Baby boomers so selfish, what is the point of family anyway

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am so aggravated at my mother. My husband is in the hospital from a car accident. We have two kids. Heaven forbid she change her freaking schedule and her perfect retirement routine. That would just be too anxiety provoking. She might even have to, gasp, drive 30 minutes here and back to help. So I'm lugging two young kids to the hospital, running out of food and cooking plain pasta. She can barely be bothered to text, "it's not serious, is it?"

She actually does care. But since she babysat last week for 8 hours she feels taken advantage of and doesn't want to come help. but also guilty now for not stepping up. She even said to me, "I don't want to come over because I have plans with my other granddaughter and she catches everything. I don't want to come to the hospital and risk getting sick." Lamest excuse ever. Just freaking tell me your too burned out from your little sitting job last week. I may not understand but at least you won't compound the situation by playing coy.

What is wrong with that generation? Seems like everyone I know who's over 60 has an attitude of "I did my work in life, I got my money, you're on your own". So selfish! I cannot imagine having a family member or friend in the hospital and not offering to help or bother calling.

Newsflash to you baby boomers, you might regret your attitude when you're old and alone.
Also, if you're not going to step up, at least call. don't text.

That is a valid reason. Older people should not visit hospitals unless they have to, because they are more susceptible to communicable disease. Her not wanting to spread anything to other kids is valid too. You're being selfish by expecting help. Solve your own problem.

Are you OP's mom? Did you miss the part where this is a freaking emergency? Sometimes, people need to lean on their family when there's an emergency and their family needs to get their heads out of their asses and help.

Not if it compromises their own health, no. In case of a "freaking emergency," OP should have a trusted babysitter (or 3) that she can call. And she should plan for that.

Does OP's mother have some kind of immunodeficiency that precludes her from interacting with people and going out in public? She has no problem being with her other grandchild, so how is she compromising her health by baby sitting OP's child? She wouldn't have to go to the hospital. Does it occur to you that it might be more of a comfort for the OP's child to be with the grandmother during this stressful time than with a "trusted" babysitter?

Good Lord, don't break your legs jumping off your high horse.

I'm PP. She probably likes those kids more too, and wants to protect their health as well as her own.That's also fine.

[Anonymous]

I guess OPs question what is the point of family anyway has been answered with all this no free child care non sense. Who needs that negativity. Cut these people out and hire help. It is cheaper than the mental toll you are paying now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My guess is they're probably wondering where they went wrong, raising children who can't seem to cope with their own lives.

I do understand this is a special case, OP, and I'm very sorry to hear that your husband is in the hospital. But, I don't agree with the idea that grandparents should be responsible to help raise grandchildren like many people seem to. It's nice if it can happen, but shouldn't be an expectation. A retired parent has put in more than enough sacrifice time raising YOU TO 20/30/40.

+10

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am so aggravated at my mother. My husband is in the hospital from a car accident. We have two kids. Heaven forbid she change her freaking schedule and her perfect retirement routine. That would just be too anxiety provoking. She might even have to, gasp, drive 30 minutes here and back to help. So I'm lugging two young kids to the hospital, running out of food and cooking plain pasta. She can barely be bothered to text, "it's not serious, is it?"

She actually does care. But since she babysat last week for 8 hours she feels taken advantage of and doesn't want to come help. but also guilty now for not stepping up. She even said to me, "I don't want to come over because I have plans with my other granddaughter and she catches everything. I don't want to come to the hospital and risk getting sick." Lamest excuse ever. Just freaking tell me your too burned out from your little sitting job last week. I may not understand but at least you won't compound the situation by playing coy.

What is wrong with that generation? Seems like everyone I know who's over 60 has an attitude of "I did my work in life, I got my money, you're on your own". So selfish! I cannot imagine having a family member or friend in the hospital and not offering to help or bother calling.

Newsflash to you baby boomers, you might regret your attitude when you're old and alone.
Also, if you're not going to step up, at least call. don't text.

