Most Boomers Taught Their Millennial Kids 11 Completely Inaccurate Life Lessons
Liza Summer | PexelsMillennials were born on a cusp that bridges a generational gap. They might not be able to function without cell phones in their current lives, but once upon a time, they carried flip phones and pawed through teen magazines. Before technology advanced, they relied on their boomer parents for advice, but unfortunately, they ended up learning very inaccurate life lessons.
Whether it was hearing their parents tell them that being bored means you're boring or that a job is your identity, as they became adults, millennials realized that they were being lied to in some ways. But with age comes wisdom, and they've accepted that what they learned growing up just isn't their reality.
Most boomer parents taught their millennial kids very inaccurate life lessons
1. You can be anything you want to be
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When boomer parents told their millennial kids that they could be anything they wanted, millennials made it a point to work hard and dream big. In our current world, telling kids they can be anything they want would be seen as toxic positivity, but when millennials were growing up, it was just a normal part of life.
According to neuroscientist Tali Sharot, 80% of people have optimism bias, which she described as "the tendency to overestimate our likelihood of experiencing good events in our lives and underestimate our likelihood of experiencing bad events."
Unfortunately, unmitigated optimism can lead to risky behavior, but maintaining low expectations isn't a healthy approach, either. Millennials who refused to release the idea that they could be anything they wanted faced serious disappointment, but it's possible that their hope for the future carried them through.
2. Your job defines who you are
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From a young age, millennials learned to equate their self-worth with their productivity. They were praised for their over-achieving, perfectionist tendencies in school, and they carried those tendencies with them into adulthood. They bought into the idea that work was more important than anything else.
All they got in return was stress and emotional exhaustion. Millennials believed that work was supposed to fulfill them, and when it didn't, they wondered what was wrong with them. As it turns out, nothing was wrong with them, but there was something seriously wrong with the way they devoted themselves to their jobs, to the detriment of their health and well-being.
It took them some time, but millennials are finally learning that the advice their boomer parents gave them was completely inaccurate. They now understand that they are so much more than what they do for work.
3. You have to finish everything on your plate
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For millennial kids, dinner time meant listening to their boomer parents repeat that they had to finish all the food on their plate. They were raised to believe their eating habits were responsible for ending world hunger, which was completely inaccurate, on both a personal and political level.
Experts from Harvard Medical School shared that the "clean your plate" approach to eating is more harmful than helpful. When kids are forced to finish every piece of food in front of them, they never learn their own hunger cues. Instead, kids should be eating intuitively.
4. Boys will be boys
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While their own boomer parents were likely taught from a young age that "boys will be boys," by teaching their millennial children this, it gave boys permission to get away with everything. Every snapped bra strap and mean joke was met with that phrase, and no other consequences.
Professor Elizabeth Meyer pointed out that this phrase is dangerous, giving them an excuse for aggressive behaviors. "We need to be able to talk about children's behavior in more complex and nuanced ways that don't confine them to socially constructed pink and blue scripts," she added.
Millennial girls, in particular, were expected to accept the harassment. At its core, this notion denied the need for boys to be held accountable for their actions. And as those girls became women, they quickly discovered that this "life lesson" was wrong on many levels.
5. Therapy is only for people with serious issues
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Because boomers were taught to ignore their emotions when they were growing up, the thought of seeking out mental health help never crossed their minds. As such, they raised their millennial kids to believe that therapy was only useful for people facing a major mental health crisis.
While seeing a therapist is more widely accepted now than it was back then, there are still misconceptions around who should be in therapy. Therapy is for anyone who needs help and guidance around their well-being. More than anything else, therapy is a tool people can use to build up their self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
6. It's not polite to talk about money
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While talking openly about money might be uncomfortable, the more people discuss it, the more they understand it. Keeping money a hush-hush topic stops kids from learning essential skills for financial literacy. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, kids learn about money from watching the way their parents spend and save it.
Giving kids an allowance is an easily accessible way to teach them about the value of money and help them understand saving. Unfortunately, for millennials, even if they did make money doing chores around the house or getting a job of their own, they likely stayed mum about it, even though it's an essential part of learning and growing up.
7. If you're not married by 30, there's something wrong with you
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Boomers typically were married in their early 20s, so as parents, they passed this lesson onto their millennial kids. They taught them to put marriage on a pedestal in a way that wasn't particularly healthy. Parents would make it clear that in order to be happy and fulfilled, marriage was the way to go.
They would often tell their daughters, especially, that if they weren't married by a certain age, something was wrong. This turned out to be an incredibly toxic and completely inaccurate piece of advice.
Millennials were raised to believe that getting married was the only thing that mattered. That misguided belief made millennial women feel especially bad about themselves. Marriage isn't the right choice for everyone, and there are endless ways to give your life meaning that don't involve taking vows.
8. Being sensitive means you're weak
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Millennials were raised to equate vulnerability with weakness, which explains why being ironic gained so much traction in the early 2000s. The belief that being sensitive meant they were weak was deeply ingrained in the way millennials related to each other.
As they became adults, it took millennials a long time to release the idea that sensitivity was a negative trait. But once they realized this life lesson was inaccurate, they were able to embrace their authentic selves, and they were so much happier for it.
9. Girls can't play sports
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Millennials were raised in an era of surprisingly rigid gender roles. Because of the world their boomer parents lived in, it was embarrassingly common to be told that girls can't play sports. It permeated playgrounds and high schools, and even college campuses.
The idea was designed to keep millennial girls down, and was based on outdated social stigmas and deeply ingrained patriarchal norms. But millennial girls refused to listen. Instead, they watched Mia Hamm win the Women's World Cup in 1999, which reinforced what they already knew to be true: Girls are a force to be reckoned with.
10. You need to suffer to succeed
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While this life lesson was meant to be a source of motivation, it really just taught millennials to ignore their needs and push past their limits. According to leadership coach Tara Kermiet, millennials were "taught that no matter how tough things got, we were supposed to push through, brush ourselves off, and keep going."
Their boomer parents were under the impression that their resilience would help them survive tough times. But, as Kermiet explained, "that survival tool became a weapon we turned on ourselves." As millennials became adults, they finally understood that true resilience comes from setting boundaries and treating themselves well.
11. You'll understand when you're older
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Unfortunately, by boomer parents teaching their millennial kids that they wouldn't fully understand life until they were older, they robbed their children of the opportunity to learn about difficult concepts. Boomers shirked all responsibility in talking about hard things with their kids.
This notion was meant to convince millennials that adults had all the answers. As kids, they accepted it as the truth. But millennials are fully-fledged adults, and they've come to realize that their parents were just trying to buy themselves time.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a writer based in Boston, Massachusetts who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
