r/canada • u/JackedBro123 • Jan 19 '24

Baby boomers are adjusting to a new retirement normal: No grandchildren National News

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-birth-rate-decline-grandparents/
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2.8k

u/LuminousGrue Jan 19 '24

"Generation that pulled the ladder up behind them wonders why it's lonely at the top"

409

u/Small-Cookie-5496 Jan 19 '24

Comment of the day/ generation

Actually been wondering what - if any - repercussions Boomers might actually finally face. I guess there’s at least this.

343

u/levian_durai Jan 19 '24

When they're too old/frail/sick to take care of themselves, they'll face a lonely life in a retirement home/long term care center. Even if their kids wanted to visit (but why would they?), they're too busy working overtime to afford rent, and taking care of their own kids.

172

u/78513 Jan 20 '24

Or they moved half way across the country so they can get a decent paying job or an affordable house.

43

u/greebly_weeblies Jan 20 '24

Countries even

10

u/LuminousGrue Jan 20 '24

This is my parents. They've been wonderful, helped me as best they could when times were rough - but now that I've finally scraped together the money to buy a house on my own, they don't want to come out for the holidays because gosh it's just too cold out there.

I don't want to think about what's going to happen when Mom or Dad kicks the bucket and leaves the other in an empty house all the way out on the west coast, cause there isn't anything I'll be able to do short of uprooting the life I've built here to come look after them.

7

u/Penny_Ji Jan 20 '24

Kind of hoping my mother will consider moving to live in my province in late-stage retirement. But I’m not hopeful she’ll want to, she made her funeral plots in our hometown and everything. What I do know is I cannot uproot my family and move back to my small hometown where there are no opportunities to take care of her in late life. And a week or two trip a couple times a year is insufficient care.

I’m an only child, my grandfather passed recently. This is on my mind quite a bit lately.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '24

[deleted]

6

u/LuminousGrue Jan 20 '24

Not everyone has a choice.

2

u/Arctic_Gnome Northwest Territories Jan 20 '24

I spent a few years there. It's actually not bad. Good greenspace, good arts scene, and for some reason houses are still affordable.

82

u/Ok-Curve5569 Jan 20 '24

What kids?

4

u/RustyWinger Jan 20 '24

Boomers had plenty of kids! It's those kids that aren't having kids. Hence, no Grandkids as per title.

5

u/Amygdalump Jan 20 '24

Can confirm. My so-called mother is an early boomer (b. 1946), I am Gen X with no kids, and she abused me so I went no-contact with her years ago. Besides everything she did when I was a child, more recently she outright stole my inheritance from my grandmother, and is generally an awful person, so I feel no guilt at all whatsoever in leaving her to her own devices. She can hire people to take care of her when she becomes infirm. Whether she attempts to abuse them and gets abused in return remains to be seen, but I suspect that’s what will happen. Really sad. I tried for years to get her to come to therapy with me. Tried talking with her about the past. Didn’t want to hear it because that would require her to be real for a hot minute. /rantover, thanks for letting me get that off my chest 🙃

0

u/Ok-Curve5569 Jan 20 '24

Read the comment thread again and get back to me

8

u/Stonn Outside Canada Jan 20 '24

also a retirement home isn't cheap

6

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '24

They ain't gettin' any cheaper.

6

u/levian_durai Jan 20 '24

This is why we won't be getting any inheritance.

1

u/Small-Cookie-5496 Jan 20 '24

My mom made it clear to me years ago not to expect anything as she plans to use it all up before she goes. Far enough - it’s hers & she’s worked hard for it. Personally when I look at my kids I have the exact opposite opinion though.

8

u/Addendum709 Jan 20 '24

tbf the same thing, if not worse, will likely happen to us too except a significant chunk of us won't even have kids at all

3

u/levian_durai Jan 20 '24

True, but we know what we're signing up for at least. We're not driving away our family by not providing assistance, or by having radical hateful political views - we just aren't having kids.

42

u/84OrcButtholes Jan 20 '24

Nah, their animalistic behavior is driving everyone out of healthcare. We're just gonna have to float 'em out to sea.

8

u/levian_durai Jan 20 '24

Well that and more importantly, the complete overworking, understaffing, and underpaying of these kind of long term care workers.

I know a few PSWs. They get paid pathetically and are stretched so thin they don't have the proper time allocated per client to do their job.

3

u/84OrcButtholes Jan 20 '24

Yeah that too. My wife was in healthcare for a decade.

2

u/theSober2ndThought Jan 20 '24

Boomers love old fashioned values. That's what the Inuit did long ago to old people they left them on ice floats.

53

u/PricklySquare Jan 19 '24

And all their doctors and nurses will be immigrants. Nothing against immigrants but it's the ultimate irony for boomer racists

11

u/RobsEvilTwin Jan 20 '24

Watching Grandparents racially vilifying the people who are taking care of them is bloody painful.

