Listicle

8 Crazy Things My Boomer Parents Made Me Do That Fucked Me Up

Gen X treated their kids totally differently from Boomers. Maybe for the better. Maybe not.

Not me, but looks like me and my cousins growing up. (Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)

I was born in the year Orwell thought the future would look like, 2026. That’s right. 1984 Big Brother.

For those of us born in this vicinity, we’re too old to feel like we belong to millennials but too young to feel totally Gen X-ey. I do think one distinction really differentiates the “younger millennial” from the older. That is, whether you had boomer parents or Gen X parents.

I had the luxury of getting boomer parents. This means my particular flavor of fuckupery came in khakis and a button-down, and that’s dressing casual.

In honor of this month’s theme of familial hijinks and whatnot, I thought it’d be fun to do a list of some of the ways my boomer parents fucked me up

1. Finish your plate

This is a good one. Before I could leave the table, I had to finish whatever was on my plate. That was the rule.

And we wonder why we suddenly had the largest increase in obesity in the history of the country…

I’m sure it didn’t help that food suddenly had ten times the calorie density, but still.

Here’s a fun story: one time, my brother put a shitload of ketchup on his plate. Like WAYYYY more than he needed, my father warned him that he had better use it all. Shocker! He didn’t. Don’t worry, though. My father made him eat it all, with a spoon.

2. Working hard makes you a good person

I attribute this to boomers, but it’s a common American cultural trait. It just grinds my gears, because working hard has become more of an indication you’re a sucker these days. The smart ones just perform work and go back to destroying Candy Crush levels or testing if there’s a bottom to the doomscroll.

I, on the other hand, was given a physical revulsion to phoning it in. I can’t bring myself to be a lazy fuck, at least not consistently. I see myself doing work, and it is causing me to get rewarded with…more work. It happens over and over, but I can’t help myself. It’s just built in.

I’ve long since known it doesn’t get me anywhere in terms of promotions. The real insidious shit is I still think it makes me a good person somehow to be the best widgetmaker.

3. Be back before the street lights come on

This one really seems to set the Gen X parents apart from the Boomer parents. Gen X got left home alone as kids, the latchkey generation. As a result, they seem to have a particularly personal fear of leaving their kids alone. That’s why we see so many of them become “helicopter parents” hovering around their children into perpetuity. They don’t feel they’re safe to be on their own until they’re at least, I don’t know, 28?

My parents, on the other hand, treated me like a neighborhood cat. It comes. It goes. Hopefully, it’s indoors before we lock them. The general rule was, if you go out to play with friends etc, better get your ass back in the house before the street lights come on.

This also taught me so much about self-reliance. Nothing like taking your bike halfway across town, fucking around with your friends all day, and then realizing you didn’t have near enough time (or energy for that matter) to haul your ass back home in time. Those were sad rides.

4. Go outside.

Speaking of that, my parents also didn’t take any responsibility for entertaining my brother and I. When my mother or father got sick of us hovering around, they had one simple statement they could say to get us out of their hair: “Go outside.”

I could be playing a video game, reading a book, or doing anything else, and if my brother annoyed my mom, the blanket statement would come out, and I was expected to be a cloud of dust before her ass hit the couch cushion to take a load off, kid-free.

To be fair, we came up with some wild shit. All the fantastical, imaginative games we’d play would seem ridiculous to kids these days who have every moment planned and filled with appetizers or applications. I credit that for being a creative problem solver as an adult to this day. Also, for giving me patience as I couldn’t go back in until dinner.

5. Speak when you’re spoken to.

A quirk of boomer parents that I kinda wish was still a thing was the need to speak when an adult spoke to me. This thing where kids these days can just awkwardly hide behind their parents, pretend they don’t hear them over their headphones, or just intentionally ignore them. Yeah, that shit would not fly.

When I was a kid, if an adult spoke to me, I stopped what I was doing and gave them the respect to speak back. It didn’t matter how awkward it felt, how annoyed I was to be taken away from my video game or my book or whatever. If I didn’t, boy, I’d regret that shit.

I can just hear my mother now, “Answer when your aunt asks you something.” Or, “Did you hear your Meme speak to you?”

6. Please and Thank you.

If I were in front of my parents and speaking with anyone, but especially anyone that was outside of the family, I’d better bookend damn near anything I said with please and thank you. That pretty much was the safest bet, just start with please, end with thank you, no matter what you had to say.

It was kinda like a compliment sandwich before I had any idea what that was.

I do think kids that had Gen X parents were tasked with this same requirement, but it always seems to be more performative to me than built in. Like every time they say it, I can almost hear the eyes rolling over the phone, the way they must’ve done when they were kids and forced to say it.

At least I didn’t get brought up in the south, where you also had to say “ sir” and “ma’am “ to everyone, although a few years living there definitely punctuated my vocabulary with it. I still get weird looks when I automatically respond to any female addressing me with “yes, ma’am.”

7. Respect your elders

There were some real grade A fucktards in my extended family orbit growing up. The sort of people that deserve respect about as much as a gutter deserves a fine wine. It didn’t matter; they needed to be treated with the same respect and deference as any other adult.

A lot of what that meant was all of the above items regarding pleases, thank yous, speaking when spoken to, etc, but it also meant an overall understanding that adults come first.

Everybody’s going to get food from the table? Adults go first.

Everybody’s piling into the car? Obviously, kids in the back, even though I was about 20 ft tall at 13 years old and had to learn to be a professional yogi to origami my body into a backward-facing station wagon.

I’m so happy to be an adult where I can choose to tell awful people to go fuck themselves at will, or just ignore them like a real mature person.

8. Say sorry.

I’m sorry, but this fucks you up. Shit, I just did it again.

When I was a kid, if I hurt another kid or got into a fight or any other form of shit that required adult intervention, the automatic, regardless of the circumstance, was you better say you’re sorry.

The other kid could bludgeon me with a 2x4, and if I flicked his earlobe, we’d both have to say sorry.

I see people with boomer parents constantly apologizing in all sorts of situations just automatically.

“Oh I inconvenienced everyone by having more than one item at the convenience store when there’s a line behind me? I’m so sorry!” What the fuck are you sorry for? You get to buy shit too.

Not included: spanking or physical punishment.

I didn’t include things like physical punishment. I say that not because I didn’t get it, I got spanked more than a BDSM loving banker. I just don’t want to give this one all the way to boomers, as I know bunches of kids with boomer parents who stuck to ignoring them or sending them to their room or whatever.

I like to think this stuff didn’t get under my skin, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that this is as second nature as gagging when the doc put that giant Q-tip down your throat to test for strep.

Work seems to be the place where most of us interact with people from different generations the most. When I work with younger people who have crazy fucked up psychological nuances like work-life balance or an instinct for self-preservation, I just don’t understand. Then they ask me for something, and even though I’m their elder, they don’t say please and thank you?!? I’m ready to snap.

So yeah, that shit sunk in. Damnit.

The funny thing to me is that a lot of this stuff got taught to Gen X too, but in their rebellion against it, especially since they were ignored so much as children, they rejected it. The last thing the Gen X’ers want to do is inflict this same punishment on their kids. Good for them.

At least, that’s been my experience, although obviously these are broad brush strokes that will not include many. Hopefully, we’re adult enough to know that goes without saying, but the quiet part seems to need to be said out loud these days.

So, please remember to thank your parents for all they did to shape you. And if you end up getting into a fight because boomers are toxic, make sure you remember to say you’re sorry.