It seems as if there's always going to be a generational divide between children and their parents, but one of the biggest seems to be between millennials and their boomer parents. Aside from the age difference, you also have social change, shifting attitudes toward parenting, and, of course, technological advances. It's A LOT.
But Reddit user u/StyrkeSkalVandre recently added something else to the growing list. Posting in the r/Millennials subreddit, they asked, "Has anyone else noticed their parents becoming really nasty people as they age?" And the responses have been very illuminating.
Here are the full details: "My parents are each in their mid–late 70's. Ten years ago, they had friends: they would throw dinner parties that 4–6 other couples would attend. They would be invited to similar parties thrown by their friends. They were always pretty arrogant, but hey, what else would you expect from a boomer couple with three Master's degrees, two PhD's, and a JD between the two of them?"
"But now, they have no friends. I mean that literally. One by one, each of the couples and individual friends that they had known and socialized with closely for years, even decades, will no longer associate with them. My mom just blew up a 40-year friendship over a minor slight, and says she has no interest in ever speaking to that person again. My dad did the same thing to his best friend a few years ago."
"Yesterday at the airport, my father decided it would be a good idea to scream at a desk agent over the fact that the ink on his paper ticket was smudged, and he didn't feel like going to the kiosk to print out a new one. No sh*t, three security guards rocked up to flank him and he has no idea how close he came to being cuffed, arrested, and charged with assault."
"All either of them does is complain and talk shit about people they used to associate with. This does not feel normal. Is anyone else experiencing this? Were our grandparents like this too, and we were just too young to notice it?"
Thousands of fellow millennials (and even some Gen X) commented on the thread, sharing their own experiences with aging boomer parents. While the theories as to why this feels so prevalent varied, the general consensus was: Yes, their parents do seem to be getting meaner as they get older.
"Something similar has happened/is happening to my parents, my wife’s parents, and almost all of my friend’s parents. Whenever the topic of parents comes up, I always ask my friends if their parents have started going crazy, and the answer is almost always yes. It seems to hit in the late 50s. The worst thing is that I remember having a conversation with my mother when I was a teenager about how her mother was getting really rude and nasty to people."
Some speculated that their boomer parents have always been this way — they've just gotten worse at hiding it over time.
"Their aging and changing is bringing out the traits they were able to repress or play down when they were younger. It's truly a nightmare."
"My husband says his parents have always been like 'this,' they just used to pretend with outsiders. Now they don't. It's truly like a monster thinking it's wearing their mask, but the damn thing has peeled off a long time ago..."
Others cited social media and technology as possible culprits.
"For all the talk they make about, 'We didn't have all these screens when we were your age,' I think social media is wreaking havoc on the older generation as much as the younger."
"I legit said this to my dad the last time I was at their house. He sat on his phone the whole time, and I was like, 'that thing's going to rot your brain,' and he scoffed at me, and still sat on his phone. Like, if I had a nickel for the number of times he yelled at us kids to turn off the TV growing up, I'd be f*cking rich."
"My Silent Gen mom gets meaner and more passive-aggressive by the day. She’s angry, and social media keeps her raging, afraid, and marinating in conspiracy theories. I rue the day I ever got her an iPad and set up a Facebook account. It’s utterly tragic."
And then, of course, there's the issue of mental health, which boomers are notorious for ignoring and assigning stigma.
"I believe there are tons of issues, but it's more than 'Boomers being fools.' One of them is if medical advancements were still where they were at 30 years ago, they'd be dead. Obviously some people were always mean, but had more social inhibition. Some of this is mental decline. On top of untreated anxiety, depression, etc. then all the lead, and all the rage bait media."
"I think the untreated anxiety and depression is a HUGE factor here. It's odd to me that they're so resistant to getting professional help, because at least in my case, they were always willing to get me mental healthcare when I was growing up."
Whatever the reason, it's clear that millennials are feeling a huge personality divide when it comes to the boomer generation, particularly their parents. The question that remains is, what, if anything, can be done about this?
While it's impossible to land on a definitive answer for all families, Stephanie Lindeman LMHC, LMFT, a therapist who's spoken about boomer parents on TikTok and has been interviewed by BuzzFeed, has a quote that will probably resonate with many millennial children: "Here's the most important thing I've learned from boomer parents as a family therapist: the price of not taking accountability is isolation."
And lately, millennials and Gen Z seem to have no issue going no-contact with parents who disrespect them. So, that's also something to consider.