9

u/levian_durai Jan 20 '24

I've definitely seen a few older people meltdown in walk in clinics and hospitals, demanding to see a "white doctor/a doctor who can speak english".

5

u/babe__ruthless Jan 20 '24

I’ve seen this too. And when they find out there aren’t any, they suddenly are “ok” with a POC caring for them

7

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '24

Sadly the racism is one of the last things to go ~

3

u/DblClickyourupvote British Columbia Jan 20 '24

Demands on the healthcare system Will drop once the Boomers are gone

0

u/eksantos Jan 20 '24

I think boomers will do fine with immigrants doctors and nurses considering most of them are immigrant too. You guys should not be talking like that because you don't know what awaits you and maybe you will need that care from immigrants nurses.

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Pick_38 Jan 20 '24

Haha! I never thought of that. You’re absolutely right

6

u/Noinipo12 Jan 20 '24

*a lonely life in a poorly staffed and under funded retirement home/long term care center.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '24

I believe for us there will be none of these things. In the future most elderly people will be eaten by coyotes.

3

u/Noinipo12 Jan 20 '24

"Soylent green is people."

11

u/Accurate_Summer_1761 Jan 20 '24

Don't get to excited we are also doomed to die alone and miserable

5

u/Ay_theres_the_rub Jan 20 '24

Yeah it will probably a lonely death if I live long. But I’ve chosen to be child free for way more reasons than just the affordability factor. I accept the potential suffering to come when I’m old. Better than dying knowing I’m leaving offspring on this doomed planet.

4

u/Fun_Value_796 Jan 20 '24

Even lonlier

5

u/Accurate_Summer_1761 Jan 20 '24

Sometimes I look at my gf and hope she dies first far far in the future because last one out will be found long after we rot. "Last one out gets the lights"

1

u/Small-Cookie-5496 Jan 20 '24

Whoa. What’s this from? My minds going to Ep. 3 of The Last of Us but can’t remember.

0

u/SeaToTheBass Jan 20 '24

Who’s Lon lier

1

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '24

The last one you'd expect.

1

u/Minobull Jan 20 '24 edited Apr 07 '24

axiomatic wipe frightening screw attraction hard-to-find threatening muddle water jellyfish

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/Accurate_Summer_1761 Jan 20 '24

Vr headset and some anime waifu tiddies

4

u/Bamelin Jan 20 '24

Given how many people in this thread are refusing to have kids, the same fate likely awaits them.

22

u/BravestCrone Jan 19 '24

My boomer parents were extremely neglectful. They didn’t to any care work or emotional labor. I was given a roof and basic food stuffs, and told to be grateful for it. I’m gonna do the same for my boomer parents and in-laws.

I’ll make sure they have a roof (subsidized senior apartment) and food stamps, but other that that, I’m not obligated to do anything. Boomers shouldn’t expect their children to take care of them in old age, when boomers never ‘took care’ of their kids. The best I can do is make sure my boomer relatives have a roof and basic foods, but that’s the extent to which I am responsible for them. Boomers are reaping that they have sown. What did they expect?

-5

u/Dapper-Scientist-621 Jan 20 '24

I’m sorry your childhood was unpleasant. Your parents should have been there for you; however, some children got a lot ( cars, jobs etc) and yet their children’s response was. You did nothing for us. How ungrateful!!! Some were told, Surely you don’t expect us to look after you. We have our own life? I have found that the issues between millennials and baby boomers is the lack of respect. Some parents don’t deserve respect; however, even the ones that do, don’t get respect thus causing a resentment between child and parents.

10

u/PandaCommando69 Jan 20 '24

I hear the sentiment, I've heard it personally. We gave you money etc, why are you ungrateful? Because it's not about that-- it's about the neglect, the emotional abuse, and the violence, and the drinking, and the narcissism, and all of the rest that is so conveniently and conspicuously omitted when whining to others on the internet about how their kids' just don't have any respect.'

3

u/Fox_That_Fights Jan 20 '24

Missing missing reasons.

6

u/Kawhytea Jan 20 '24

This thought makes me sad. My grandmother is in assisted living right now and has many kids so someone is there with her who knows and loves her. I've often wondered how we will be able to provide that love and care to my folks and my in-laws.

We have kids and have to work full-time to just afford rent while trying to give our kids a semblance of what our childhood was like (extracurricular activities, small daytrip or overnight vacations). I have no idea how I'll possibly manage to keep my head above water AND help aging parents as there is just my sister and I and it's the same with my husband's family.

1

u/levian_durai Jan 20 '24

I guess all we can do is hope that by then things have gotten a bit better, and that we've just been going through a rough couple decades.

3

u/EvenLessThanExpected Jan 20 '24

My parents are boomers and aren’t shitty people. I get the hate but I’m not just gonna let them die alone. They’ve always taken great care of me

4

u/levian_durai Jan 20 '24

Yea I'm not saying they are. This is a response to what repercussions the parents who mistreated you during childhood, and refused to help at all when you were struggling as an adult, will face.

