> It’s Hard to See My Parents Live So Lavishly While We’re Struggling

While I won't deny there are some problems currently, I think people comparing where they start to where others end is a huge mistake and leads to a lot of unnecessary anguish.

Someone in their 60s is supposed to be doing better than someone in their 20s. They had 40+ years to work and save. If they did it right, that will put them in a better position than a 20 year old... just like that 20 years old should be in a better position when they are in their 60s. It would be pretty disheartening if people in their 20s saw that it just gets worse.

Well a lot of those now 60 year olds were buying houses and land in their 20s-30s..

Yes but the article also cites that the average age for home ownership has gone way up, houses cost far more relative to median income than before, rent is more expensive, and cultural changes requiring two income families and paid childcare have driven up child care costs.

> Someone in their 60s is supposed to be doing better than someone in their 20s.

That’s an incredibly new, and probably temporary, phenomenon.

Across the vast majority of space-time the non-working elderly are poorer than their still working children and rely on them.

As late as the Greatest Generation senior discounts weren’t a sick joke.

Sure. But my excuse for denying my children would be that I also struggled at their age—zero handouts from either parent.

But I also think that attitude is a load of shit.

Early on in the 1980's I went to a community college to get the first couple of years of college out of the way. I sublet a room from a single woman (probably her landlord had no idea) and I rode a 10-speed bike between a pizza restaurant I worked at and the community college (yeah, sucked in the Kansas winter-time).

Later, at a university, I was able to work as a dishwasher at a dorm and pay my way through college.

But there's probably no way my kids can do the same 40 years later.

It would be, to me, a tragedy if our kids only finally "make it" when their parents die and all our assets are cashed in and divided among them. For myself, this would have come at a time when I didn't need the windfall.

I'd rather help them out now as they are trying to climb the ladder to homeowner, etc.

(It sure would have been nice if one of my parents could have forked over the cash to buy me that Macintosh Plus back in 1986. Alas, a student loan I was nervous to apply for did the trick.)

The problem is that someone in their 20s can't even envision a realistic path to where people in their 60s are. And for me personally, being somewhere between the two, I think I'm mostly doing things "right" and still am not optimistic I'll get to where my parents are. I don't even think I'll see all of the money I've paid into Social Security back, given the political rumblings about "reforming" that program. Which is to say that I can see why younger people might feel hard done by.

It’s not hard to see why people find that unfair or whatever though. It’s complete disillusionment with the “dream.” Why is our society/economy structured in such a way that we spend our youthful years struggling and only get to enjoy the fruits when we are older? It’s why FIRE is so appealing to some, you get to get out early.

"If they did it right" is a bearing a lot of weight there. The window of "getting it right" has shrunk over the last 40 years and it's delusional to argue otherwise. People like myself are comparing themselves to their parents at the same age. My dad had me at my exact age now, had bought a house, could raise a family on his singular wage. That is non-existent now in my part of the country.

This article isn't about 20 year olds. Millennials are 30 to 40s

> While I won't deny there are some problems currently, I think people comparing where they start to where others end is a huge mistake and leads to a lot of unnecessary anguish.

That an ungenerous and frankly dismissive reading of the article.

Joe asked his dad for the $15k loan to start a business, not go on vacations. He used his dad's retirement lifestyle as a goal for his future retirement. He used his dad's historical entrepreneurship as his current goal of starting a modest small business. Nobody of sound mind would even think you could live like a retiree on $15k.

Joe's own dad wasn't even as dismissive as you're being. He denied the loan because he considered it a form of coddling his son. There's no evidence in the article he thought his son would use it to attempt to live his retirement lifestyle.

Edit: clarifications

Well, anecdote, but I’ll chime in.

I’m the only person in my friend group able to afford a house in the foreseeable future and that’s been because of various strokes of luck (and some hard work of course).

My wife’s situation is the same. We’re all in our 30s.

And we’re talking any house here. Not the ridiculously expensive ones in major cities.

Som have confided in me that this feels hopeless, things keep getting more expensive, money keeps feeling like it’s worth less etc.

The general feeling at this point is past resentment with them. It’s more of accepted hopelessness.

Idk the numbers on this but I much more often hear "It's hard to see my parents living so lavishly while they're struggling." Apparently boomers are not big on saving for retirement or living within their means.