{"id":866621,"date":"2026-10-01T03:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T03:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866621\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T03:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T03:40:13","slug":"millennials-share-their-boomer-parents-15-odd-and-hilarious-habits-they-just-dont-get","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866621\/","title":{"rendered":"Millennials share their boomer parents\u2019 15 odd (and hilarious) habits they just don’t get"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to intergenerational conflict<\/a>, you never hear too much about Gen Z having a <\/a>hard time with Generation X or the silent generation having beef with the baby boomers. However, there seems to be some problem where baby boomers <\/a>and millennials just can\u2019t get on the same page.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s because millennials were raised during the technological revolution and have to help their boomer parents log into Netflix, while the grandparents get frustrated when their adult children don\u2019t know how to do basic homemaking and maintenance tasks. There\u2019s also a political divide: Millennials are a reliable liberal voting bloc<\/a>, whereas boomers are the target demographic for Fox News. Both generations also have differing views on parenting, with boomers favoring an authoritative style over the millennials\u2019 gentler approach, which leads to a ton of conflict within families.<\/p>\n

\"OlderYounger generations tak issue with some of the habits Boomers have. Photo credit: Canva<\/a><\/p>\n

A Reddit thread struck a nerve<\/p>\n

A Redditor recently asked Xennials, older millennials, and younger Gen Xers born between 1977 and 1983 to share some quirks of their boomer parents, and they created a fun list of habits that can be both endearing and frustrating.<\/p>\n

The users shared that millennials are frustrated with their parents\u2019 abilities to use technology but are touched when they send them a greeting card.<\/p>\n

Of course, it is reductive to reduce generations into a series of stereotypes, whether it\u2019s millennials or baby boomers. But, for many, hearing that they aren\u2019t the only person who gets frustrated with their boomer parents can be pretty cathartic and make them feel less alone.<\/p>\n

Here are 15 boomer parent quirks that Millennials just don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

Hanging on to things<\/p>\n

1. They save everything<\/p>\n

\u201cThey save EVERYTHING (containers, jars, boxes, etc.) just in case they might be able to use it for something later. I feel like this habit was handed down from our grandparents\u2019 Great Depression upbringing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely! Shopping bags, empty yogurt containers, boxes that some product came in\u2026..although I love me a \u2018good box!\u2019 I have all my iPhone boxes for no reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

You know the old saying: Is she really a grandma if she doesn\u2019t rinse out used plastic baggies to save for later?<\/p>\n

2. They print everything<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Boomer FIL prints out EVERYTHING from his computer. I understand printing out instructions or recipes to help remember but do you really need a file cabinet full of forwarded emails from friends and sale adverts from 5 years ago? Oh well, at least he keeps it organized. Also, both TVs in the house run 24\/7 playing reruns of \u2018CSI: Who Gives a Sh*t Anymore?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not on Facebook, but my dad is. Last year, he made a celebratory post on my birthday and all his church friends liked and commented on it. He printed up the post and all of the comments, stapled it into a little book, and MAILED me the printed Facebook comments\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Expired food<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother-in-law doesn\u2019t throw out expired food. She has food in her pantry that is several years past their expiration dates. Same with condiments in her fridge. You just can\u2019t trust any of the food she has on hand because more than likely than not it\u2019s way expired. When we have brought this up, that she needs to throw some stuff out, she insists it\u2019s absolutely fine. It\u2019s not. \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandmother is the same way. Once, she opened her refrigerator, and there was a jar of pickles with mold floating on the surface of the liquid. I pointed it out, and she said it was still good. She would just scoop the mold out at a later time. She has an incredibly strong stomach and immune system.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also love to stock up on and freeze certain staples, even milk.<\/p>\n

Keeping tabs, whether you want them to or not<\/p>\n

4. Scary texts<\/p>\n

\u201cWill text something foreboding like \u2018we need to talk;\u2019 then turns out she forgot a recipe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad will text me \u2018You need to call me right now\u2019 when it\u2019s nothing. And not tell me major life events until well after the fact. Like my aunt had a heart attack and I found out a week later from her son. (And my dad did know.)\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true, generations have been battling over tone and punctuation in texts for years.<\/p>\n

5. \u2018From, dad\u2019 texts<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad sends text messages with, \u2018From, Dad\u2019 at the end of them. It cracks me up every time. He also states who he is every time he calls me.\u201d<\/p>\n

