah, all our problems are caused by the boomers! They’re all rich and selfish, they had the easy life and got all the money and the houses and ruined the environment while our lives were ruined!” Keep believing that and stay distracted! while the oligarchy laughs it’s ass off at you.
Pay no attention to all those poor boomers who could never get a house, who are scraping to get by–those are the exceptions that prove the rule, they must have been especially lazy or stupid boomers, if they’re not rich like the vast majority of boomers! Yeah, that’s it.
Pay no attention to the corporations that have bought up all the housing so they can rent it to you at any price they like, that has nothing to do with housing costs–it’s the boomers who were too selfish to leave you their house when they died who are to blame! Yeah, that’s it.
Pay no attention to the oil companies and big corporations that control congress to keep their profits private and costs socialized so they can spew their effluent into the environment as the world burns and the ice caps melt, it’s the boomers’ fault! Boomers only started the environmental movement and demonstrated and pressured the government into creating the EPA, Clean Air Act, and many more, but so what, all the bad things are still their fault.
Stay distracted! Keep believing what you’re told and blaming who you’re told to blame as you get older and older and the boomers all die, and then enjoy how Gen B and Gen C, etc. hate you and rail against you and blame you for all their problems. Why didn’t you–yes you! stop global warming? You could have, but you didn’t give a fuck. You who had it so easy, living your selfish life with your fresh water and electricity and air conditioning and video games and all those nice things, while their lives were ruined? It’s all your fault!
Never the oligarchs, though. Not them.
[I can also do another version of this for the right wingers, substituting immigrants for boomers].
Yeah, I know of plenty of boomers that have had to delay retirement because they simply didn’t have enough money. I’ve known several that finally retired, late, then passed away a few months later. Never got the chance to enjoy retirement at all.
My parents were working part time jobs, instead of relaxing and enjoying retirement, until a few years ago. Those jobs were having obvious effects on their health and well-being, too; I was convinced at least one of them was going to pass away before long. Fortunately, they’re now in a position now where at least they don’t have to work - but my brothers and I sent them money to replace their HVAC system when it died a few months ago, so it’s not like they’re rolling in dough or will leave us some huge inheritance.
How much would it suck to get to 70 and realize you still have to keep working? I mean, if you enjoy it and want to keep working, great, go for it. But to be forced to do it? That would suck. It doesn’t matter what generation you are.
Yeah my parents:
explicitly told me they’re giving me nothing
told me they’d give my hypothetical grandchildren something because (and I cannot express to you enough that they explicitly stated this OUT LOUD WITH WORDS) that they would love the grandchildren more than me. My mother has talked to me at length about how she already likes these people that don’t exist more than me.
Are constantly critical of my appearance. When I tried to wear makeup as a child they didn’t want me to look “promiscuous” (because somehow using an SAT word makes it ok to tell your 10-year-old they look like a whore). My mother was constantly critical of how short clothing looked on me because I was so tall or how my chest looked in shirts because it was too big. Now that I’ve gotten those tits removed and I dress more masculine even though I never even really “came out” as anything because I just don’t care enough about gender that’s also not ok because I’m not acting my gender.
They don’t comfort me when I’m upset. They either tell me I’m upset about something stupid or say that I should be worried about more other things. I worked in Healthcare while in nursing school through the first half of COVID them graduated mid-pandemic and every time I’d mention stuff about how broken our Healthcare system is they’d want to have a “fun debate” about MAGA shit then make fun of me for getting emotional. One time I was sitting suicide watch because a guy kept ripping the ventilator mask off and begging me to let him die. The only thing that got him to keep it on was me summing up the plots of the last five books I read because after the first four hours I ran out of things to talk to him about to keep him distracted. Y’all. They thought my PTSD flashbacks were funny.
My parents are both rocket scientists but they’re not sending people to the moon or Mars. I don’t know how they reconcile a belief in Jesus with arms dealing but I’m pretty sure those dead Palestinian kids are paying for my nursing degree.
Anyway I unloaded the exact content of all those PTSD flashbacks on them, told them their voting choices were going to lead to them dying in a ditch full of maggots, then dumped all the shit my whole family talk behind each other’s backs in the groupchat and changed my phone number. Its been a year and I haven’t felt the need to drink since.
