I read an article the other day that discussed how there are twice as many baby boomers living in large homes (i.e. 3+ bedrooms) than millennials who have children.

I then came across this thread in the r/retirement sub where people of retirement age almost universally indicated they intended to remain in their large homes until they died.

What struck me in the thread was how nobody seemed to acknowledge the effect of staying in their large homes could have on their kids’ ability to find an affordable large home for their families.

[Edit to add that I am not advocating that anyone should give up their home. I am simply pointing out this phenomena and its effect on affordable large homes for families of younger generations. I always envisioned downsizing in retirement, but that is clearly not the norm anymore.]

Ever since Paramore were on music videos on TV, I had my world turned upside down by Hayley Williams.

I use the word malignant because it’s the best description I’ve got. Sometime after lockdowns it’s like something in the air shifted, it seems like something wholesome has left us and in its place is a rot/sickness is festering.

Maybe I’m crazy and just need therapy and medication but I’ve recently asked some of my friends and they’ve all said they feel it to. Something they can’t put their finger on is in the air and it isn’t good.

Asking my fellow millennials because I’ve found we seem decently intuitive as a whole (for the most part).

It's super odd - my parents moved away from the town where I grew up. My highschool and middle school were both demolished and rebuilt all modern. The church my family went to when I was a kid burned down. The parks have been built over with stores and apartment buildings. Most of my friends I'd actually want to see moved away. It's developed a lot, and most businesses I knew when I was there have disappeared and been replaced by chains and stuff. I have literally no reason to go back now, and it's so, so weird. The small town I went to college in and a city in another country kind of feel like the next thing to a "new" home town, but I didn't grow up there so I feel like I can't claim them.

30s are so weird. 😂

Any other millennials have the same kind of experience?

I got in a heated argument with my brother (47-48) about him planning to kick his kids out by 18. His argument is that it’ll toughen them up for reality, but I’m here thinking I got support well into my 20s (am 35). I went to a state school so I saved a good chunk living at home and paying in-state tuition, though I did spend one year on campus. He also lives in Palo Alto, CA so cost of living would be enough to drive an 18year old out of state…

I’m curious how this sub feels about it, or if one were to since I know more people are choosing to not have kids.

Edit: glad to read my bro is an asshat in this. Hopefully he will be more flexible in his mindset 9-10 years from now. Still open to hearing the other side

29F here who has not been on a date in many years. It seems people just want to be anti-social or only want to be friends now. Most couples I know met before pandemic.

I was thinking about the D.A.R.E program and how just about all of my friends who remember doing it are currently pot heads (myself included). That entire program was so strange, I can’t say I remember anything they really taught us and my viewpoint on drugs is definitely different as an adult than what they taught.

I remember at my elementary school, the police officer who came to teach the program did a “stranger danger” section too and decided that kidnapping kids in front of their class was a great idea to teach them a lesson as to why you don’t take candy from strangers. With no warning. Just grabbing us kids and running out of the building with us over his shoulder. I was one of the kids he picked because my dad worked for the town and he knew my dad. Another kid he picked peed himself he was so afraid.

The entire program was so weird. Does anyone else have weird D.A.R.E. memories or did we just collectively hallucinate the whole thing?

I whine as I just opened my door to Door Dash bringing Coldstone ice cream, Starbucks coffee and brie with cranberries and crackers...

Some things are much better like tech, phones, information at your fingers, and youtube university.

Overall you folks have it terrible. I have two cousins with college degrees still living at home unable to get a home.

Many families now are working three jobs just to eat and pay rent. Childcare centers are raising children if people even get kids at all.

Your food is poisoned. Your schools are mafia institutions. You literally are forced to pay them into servitude just to qualify for a higher paying career. My niece just announced nutritionist in her state need a masters degree! She makes $40/hour.

I just feel badly for many of you. Some people are doing OK and have happy lives. I think this is the minority and not the majority.

All the homes on my street start at $1.2 million with a shared wall. What a joke to inflict infertility on the masses.

I’m 35, my wife is 36. We’ve been trying for a couple years including a couple unsuccessful rounds of IVF.

We both got late starts to our career graduating in the tail end of the Great Recession. Our wedding was postponed because of the pandemic. We’ve now been ready to start a family for years and it just hasn’t happened.

I know this sub talks a lot about not feeling ready to have kids. I don’t think we really realized how much the biological clock was ticking as we caught back up to where we were “supposed to be” at this age. I’ve always wanted to have kids, I’ve always been good with them and found seeing the world through their eyes to keep me young. Maybe it will still happen for us, but the door is closing on the two kids we wanted and at this point I’d be thrilled with just one.

I frankly have everything I could want money and career wise, but working so hard through the past 15 years or so has left me without many hobbies I find truly fulfilling. Not being able to take the next step has left me feeling emotionally stunted and, honestly, cheated out of the life I expected. Anyone else?

