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Janet Huey's avatar

Awwww, if the process of buying a house makes you cry, how in the heck are you going to maintain one?

Pleez.

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Catherine's avatar

Remember, these are the snowflake generations!

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Janet Huey's avatar

Yes, I am aware of that, who knows how many will get their college loans forgiven...

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Kitcat's avatar

They really are the snowflake generations in many ways, sad to say. And now of course, they only want to work four days a week (apparently, we're trying that out) but of course continue to make their full salary, benefits, etc.. I look back and wonder how both my husband and myself worked like maniacs from the time we got work permits (age 16), to during school, to after college was completed, to the time we retired. We moved all over the place, finally bought three houses (sold two), owned numerous cars, got numerous loans (and paid them back), and saved money in the interim. I wonder, how the heck did we do all that and still managed to work five and sometimes six days a week? Amazing!

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Janet Huey's avatar

and without crying?:)

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Kitcat's avatar

Definitely without whining OR crying! :) Remember, there's no crying in baseball (A League of Their Own) and for us, no crying in life itself. I mean, we were expected by our parents (the WWII generation) to get out there and work, because they were not about to see us sit on our behinds, playing on our cell phones (which of course didn't exist back then), and do nothing. If we wanted money, we were expected to get out and EARN it. I began earning money by age 12 babysitting, ironing clothes, and cleaning houses. Yes, that was a different day, but still and all. My husband worked at various menial jobs (busboy, custodial, etc.), then in summers between college years, at a welding plant. I think the younger generations have it WAY TOO EASY, and their parents don't expect enough of them! Like I stated, both my and my husband's parents were of the WWII generation, and there was you know what to pay if you didn't try and make something of yourself! It was EXPECTED! And as for buying houses, cars, etc., we did it on our own through blood, sweat and tears.

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Jango's avatar

So, who dropped the parenting ball? Your generation or the kids you raised?

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Kitcat's avatar

Huh? My parents (the WWII Generation - the so-called Greatest Generation) raised us - my husband and myself - to work hard, etc.). My generation raised OUR kids to work hard - at least my husband and I raised OUR kids that way. How others raised THEIR kids, we have no control over. I think overall however, the generations that came along in the seventies, eighties, nineties and so on, were often raised to believe (not only from their parents but by society as a whole) that the world owed them a living. It so doesn't. Does EVERY person in the Millennial group and those that came afterward think that? Of course not, but a great many do. Far more than in MY OWN generation. The idea of a four day work week, sitting and working from home (often a metaphor for doing nothing) and a lot of the other things the "Entitlement Generations" seem to live by, are not going to do our country, as a whole, any good. The world owes no one anything. No one.

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Jango's avatar

Must be difficult being the only "perfect" specimens of humanity and parenting on the planet. I'm sorry for you that you think that way and that you think everyone is such a miserable failure. Somewhere in the Bible it says something about removing the PLANK from thine own eye before trying to remove the SPECK from another's eye. Just sayin'

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Kitcat's avatar

Seems to me that someone peed in your Wheaties and you just want to fight with everyone who comments unless they share YOUR views on EVERYTHING.. Life's too short for all this angst you display. And if you work until you croak, well then you do. As for my husband and myself, we are happily retired. Have a nice day.

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Jango's avatar

I always have a wonderful day, you just don't like being called out on your "we're better than everyone else bullsh--." Your first sentence describes you perfectly...

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Catherine's avatar

I was also raised by parents who lived through the Great Depression. My Dad was a WW II veteran.

Society as a whole has helped make the youth soft. Lower expectations and parents who thought they had it so rough, they rarely made their children earn what the children wanted.

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Jango's avatar

And your parents and grandparents and great grandparents thought you and your kids were/are soft. You do know social security and Medicare are NOT rights. Those programs could be shut down in a heartbeat. There's the seeds of the entitlement generation. Right smack in boomer territory. I'd put the 11 year old and the 13 year old in my life up against any six of you and we'd see what generation is the best, fastest, smartest, toughest, etc. Maybe you should give up all of the things you take for granted today and go back to no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no cars, no TV, no internet, grow your own food, etc. Give up your ss check and Medicare.

There are lots of youngsters that know how to survive in almost any conditions, using just what is at hand. You'd be sitting there crying and wondering why isn't someone coming to help me. Talk about snowflakes.....boomers as a whole are the whiniest generation of the lot. Sure a few are decent, but most are crybabies.

I started working at 10 and I'm still at it. Probably will be til I croak.

Instead of beefing about the youngsters, why don't you get out there and get involved in an after-school or summer program and teach them basic skills? Oh, yeah, i know, you're retired and too lazy to go help the next generations.

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Darrell's avatar

IтАЩm sorry, but I laid into social security and Medicare for 50+ years. I donтАЩt really care whoтАЩs kid is fastest, smartest or any other ist. I grew up poor and worked hard to be able to retire at 62 and not take SS until full retirement age. IтАЩm not planning to regress. Like you I started working at 10.

Guess what IтАЩm saying is to be careful when you make generalizations.

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Jango's avatar

No worries. We've all paid into it. I'll never "retire", because I love what I do, so it's not really work. I was just letting her know social security and Medicare are not guaranteed. Though most boomers seem to think they're entitled to it. I'm already "retired" but still doing what I love.

And as far as the rest, I was pointing up her generalizations, as in trying to crow about her and her boomer generation, and how great she thinks she is, and every generation after the boomers is, in her eyes, a bunch of losers and slackers. I really don't care what they did or didn't do. But they certainly are not such a great generation. Most whine so much about everything,, they make the kids look good

No, not every boomer, I know some that are great, but there are far too many that think they are the only people who count. She even went so far as to call her parent's generation the "so-called" greatest generation. She just seems to be a bitter and jealous woman with a nasty attitude.

So, summing up, who cares what the youngsters are doing for work, or how many hours a week they do or don't have to work.

She may think she's all that, but she's just another body plodding along the earthen path to the same small plot of real estate everyone occupies.

We live in paradise here, and make good money and love our "work".

Too bad not everyone can live such a charmed lifestyle. There'd be way less stress and way more relaxation and happiness. Hope you have a super night.

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Kitcat's avatar

Amen, Darrell, amen! However, I think the angry poster to whom you're replying just wants to fight ceaselessly about all of this. You know, argument for the sake of argument. Who knows, perhaps they have no one in their life who will listen to them harangue. There's usually one of these on every board. Just saying. And I know what you mean about paying into SS and Medicare for decades. And ahem, apparently that "other" poster is informing us that we should expect nothing because it's NOT guaranteed.

Wow, when you get to our age you need someone younger to enlighten you to this fact. (Yes, sarcasm.) That "other" poster seems very much on the defensive, taking everything personally. People like that I try and avoid (and most of the time I am successful.) Guess I wasn't totally successful this time around.) Life is way too short for fighting and continually disagreeing with EVERYONE on a message board, as every senior knows! Or should!

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Kitcat's avatar

Indeed, so true, Catherine.

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Janet Huey's avatar

Exactly..raised the same way.

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Kitcat's avatar

I think most of us who are Boomers were probably raised the way you and I were. :) Apparently, others here think differently, or that somehow we dropped some ball along the way. My husband and I raised our kids to excel, work hard, and not expect handouts or believe they were entitled to anything! My guess is you did the same.

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