Love me? You don’t even like me. Die alone, assholes.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
Those are the sort of parents I left in the past, I feel you with a lot of that.
As for the grandkids, feel free to use my excuse. “I can’t afford them”. (Partially because I have to support one of them, but also kids are freaking expensive). So they can whine about not having grandchildren all they want. Kids are now 800k+, who can do that?
Well they’ve said they would support me IF-
I just went ahead and told them it’s because they didn’t stop my cousins from doing weird sexual shit to me.
“Fuck you, I got mine.”
-Boomers on everything from pensions to affordable housing and education to inheritances to having a habitable planet to live on
The attitude you describe is, I believe, the result of capitalist and religious propaganda that reinforces individualism rather than collectivist and non-religious yet spiritual philosophies. Those like Hinduism, Confucianism, Zen and Toaism.
Not to sell any one in particular but the common thread in the East is a different perspective than a boss in the sky eternally judging each individual.
Even if you aren’t religious, advertising will tell you you’re a special, unique and seperate individual. Desiring to stand out as famous, beautiful, smart, funny, strong etc is just a trap but one desired by many. Unfortunately, to be above others, then others must be below you. To be rich, there must be poor.
An understanding of this force of balance shows that to minimise the extremes of poverty you must minimise the extremes of wealth.
The East sees our true self is the larger whole of which we as Humanity are a small part of. While your name may seperate you conceptually, none of us are separate from the air we breath or the stars we see. Nothing is seperate even though the mind feels and believes it is so. Are you really in control? Do you beat your heart? When you make a decision, do you first decide to decide?
I only say all this because, when one genuinely switches thinking this way, then naturally you want to be generous and caring towards all others because you see everything as yourself includeing all that is non human.
These philosophies are not the complete answer to our problems because many of these philosophies were born in China and, even though it’s embedded in their culture, they are still struggling like everyone else. But a more modern widespread common understanding of the true nature of the situation may be beneficial.
Yeah, my parents go on regular vacations all over the world, have redone their kitchen THREE times in the last decade (along with every room of their entire 3000 sq ft house), and can’t be bothered to help me out when I encounter a major expense.
I don’t know what they think is going to happen when they are too old to take care of themselves, but I can barely afford to take care of my immediate family so there’s no way in hell I could support them too. Hope they set aside some of those fat stacks of cash for a nursing home because my retirement plan is dying poor at my workdesk (or on the street if I become too old to work).
Minor suggestion. Try dying poor at your boss’s desk. You have nutrients and minerals that can be extracted for our use, don’t be a hog.
This is my parents. I found out from a relative that after my mom suffered an injury, that her husband was spending $2000 a month on fast food. Literally TWOOOOO THOUSAND dollars on fried chicken a month.
When the topic came up of them writing a will, they said that I’d be getting the family pictures. That’s it.
Holy shit that’s a lot of chicken
Edit: if he’s getting a 10 dollar meal that’s 200 orders of chicken. A 31 day month with 3 meals has 93 meals meaning over double what a person typically eats. If you get a 18 piece bucket looks like the price might be between 62 and 100 bucks. Let’s say 62 for fun that’s approximately 32.25 buckets or 516 pieces of chicken a month. I mean I like chicken but damn not that much
But he’s going Cartman on those buckets
I want my parents to enjoy the money they worked their entire life for. I believe work allows to live, and not the contrary where you live to work. I would 10000x rather my parents enjoy the effort they put for their money instead of dying of exhaustion without being able to use their money
Posting this as infuriating seems grossly entitled. Many of us in these younger generations won’t have excess to give to the next generation, why should we feel that is owed to us?
You may be right, but at the same time, you getting an inheritance makes it a lot easier for your kids to get one too some day.
So much this. In my country my parents generation could afford buying a house on two middle class incomes when they were end of 20s early 30s. In my generation that is only possible with generational wealth.
I will never be able to own a home because the cost of a down payment goes up with the market, while my saved money’s value stays constant (goes down with inflation). It is literally impossible for me to save it fast enough, even if I saved $1000, which is half of what I pay in rent, per month.