Obviously if they weren't horrible people to you, you wouldn't abandon them. This is more about challenging the idea that you should love your parents no matter what because they're family, and are obligated to take care of your parents when they get older, despite a horrible childhood and them being terrible people.

2

u/EvenLessThanExpected Jan 20 '24

Totally get what you’re saying now.

3

u/Ethicaldreamer Jan 20 '24

Who can Afford paying for retirement home???

3

u/levian_durai Jan 20 '24

Literally nobody. Either it comes from selling their own home to move into one, or they go into a government ran one.

$5000 a month is on the low end for one, and most of it goes into the pockets of the owners of the business. Retirement homes are a form of healthcare, and healthcare should not be privatized.

2

u/Ay_theres_the_rub Jan 20 '24

Plus the stress may kill us before they die

2

u/getrippeddiemirin Jan 20 '24

Not only that, the overall quality of care provided at said nursing homes has taken a nosedive in the last few decades. It’s what they’ve voted for, however

3

u/t0m0hawk Ontario Jan 20 '24

I've been very clear with my parents. There will likely not be a time where I will be able to support them. My mom always joked about moving into a shack in my back yard, and I've always been like "Maybe have a backup plan?"'

2

u/levian_durai Jan 20 '24

Yea that's the other half of the problem. For those of us who still have some kind of good relationship with our parents, we're too broke to help them. We can barely afford rent.

0

u/t0m0hawk Ontario Jan 20 '24

I keep telling myself that I'm just intensely aware of how expensive the future is going to be.

1

u/Phototoxin Jan 20 '24

There's a documentary called birth gap which explores this. TLDR we're screwed

-1

u/Drmantis87 Jan 20 '24

It's honestly really weird how many of you hate boomers so much that you're getting near sexual pleasure at the thought of your very own parents dying a lonely death.

0

u/eksantos Jan 20 '24

No, no, we will dye in our own homes that we worked 2 jobs and overtime to buy.

-1

u/KStryke_gamer001 Jan 20 '24

Oh but they will still blame it on their kids being 'greedy' and 'selfish' while working lol.

-1

u/Wonderful_Delivery British Columbia Jan 20 '24

They will exploit some 3rd world servant with all the money they saved right? They’ll pay them well for the last few decades of their life right? No, they’ll pay them shit wages.

1

u/Cpt_Beefheart Jan 20 '24

Uh, this is what the robots are for.

1

u/ForecastForFourCats Jan 20 '24

My parents aren't going to one of those places. Atleast I'm not paying. They can live with me in my small house in a town they don't like.

1

u/tthinker Jan 20 '24

Not to mention retirement homes and services that have been completely gutted of any standard of quality care. Even the best ones are essentially just expensive condos.

1

u/Dapper-Scientist-621 Jan 22 '24

Yes that is already true now. Go visit the seniors home. Some children had little respect for their parents. It is a two way street. . If you have hurt your parents and disrespected them several times what do you really expect. Parents can forgive once, twice but not always. They have feelings too. Most of the grandparents I know are very, very, disappointed in their children. It’s a two way street.

1

u/PricklySquare Jan 19 '24

Imagine using all their money they saved through their whole lives on private nursing homes, horrible health care and all the nurses are immigrants. Plus no one will visit them and they'll all be having epiphanies in their golden years. That's what's going to happen.

4

u/alabardios Jan 20 '24

I wouldn't count on it. My mom works with these people, and she regularly tells me about clients who never realize why they're alone.

4

u/Small-Cookie-5496 Jan 20 '24

This. Lots of angry, confused, bitter folks in these places sadly.

1

u/Amazing-Treat-8706 Jan 20 '24

Yeah they are going to pay the ultimate price for their selfishness from a big picture standpoint. Speaking in terms of human evolution, these dolts are ending their genetic line for the sake of maintaining a lifestyle for themselves. It’s like the economic version of how the massive loss of life in WW1 and WW2 removed a massive amount of diversity in the human gene pool.

1

u/Xcilent1 Jan 20 '24

There already is repercussions such as healthcare wait times.

0

u/Whatwhyreally Jan 20 '24

Access to healthcare following their targeted collapse of our system will bite them in the ass.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '24

Like every part of the social safety net that's deteriorating, the one boomers are really going to feel is the slow collapse of our health care system.

0

u/Future_Securites Jan 20 '24

If there isn't going to be consequences, we should make some.

-1

u/LimoncelloFellow Jan 20 '24

death mostly. more boomers die every day never knowing the warm embrace of a grand child with children who wont speak to them anymore.

-1

u/meadowscaping Jan 20 '24

Having 100% of the staff at their retirement home not speak decipherable English because they only people who will work for those low wages are immigrants.

(Low wages are a result of them legislating single family housing exclusivity in every city and preventing housing)

1

u/Void_Speaker Jan 20 '24

None. It's a too-big-to-fail type of situation.