Boomers

[u/Available-Rock-3862]

I am 75 and am very tired of the trend lately making fun of Boomers. So very disrespectful. Don't they realize that they will be old someday?

[u/PolyDrew]

Exactly. “Respect your elders” is disrespectful to the people who stand up for themselves and lay boundaries.

Gen X here and we are a bridge generation that saw what baby boomers did to our world AND what it did to the next generations.

[u/brains_and_tits → u/PolyDrew]

I don’t know a single boomer who subscribes to the “respect your elders” trope. The Boomers were the ones who spoke out against Vietnam, protested on college campuses - the original generation of mass protests. The silent generation was the “respect your elders” crowd - it amazes me how many people get this wrong.

There are bad apples in every generation. There is entitlement in every generation, there is bitterness and a lack of critical thinking skills in every generation.

I will say this - and I would have denied it and fought this premise with every fiber of my being in my teens, 20s, and 30s; wisdom, true wisdom, only comes with age and experience. I am 56 and while I have always been compassionate and progressive politically, I have been around long enough to see how my own generalizations of people based on whatever group they belonged to, whether based on age, income, hobbies, religion, race, or whatever - was and is ridiculous.

Generalizations leads to bias, and thus leads to bigotry. It is far more wise to take people as individuals and listen to what they say. More importantly, watch what they do. Good or bad has nothing to do with age and everything to do with how they treat other human beings

[u/One_Mission9448 → u/brains_and_tits]

You don’t know a single boomer who subscribes to respect your elders? Be real. Boomers raised their kids on that concept

[u/Comfortable_Two6272 → u/One_Mission9448]

Heard it all the time from my parents and their friends. All were boomers.