Assuming you’re in the US you should know that first time home buyers can put basically 0% down. You need to pay mortgage insurance until you hit 20% equity in your home but that isn’t terribly expensive when you compare it to the mortgage, insurance, and taxes. The 20% down rule is really only if youre selling an existing property to buy a different one. No bank is expecting a first time buyer to put 20% down.
I want to say the total amount I paid out of pocket at closing for my house was like $3000 back in 2018. So it’s still spendy but the down payment isn’t as much of an obstacle as people make it out to be. The bigger obstacles are just having a good credit score and a history of stable employment.
As much as I dislike not having savings and something to hand down, this generational wealth crap is a big part of the inequality we are living in now. The more this is normalized the harder it makes it for anyone that doesn’t have it to succeed. As someone that doesn’t have it I’d personally like to see society bend toward making things more accessible for those without the silver spoons.
We won’t have it directly because the boomers have decided consistently across the decades to leave younger generations with nothing. This is just the latest version of that, except now they’re doing it directly to their own children and yeah, it can smart. It’s valid to express frustration at a generation that was handed everything, is leaving nothing, and now they’re doing it in a more personal way.
Every other generation before and after them seem to be on the same page as far as accumulating enough to leave for the next generation so they can have better lives than you had. But not the Boomers, never them. They’re going to get theirs and they deserve to have ALL of it. The next gen can earn their own way just like they had to, after all. Even though they voted away all opportunities to do that, and passing along generational wealth has always been a big key to any kind of success.
My grandpa wants to go to space in his lifetime, but doesn’t want to spend everything he’s been saving for my us. I’m like…dude. You worked your ass off all this time. Go to fucking space. I think it’d be badass.
Dying happy and accomplishing your dreams is much better than any amount of money because money is just a number. I have a good job and family and enough money that I don’t really have to think before buying something (even though for most i still do because I don’t like wasting and impulsiveness is a bad thing). I’ve seen and heard way to many stories of people delaying their retirement by “just one more year” and that ends up the year that they either get very ill, hurt themselves or just plain die, always with a huge pile of money. Money also shouldn’t be spent when old, because you cant enjoy it to the same degree
Right? All of us are doing okay. Times are tough, but we’ll make it through.
At the end of the day, I just want to see my grandpa happy and want him to have no regrets. Thankfully, he is comfortably retired and has been for like 15 years, but who knows how much longer he has. I hope he ends up doing it, but I think he feels too guilty.
Sure and that’s fine, but then we need to stop as a society assuming that generational wealth is a thing, and that parents will help their children. Parents do not help with down payments like they used to, or with other major life events, and so we need to assume everyone is starting from zero
How can we be reaching this conclusion, with all the accumulated wealth in the world? How can we be seriously believing everybody should start at zero? I can’t believe what I’m reading here. Generational wealth is absolutely a thing, we inherit everything from the past. As a species, we inherit the wealth of the previous generation. Where are we imagining it goes? Given that it exists, why are we not entitled to benefit from it? There is so much wealth in the global economy, the issue is of distribution.
What on earth are you talking about? Generational wealth is not a binary thing. There are people rich enough to pass their fortune to their kids and then there are ones who can’t. That’s how it has always been and that’s how it’s always going to be.
Sure, there are those parents. And there are a lot of parents like the ones in the article. Saying it isn’t so and covering your ears doesn’t change the fact that this is an experience a lot of people are having.
Well, that really depends on the society. I don’t live in one that makes such assumptions. It feels a little bit entitled to assume something like that, but that could also just be cultural differences between developed and non-developed countries. The former have social security and safety nets, rendering an inheritance less important and much less prominent. Feels like the only inheritance worth even thinking about is if you have millions in excess of what you need for living, and in developed countries that is very much less prominent than in developing countries
The big caveat to this is if it is a lot of money. If it more than a few million it should be passed down and someone can live off of interest and some good investments.
I know a guy who technically doesn’t have to work at all because his family has been passing down a huge amount of money though the generations. I guess his great great grandfather struck it rich and now everyone is set. How the fortune is maintained is though legal stuff tied to the money in the form of wills. Basically it prohibits crazy spending and sets rules.
My dad just died destitute and my mother will probably have nothing when she passes. I’m ok with that, I am my own person. People complaining about losing out on inheritance are fucking spoiled brats. “ you spent the money you worked for? Boo hoo hoo, I wanted your money though “
This is a flippant and unproductive comment that ignores the fact that we have a culture of passing down what you have to your children so that they can have a better life than you had - something many of these boomers benefitted from.