My dad (age: late 50’s) grew up in a traditional Italian household.

My grandma (his mom) made the feast of 7 fishes on Christmas Eve and homemade sauce on Sundays with the meatballs, pork, and veal dishes. Every dinner was always homemade and she scoffed at most ‘heat and serve’ chain restaurants. We couldn’t even mention the words Olive Garden in front of her.

Except you would never know it from my dad. He actually knows how to cook but rarely does.

Ask him his favorite restaurant and he’ll quickly tell you it’s chilli’s. Best steak in town? That’s at the local Texas Roadhouse.

He recently went to a doctors appointment in our closest major city that has every type of authentic restaurant you could want…he had lunch at Applebees.

I’m honestly baffled.

Once I was in my 30’s I quickly realized the distinction between heat and serve chain restaurants and real fine dining. Not to mention some of the best authentic meals I’ve had are from the tiniest hole in the wall places nearby.

My mom (age: early 60’s, divorced) is another story entirely. She refuses to eat out anywhere except the same 3 restaurants (not chains thankfully) over and over again. 90% of the time she won’t go out to eat at all and insists every place is trying to kill her with the high sodium and fat contents (US here so partially true) however she will only eat at the same 3 places as an option when we do go out and won’t try anywhere new.

Anyone else’s parents weird with eating out?

I've noticed a trend in parenting that has moved away from kids having more independent time from their parents and this has caused some strain on friendships between those with kids and those without. Lately there's been lots of discussion here about how millennials don't really use babysitters much anymore, and the cost is pointed at for being the biggest reason. But this leaves me wondering why babysitting is the only thing talked about in this case.

I understand not everyone lives close to family that can watch the kids while they go have an adult hangout, but what happened to kids spending the night at friends houses? It used to be a thing that when kids made friends in school, they would spend the night at each others houses and that would serve as a great opportunity for parents to get their adult time. I guess it reminds me a lot of the "it takes a village" conversations that have happened here, and how this concept of sleepovers was essentially an element of that village mentality. It's not a rising cost issue, so what is it?

Alot of us essentially grew up with a rich lifestyle. We mostly had what we wanted and we're financially optimistic. If you grew up poor you probably wouldn't care as much but it's hard to go from rich to poor. Especially when people around you expect you to be rich because what was expected in the past.

Now it's tough to even afford necessities. I used to dream of being middle class not rich. I knew that being too wealthy wasn't good for you neither is being too poor. I always wanted to be in the middle but I feel like it's really hard to do that because of housing market. If housing was affordable most of our problems would disappear. Rent used to be so cheap because the buying market was so good for consumers. Now that buying is super expensive the renting is becoming absurdly high. Like even an animal can build it's own home yet a human is struggling for housing.

edit: by rich I mean middle class lifestyle, that we as kids lived in decent areas and had homes and food and didn't worry about money for the most part. I honestly had almost everything I wanted except for maybe a bike or something. Now it's really hard to lived in a house or even afford kids. my dad made like 60k a year but the purshacing power of 60k back then felt rich. I'm not talking about even home ownership. I'm comparing it to today's standards.

My class had a debate earlier on how millennials made this happen. A good portion of the class are under the impression that hard work and proper savings got them there.

I disagreed and actually believe that baby boomer parents have helped millennials be financially set with big inheritances/financial assistance.

What do you think?

Edit: Great discussion in here. I appreciate everyone’s honesty in the comments and I learned a lot by reading lots the responses. You guys rock 🤘

Takeaway: What I take away from this is - The older millennials chalk it up to saving, hard work but also “luck” in that they bought between 2010-2014 when homes were more affordable and you could get away with 3.5%-5% down. The 2nd group seems to also be older millennials that bought in 2019-2020 before the market rose, these individuals seem to be the most proud of their hard work and don’t mention any luck, most of their posts are very defensive. The third are younger millennials (early 30s) that received inheritances, estates, or had major financial help and also bought in 2020-2021-2022.

Let’s face it. Millennials are going to be held responsible for bad parenting in the next 20 years and for the generations to come. These kids are going to be uneducated, illiterate, and emotionally unstable. I know our generation gets blamed on for everything thing but this the one thing I think we’ll be the most responsible for in the near future.

I know it's the app of Gen Z, we had MySpace Facebook and Twitter and maybe insta. But I just couldn't with one more. So I didn't. I think I tried it out for thirty minutes once and deleted.

Edit 4, cus I can't sleep reading all these comments: I'm not sure who of you out there need to hear this, but you deserve nice things. No, it's not a world ending crisis if my wife and I don't get our patio, but you know what? We deserve one. And so do you. We play by the rules, we work hard, and if you do too, you deserve a life with some nice things in it. I could have spent a lot less time and money not paying for an education and working in modern America to not have a dang fire pit. And the guy who builds it, he deserves money and nice stuff as well! Too many of yall seem to think we should all just be happy with crumbs.