That is a valid reason. Older people should not visit hospitals unless they have to, because they are more susceptible to communicable disease. Her not wanting to spread anything to other kids is valid too. You're being selfish by expecting help. Solve your own problem.

Are you OP's mom? Did you miss the part where this is a freaking emergency? Sometimes, people need to lean on their family when there's an emergency and their family needs to get their heads out of their asses and help.

Not if it compromises their own health, no. In case of a "freaking emergency," OP should have a trusted babysitter (or 3) that she can call. And she should plan for that.

Does OP's mother have some kind of immunodeficiency that precludes her from interacting with people and going out in public? She has no problem being with her other grandchild, so how is she compromising her health by baby sitting OP's child? She wouldn't have to go to the hospital. Does it occur to you that it might be more of a comfort for the OP's child to be with the grandmother during this stressful time than with a "trusted" babysitter?

Good Lord, don't break your legs jumping off your high horse.

I'm PP. She probably likes those kids more too, and wants to protect their health as well as her own.That's also fine.

I hope none of these people ever go out in public, lest they be exposed to germs that might endanger their fragile health. Heaven forbid they go to the library and check out a book that some other kid has taken home and sneezed on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm sorry about your husband, and I hope he gets better soon, but I'm not sorry for *you*, OP, because anyone who makes such a stupid generalization doesn't deserve sympathy.

Buck up and stop whining.

You and your spouse decided to have two children, not your parents. Stop looking around and deal with your emergency. Hire some help if you need it or call a friend. Parenthood is not for wusses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My guess is they're probably wondering where they went wrong, raising children who can't seem to cope with their own lives.

I do understand this is a special case, OP, and I'm very sorry to hear that your husband is in the hospital. But, I don't agree with the idea that grandparents should be responsible to help raise grandchildren like many people seem to. It's nice if it can happen, but shouldn't be an expectation. A retired parent has put in more than enough sacrifice time raising YOU TO 20/30/40.

I have never heard a boomer say anything this insightful. I have heard complaints that the next generation isn't raising kids correctly or disciplining their kids, but always with a tone that they are just willful, never with an introspective tone of "wonder what I could have done differently/could do now to change things."

You obviously haven't been around enough boomers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boomers and the millennials they spawned are absolutely insufferable. We Xers are surrounded.

+1000. Reality bites.

[Anonymous]

OP sounds like the selfish one! You don't expect people, even family, to help you just because you want it.

[Anonymous]

Just curious.. How many of the folks who are very offended abut their parents perceived lack of "helping" have a love language that is service?

[Anonymous]

I don't know.
They were raised in families post WWII, and many of their fathers probably had undiagnosed PTSD that resulted in them drinking more and isolating from the family. At the same time, there were advances in agriculture that were allowing less people to farm, so more people moved out of rural areas into the cities.
So, now, you have this kind of secret life at home, and you live somewhere that there is greater anonymity. So, it starts to happen that people start to value the way that other people see them more than their own internal character. Women started feeling judged on how they looked, dressed, how well their children were behaved, and how clean their home was, rather than how kind and thoughtful they are. Their children (the boomers) took on these values as core, internal values. In other words, there was a rise in narcissism.
Your mother made a calculation here. She didn't think about what is actually the right thing to do. She can't. She thought about what other people would think of her if she did x or y, and possibly what a character on TV would do. I don't know exactly why, but she thinks more people would think she is a good grandmother if she went with your sister.

Unfortunatlely, all there is to do is get over it, get a baby sitter, and don't make the same mistakes with your own kids.

[Anonymous]

It's representative of my parents. They are this type of selfish too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's representative of my parents. They are this type of selfish too.

Mine too. God forbid anything disrupt their routines. I stayed with my grandmother in the hospital and arranged care for my children because my mom couldn't be bothered to look after her own mother.

[Anonymous]

My guess is they're probably wondering where they went wrong, raising children who can't seem to cope with their own lives.