I get not everybody is entitled to it but it’s kind of considered a major goal for a lot of Americans to do that for their children. Which means it reflects poorly on the boomers who have said “nah fuck you” after also pillaging our future for their wealth.
Seems like completely consistent behavior, and it reflects accurately on them.
My boomer dad: you probably won’t get anything because I’m paying [i.e. using my retirement] to take care of my [100 year old] mother
Me: that’s understandable
I never really considered an inheritance an option. Seems so off-worldly to me, even though I am by no means from a poor family, just lower middle class.
I think the entire concept of inheritance is something more prominent in developing countries like US or India, where there isn’t a well-established safety nets already in place by the government itself.
Of course we have inheritances too, I know a few who got something, but most of it gets taxed away upon receiving or vanishes covering the deceased’s debts, so I’ve never heard anyone I know get anything other than maybe a weekend vacation in the city next over or maybe a small chunk of student debt away.
Then again I’m not very well-off, and I do know there are the upper class families that have a long standing generational wealth passing over to the new generations. I guess it really depends on the circles one’s in.
But I still think it’s not as common here, at least I’ve never considered it to be normal, and I’ve known well people from upper middle class too.
Many people inherit a house or a flat
Unless they’re the sole recipient of a will (doesn’t seem very common), at least here those are almost always liquified and proceeds split according to the will. Doesn’t amount to much usually, though it might be different in countries that have very large and expensive cities.
So I had a relative who passed, but saw it coming and tried to make some moves to make sure his only son was set up to take care of his wife, because his wife had never really had to “be an adult” and went her entire life without handling any bills or finances or anything. So when he passed at least his middle aged son would be there to handle things including their house.
So he died and sure enough, she couldn’t handle independent living. So they decided to sell the house and she’d move in with another relative. So the rest of us are thinking “oh good, at least they cashed out in this crazy high real estate market to have a bit of a cushion”.
However, no one thought about how little the middle aged son had to worry about things like housing and stuff. He never had to buy or rent a house, he had a hand me down trailer parked on a relatives land. He always had a used car gifted to him by and other relative getting rid of it. So he had no idea what he was doing either, thought a seller’s agent was a scam to take their money, and they ended up selling the whole house and land for about $50k before any one else had any idea that they were even thinking of selling.
As well liked as he is, so much frustration when everyone has to take on a burden to help them and they make such a huge mistake that could have made things so much easier.
Interesting to have a relatively large family to see all the scenarios play out. Also have a relative that is spending all his money and is mortgaged to his eyes, and another relative who lived like a pauper who turned out to have a couple million in liquidity in her 80s because she wanted her kid to be surprised when they got hit with a big inheritance.
People used to buy land and build a house on it and that was the inheritance. It could then be cut into smaller parcels and new homes built for the kids if they stayed close.
And of course if you were wealthy it was businesses and trust funds which still occurs a lot these days.The middle class was partially stripped of its wealth by each generation giving less to the next
I’m from US and I re-read “developing countries like us or India” like 3 times and then I realized that you’re absolutely right.
I am with you I never considered that an option and I don’t want to think about it either. But I do think our parents gets/got a lot (depending on how our grandparents lived) more than we will. My grandparents left house and money and even a vacation house so my parents could put the sould houses and furnitures money into building their own house. My mom even gave me and my sister a bit to use to buy our first apartments. It is still money even tho it is pretty sad way to “earn” money… I assume your friends parents lived in rented apartments if there was not much left.
Honestly, I’m young, and I know older people that would spend it better than their failkids.
That’s not everyone, of course, but maybe instead of blaming people born at a slightly different time we should focus on being mad that there’s no non-hereditary path to wealth in the first place.
Damn, I wish my parents had an inheritance to waste.
my kids will take care of me when I’m older
with what?
Well that’s the question now isn’t it! But I’m sure I’ll be a failure if I’m unable to take care of (pay for) them
Not to worry, you’ll be a failure if you do
Hey, now you sound like them!
A large heavy wooden club?
clang
Bring out your dead!
That’s how I inherited my tremendous fortune
You’d be completely wrong. In my case.