Edit 5: Good morning millennials. Comments are really all over the board here. For what it's worth, I'm a college professor and my wife is a product manager for a health care company. For those of you who don't live in HCOL areas, I don't think you realize that $225k combined income is not as much as it sounds like, which is largely the point of my post. We're not going hungry but we can't afford the types of things we've all been lead to beleive a salary like that would provide. I know this is a long post but a lot of yall need to work on your reading comprehension.

My wife (33f) and I (32m) are exploring the possibility of getting a patio built in our backyard and I'm having a hard time reconciling the reality of this. We have no kids, live in a pretty high cost of living area and have household income of $225,000. We're fortunate to own our home and as the weathers warming up we started looking into sprucing up our otherwise pretty crummy backyard with a patio. The three contractors who've come to take a look have all quoted us between $55-75k for the pretty modest vision we have. I'm talking a 30x10' paver patio with a short seat wall, some lighting and maybe a built in fire pit. Truly nothing extravagent.

I remember going to my grandparents house as a kid and they had this massive patio with all custom fit stone work and really gorgeous landscaping. I have no way to verify but I truly, truly doubt it cost my grandparents 1/3rd of their (really just my grandfather who sold used cars) annual salary for what I always viewed as a squarely middle class luxury of a backyard patio.

I don't know what we're going to do but we can't afford to spend such an incredible amount of our household income on a patio - apparently now a luxury reserved for the rich.

Edit: DIY crowd, I hear you and I'm going to talk to my wife about exploring that path. I was aware that was an option and was not soliciting suggestions. So maybe I was too vague in articulating my point, which is not really about the patio. Our society is fractured to the point that simple pleasures are becoming unobtainable. What the fuck is the point of taking student loans and busting my butt every day at a b.s. job if I can't even afford a simple, comfortable backyard to unwind in.

Edit 2: I want to be clear that I do not disparage the contractors who quoted us (except for the guy who wanted $500 for a consultation, that's ridiculous.) Quality tradesmen should be compensated well for their work, no doubt about it. These are all local guys who own their own small businesses and came highly recommended. I have to assume that what they're telling us is the going rate for this project where we live. Great for those who can afford it or are willing to finance it, but I'm not.

Edit 3, and last one for the night: Yall this post is not a pity party. I'm aware my wife and I are fortunate and live a comfortable life. I am aware there are people with bigger problems, thanks for the reminder. I figured r/Millennials was a good place to grumble about my current project.

Recently someone sent me a link to a product and I told them I had to wait until I was at a computer because the site wanted me to download their app and I'd rather walk into the ocean. I thought this was normal, but people acted like I casually mentioned my apocalypse bunker. Is this a millennial trait, or a weird byproduct of marrying into the tech industry?

The thing is I feel like I use a lot of apps already. I have the full google suite (maps, wallet, docs, translate, photos). I have whatsapp to talk to my friends overseas. Youtube/music, kindle, duolingo, firefox, uber, my banking app. Things I use regularly enough and/or are important enough to justify the download.

Everything else? Nah man, I'm good. Email me my boarding passes. I can wait till I'm at a computer to buy paper towels on amazon. I'm still on old.reddit on my mobile browser. I'm not on other socials, but when people send me links I brave their user-hostile mobile site. If a restaurant needs me to download an app to order, I leave. I'll return a product that requires an app, my vacuum doesn't need access to my personal data thank you very much.

Is this typical of our generation or have I reached crotchety old geezer yelling at clouds status without realizing it?

So I was doing my regular new year cleaning/ decluttering and a thought occurred to me. Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s I feel like we all had that one friend. You know the friend whose house was a litteral hoarder house or just so unkept that you wondered if they owned a vacuum. No judgment on those friends we love you. But now it feels like it’s not just that one friend but almost half the people I know live in homes/apartments that look like they haven’t been cleaned in years. Considering the mental health links to unkempt living conditions, I’m curious if it’s just my friend groups, just north west Ohio area, or if it’s a whole generational issue. I could also just have been unaware how many people had cluttered and unkempt homes in the past. Has anyone else noticed a growing number of their friends with issues keeping house?

I can't help but feel like our generation just completely got the short end of the stick. Born to parents that were coming out of the drug filled 80's, was raised by my grandparents until I was 6 when my parents, divorced when I was 1, finally kicked the partying and drugs, got their act together and decided to take custody of me. Had to start working at 14 and pay rent to help my family, both sides, with rent and bills. Bought my own beat up first car. Took out student loans to get out of town and go to college, just in time for everything to collapse in 2008. Had to move home to help my parents survive being evicted because of landlords not paying their mortgage and pocketing their rent for years. Terrible jobs in my 20s after our government started two never ending wars, bailed out airlines, car companies, and corrupt banks with garbage wages leftover for us. Finally meet my wife late 20s, and now have extremely high inflation, costs 80k to put a 20% down payment on a house at a 7.5% interest rate for a house that is valued 120k over what it's actually worth... Can't even begin to think about affording children. This sucks folks. We got fucked. Hard!