I do understand this is a special case, OP, and I'm very sorry to hear that your husband is in the hospital. But, I don't agree with the idea that grandparents should be responsible to help raise grandchildren like many people seem to. It's nice if it can happen, but shouldn't be an expectation. A retired parent has put in more than enough sacrifice time raising YOU TO 20/30/40.


There's definitely an element of selfishness in the baby boomer generation. My grandmother raised me when I was a kid so my momcould finish school. She supported my mom in so many ways, and honestly without her mom would have probably needs to drop out of college. I had a super close relationship with my grandmother which is something I'll always treasure.

Fast forward to my children: my mom could not even be bothered to spend one week helping after the birth of my child. To add insult to injury she minimizes all the work that goes into caring for a young child - because she never had to do it! Plus she always critiques my grandmother for not getting an education. In the months after the birth of my first baby i realized that the mother child bond this was never going to be an experience that we could share. Some people are too selfish - and sometimes that attitude is pervasive throughout an entire generation. My grandmother raised both of us but family values must have skipped a generation.

So what? If you want help, hire help. NO ONE owes you ANYTHING.

It's this attitude that is the problem, not generation. I am an immigrant and American families are weird to me. Overly indulgent to small children, obsessed with pointless activities to the point of missing meetings to sit on some irrelevant game or such, but then all of a sudden, you are 18 and "nobody owes you anything". People hoard millions of dollars do that they can spend 15k month living In a village for old people only etc. I don't get it and I don't want to.

+1 I agree, it is really sad.

+10. What interesting is how awful the defenses of the "boomers" are (defense provided, I assume by other boomers or those sympathetic to the extreme individualism that generation is associated with). How dare you hope from help from your Mom when your spouse is in the hospital, you worthless ingrate? It's like... far from justifying this behavior, you are further proving OP's point.

To turn to generalizing whole generations, which I agree is always highly unscientific at best, and grossly unfair at worst, my parents *are* boomers and much more helpful (though hampered with serious health issues). My mom is an immigrant and my Dad is first generation though which may change the calculus at bit--and in fact, my Mom has had interesting things to say (generalizations!) about what she observes about her cohort of women. How they were caught in the middle of the big wave of change for women--benefiting to some extent, but also expected for much of their life to adhere to more traditional and restrictive roles for women including "mandatory" care taking and watching later generations truly having the chance to take opportunities they did not have (but helped create). I think that the dynamic leads to interesting results in terms of their perspectives on caretaking in their later years that go beyond mere "selfishness."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know.
They were raised in families post WWII, and many of their fathers probably had undiagnosed PTSD that resulted in them drinking more and isolating from the family. At the same time, there were advances in agriculture that were allowing less people to farm, so more people moved out of rural areas into the cities.
So, now, you have this kind of secret life at home, and you live somewhere that there is greater anonymity. So, it starts to happen that people start to value the way that other people see them more than their own internal character. Women started feeling judged on how they looked, dressed, how well their children were behaved, and how clean their home was, rather than how kind and thoughtful they are. Their children (the boomers) took on these values as core, internal values. In other words, there was a rise in narcissism.
Your mother made a calculation here. She didn't think about what is actually the right thing to do. She can't. She thought about what other people would think of her if she did x or y, and possibly what a character on TV would do. I don't know exactly why, but she thinks more people would think she is a good grandmother if she went with your sister.

Unfortunatlely, all there is to do is get over it, get a baby sitter, and don't make the same mistakes with your own kids.

Hmm, this theory is really interesting, and I can see it in my own family.

[Anonymous]

X gen here too. My baby boomer FIL couldn't drive me to the airport at night when my kids where 2 and 4 years old, DH was overseas and we were joining him, and I had no family around, because he was getting ready for a cruise. He took a whole week ahead to get ready and his flight was on Saturday. My flight was on Wednesday before. I never rely on anybody. I was not surprised even then that he wouldn't offer help. I can truly say that some baby boomers and millennials are the most selfish people I've ever met.