The Boomers Who Lost Everything — and Took Us Down With Them
They didn’t hoard wealth. They fumbled it. And we, their kids, inherited the chaos, the debt, and the trauma they never faced.
It’s very popular right now to discuss the successful, hoarding Boomer who is keeping all the wealth and continues to acquire more. But I want to talk about the other version: the failed Boomer.
My parents are young Boomers. Both were the eldest children in families with four kids. Although that’s where many of their home life similarities seem to end, they both carry a lot of unaddressed hurt and possible trauma from their own parents. Of course, I only got limited details when I was growing up.
My paternal grandparents were both college-educated. My mother’s family was more blue-collar. My mother was encouraged to go into the workforce and little else, and she did the same with me. My father likely had college expectations put upon him, but I know that for many years he had his sights set on athletics. From what I know of his early life and what I’ve personally experienced as his child, I can say he grew into a person who overcommits and underdelivers. It’s not hard for him to get distracted, disinterested, and divested from projects he once committed to. However, he is charming, suave, and good-looking. He often talked himself out of bad situations by simply being a smooth talker. He was also a drinker, often between one drunk driving accident and the next. Ultimately, he completed some college and entered several blue-collar careers. His mind and body seem to have paid the price.
Despite my mother’s good work ethic, she seethed with anger daily. I only had visitation with her, but her rage left lasting impressions each week. What I wasn’t completely aware of was what her real coping mechanisms were. I thought they were screaming. In my early 20s, she was dealing with an insurance issue and allowed me to do an informal audit of her finances. I calculated that she had over $20k in credit card debt. She insisted that it couldn’t be true. It wasn’t even denial — it was blank obliviousness. She legitimately didn’t understand the results of her actions. For years, I had been told she was poor, though she always worked full-time. From the age of 15, she asked me to begin paying utilities when I stayed with her during the summer. Shortly after I totaled her credit card debt, we entered a rental arrangement together. She abruptly changed the amount she was willing to contribute, even though she made the most. I had newly relocated and was working part-time, and my younger sister was in school and also working part-time. Though I was the most highly educated person in the home, my education didn’t automatically translate to a high salary, and I think this frustrated her.
As they aged, I saw my parents struggle individually, since they divorced early in my life. Their biggest struggle was housing. My father lost a dilapidated house to taxes. My mother was repeatedly priced out of apartments. They both lived with family during different periods until it became intolerable for everyone involved. Eventually, they each settled into toxic relationships where they at least had housing. I didn’t care for either of their partners, but at least they had places to sleep.
Over the last several years, my mother has occasionally mentioned wishing she had bought a house. However, she doesn’t reflect with any specificity, like “I see now how I could have saved during this time and purchased that type of property.” Instead, she speaks as if it were never possible. She has been gainfully employed with the government for nearly 20 years. She’s about to retire with a pension and benefits. Instead of seeing how much power she has, she remains oblivious. If I dare to point out that she spent her money on unnecessary things, she reacts as if I’m speaking another language.
As I got older, I felt like I was screaming into the void as I was guilt-tripped into predatory student loans with double-digit interest rates, denied refinancing, and overworked in jobs that refused to meet basic human needs. Everyone, even a few years older than me, looked down on me, telling me to “try harder” and “hide my emotions.”
Currently, I’m not in contact with either of my parents. Slowly, as lawsuits pile up against for-profit educational institutions, and people wake up to the horror that is government-backed educational loans, and the way housing, education, and food prices have soared while wages stagnated, I’m starting to feel less insane. I thought it was just me. For nearly the first 40 years of my life, I thought my parents were the only failures in their successful generation. My peers had parents who were gainfully employed, with safe cars, well-built homes, full kitchens, toys, clothes, and vacations. My life was built on shaky appearances.
As I began to build my own life, my parents each reacted with a distant, stunned awe. I went through significant hardship, choosing to live with neither of them from age 16 onward. I was homeless on and off, entered sex work shortly after graduating from college, and despite those pieces of my journey, I began working for an Ivy League institution and hosted my own wedding at 32. My husband and I bought property three years into our marriage, even as I freelanced. Though our marriage was fraught with unhealed trauma and addiction, I couldn’t let that prevent us from securing safe housing. I didn’t even have children to consider.
I’m repeatedly faced with how little my parents prepared — not just for their future, but for mine. As a child, you assume your parents are making the best decisions they can. As an adult, you realize how easy it is to ignore the “right” thing and act on a selfish impulse. My parents’ impulses have dictated the course of my life — my relationships, financial state, and who I choose to associate with going forward.
Yes, Boomers overall hold the majority of power and wealth. I see it daily. But I often think about people like my parents. For different reasons, they failed themselves — and by extension, failed their children. Even the things they were given (my father had a preparatory education, free housing, cars, and the property he lost to taxes was paid for by my grandmother; my mother had fewer material privileges but squandered her time and money) were wasted. There was rarely consideration of sharing what they had with their children, even their time.
This isn’t exclusive to my parents. Their siblings also tell stories of instability, addiction, or a refusal to take accountability. In just two generations, we have multiple instances of property loss, suicide, repeated drunk driving, covert abuse, and parents abandoning children.
The growing knowledge that this generation hoarded wealth not just from us, but from each other, is sobering and validating. Because while I do blame my parents for their poor judgment, I also blame the system that exploited their lack of coping skills and fed their addictions. The other Boomers — the ones who “figured it out” — are the ones who have my mother’s decades of squandered money. Instead of acknowledging that, she’s now a Trumper living with a man who doesn’t respect her.
The 2008 version of me is screaming, “I KNEW IT!” over and over. It’s validating to suspect an infestation, get gaslit for years, and finally have an exterminator confirm you were right. But it’s another heartbreak added to the pile I’ve carried growing up — a pile of denial I didn’t want to see. I looked at my parents daily and thought, “You can’t possibly be this stupid, can you?” The anger simmered in me for years as they constantly spewed hypocritical venom about how much money I cost them, while they spent irresponsibly on themselves. I skipped field trips and meals (no money), parties (no car or phone), was rejected by boyfriends (their families said not to associate with the “likes” of me), and I was so angry for feeling ostracized and misunderstood by everyone — peer or adult — that I thought I had autism or a more severe personality disorder. Had I had my own children, I would have drilled my anger into them. That is the recipe for generational trauma.
Instead, I decided long ago that I will not, unless I can safely care for myself, have a child. My nightmare is recreating my childhood for someone else. I couldn’t live with that. As our birth rate declines, I know I’m not alone. There are many reasons people abstain from having children. This is one of them.
If my voice helped yours, you can find more of my work here.