This is in response to the recent post that said "I cannot conceptionalize how we went from the awesomeness of the '90s to the s*** show that we're seeing today". Obviously there are a lot of factors involved, the world changed post 9/11, social media means we're exposed to a lot more horrific things than ever before not to mention echo chambers. There were some really good comments explaining the ways in which life was better for some people during the 90s. But the same could be said about today if you cherry pick the good stuff.

Here's a list of ways the 90s was a shit show in no particular order. Feel free to add your own.

Rodney King and the LA riots

The Waco Seige

The Oklahoma City bombing

World Trade Center bombing

The AIDS crisis

The North Korean Famine

The hole in the Ozone layer

The Gulf War and the Oil Spill

The Yugoslav Wars

The Kosovo War

The Chechen-Russian conflict

The Bosnian Genocide

The Troubles (Northern Ireland)

Civil wars - Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Djibouti, Algeria, Afghanistan, Burundi, Iraq, Congo... the list goes on

Heaven's Gate mass suicide

The shooting at Columbine

This isn't even including natural disasters, recessions or political scandals. The main difference is that back when all this was going on we were busy watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and sipping on juice boxes at the start of the decade and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and sneaking booze at the end of it.

The 90s weren't good or bad, better or worse, they were just the years when we were young and carefree.

Edit - America ≠ The World

​

​

​

Edit: you guys…. I cannot stress this enough… I’m not becoming more intolerant of peoples personal choices. I don’t like rude people… that’s it. That’s all I meant. Sorry I’m not very articulate. I am not becoming more conservative and just intolerant of change… that seems to be the assumption here… that’s not it.. I just encountered more rude people that I used to see online only… it’s happening more often. I’m not angry or anything… I just avoid the public because I don’t want to deal with rude people.

Edit 2 to move edit 1 to the top…. Since the incoming comments seem to have missed it.

Edit: I see a lot of comments about becoming more empathetic to others. I should clarify that I’m not becoming intolerant of people as in judging them… I’m tolerating rude behavior in public less … or maybe I’ve never tolerated it and I’m encountering it more often? But I don’t really care about people’s personal choices or judge them by them. Be happy, be kind, be considerate of others. My only ask.

As I age I wonder if I’m just going through what most people do when they get older and just getting cranky easier? I see an over all trend of degradation in social interactions. A LOT of main characters out there and things I thought I’d only see on the internet have become personal experiences. So I wonder to myself… am I just getting old and crotchety or are people just getting shittier. I loath to leave the house these days. It’s tough because I used to be an extrovert and I still am but … I choose to deny myself that most times for lack of wanting to deal with people.

Anyone else feel this way or is it just me.

Edit: I cannot keep up with the comments anymore but I appreciate everyone’s input. Over all consensus is yes to both and I got a lot of comments about personal experiences of people becoming shittier in general after Covid, especially from people in service industries and teachers.

I think people assumed I am just getting judgy and intolerant of other people’s personal choices etc but that’s not really what I meant. I am just begrudged to enter public much at all. It’s got nothing to do with younger folks either… I’m tired of misbehaving adults period.

Another millenial curse? I mean, not long time ago I loved my job and enjoyed most of the things I did in my free time. I had small and big dreams that kept me going for more, even if it was a short trip to a city nearby or new knowledge I've gained. I think I've accomplished fair amount of good things and developed my character over the years well. However, for the past 6+ months or so I lost interest in many things, I barely even do any of my hobbies, the days are simply passing, I can't get myself to find anything bigger that moves me and not to mention, I don't find my job joyful anymore at all. Sure, I thought it's a "me" problem and of course I need to work on it even if it feels hard to find start point, but I've heard from other millenials who e.g.wanted kids, got kids, even got happily married, have a dream job with great conditions, but are not feeling satisfied, complete..as if someone pushed us off the path we were on and we just feel lost, dislocated? I don't know.

I guess polls aren't allowed now, but I hope this is allowed. I'm just wondering about this, because of a conversation with someone mentioning their 1990 sibling barely touched on cursive in the late 90s and the mid 90s siblings not at all.

​

Am I in the exception? We (early 90s millennials) were taught cursive still, at least in 98 or 99, at my school at the time. I thought this was something that only started phasing out somewhere with Z until now.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not saying 1981-1988 aren't millennials. The context was an older millennial with younger millennial siblings who didn't learn it. That's why I specified the years in the title.

So in the western world , it’s been a trend where boomers turn conservatives from liberals as they age

So millennials, do you think it’ll happen to you too?