This has to be one of the more endearing things the boomers do. Please never stop.<\/p>\n

\"Older<\/p>\n

6. Stranger death toll<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom is ALWAYS telling me about dead people I\u2019ve never met. I really do not care. I know that sounds awful, but I don\u2019t have it in me to be sad for everyone on the planet when they pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou remember my friend Carol? Her aunt had that above-ground swimming pool in her backyard. We swam in it a couple times one summer when you were about 9. Anyway, Carol\u2019s mom just lost her brother-in-law. They were very close. Thought you\u2019d want to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

7. One more thing<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout fail, every time I\u2019m leaving my mother\u2019s house and backing down the driveway, she comes back out of her house and stops me to say something else, even though we\u2019d just spoken.\u201d<\/p>\n

8. Mail stress<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom has an anxiety attack during the entire journey of a package or piece of mail she dispatched to me. No, she doesn\u2019t know how to track. She will not rest until she knows that a package has arrived or a nominal check has been cashed. She calls when she is thinking about sending something, when she sent it, when it\u2019s en route, and when it\u2019s expected to arrive. God forbid it\u2019s late. And if I don\u2019t issue a prompt thank you, she will guilt me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stuck in their ways<\/p>\n

9. They don\u2019t travel<\/p>\n

\u201cThey act jealous of us traveling but refuse to go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOoh good one. Mine act jealous of anything we do\/buy that they can\u2019t solely because they can\u2019t get out of their own way and actually make things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, in general, they have more money and time to make it happen! But they often insist on being homebodies, to their own chagrin.<\/p>\n

10. Rigid gender roles<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad still clings to the traditional division of \u2018men\u2019s\/women\u2019s work.\u2019 He\u2019ll fix a car, do any outside work, clean out a clogged drain. Cooking? If it\u2019s any more complicated than making coffee or calling in a pizza, he can\u2019t\/won\u2019t. I don\u2019t think he even grills anymore. Laundry? Hell no. Taking care of small children? He\u2019ll play with them but that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"boomers,They still hold onto outdated gender stereotypes. Photo credit: Frankie Cordoba\/Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n

11. They are always right<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad\u2026he\u2019s has to be right about everything and doesn\u2019t know what to do if you beat him to the point on something. He once was giving me a recipe that required cinnamon, cardamon, and clove and told me just to use Pumpkin Pie Spice! It\u2019s the greatest thing! \u2018Dad, I don\u2019t need to. I have all those spices on hand (I bake)\u2019 But\u2026no! You have to use this. \u2018No, I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t need to buy something that I already have\u201d It happens all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents are always right and they are not impressed about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once they fixate, there\u2019s no stopping them<\/p>\n

12. Smartphone addiction<\/p>\n

\u201cYou always hear a kids \u2018these kids always on their damn phones.\u2019 But when it comes to phone addiction, boomers are far worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom drives five hours to see us, then spends the whole time texting people from her church or looking at Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI once sat in their living room for over an hour before they decided to put their phones down and speak to me, only to phub me and pick them right back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the Gen Alpha kids keeping Bejewled in business!<\/p>\n

13. The TV is constantly on<\/p>\n

\u201cIn-laws leave the TV on for all waking hours. And FIL gets irritated if someone talks over the episode of MASH or Walker, Texas Ranger, that he\u2019s already seen 50 times. Like clenching his teeth and stomping the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTV on 24\/7. Constantly flipping between some version of Law and Order, HGTV, and Guy Fieri. Asking me \u2018did you see that commercial where\u2026\u2019 No mom. I don\u2019t have cable. I don\u2019t see commercials. All of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

14. Obsessed with the weather<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, my dad should have been a meteorologist. He used to have a weather alert radio that would sound off in the middle of the night and he would watch the weather channel constantly. We all had to quiet down when your local weather forecast on the 8\u2019s came on. He gets really excited about severe weather like when we might get thunderstorms or a tornado.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing quite like the thrill a boomer gets from relentlessly tracking every movement of an oncoming storm that will probably amount to some rain and little else.<\/p>\n

15. Irrational fears<\/p>\n

\u201cOne quirk my dad had was that he was deathly afraid of the house burning down. Not from the standpoint of the danger of fire but when he was growing up, if your house burnt down, you were basically homeless and destitute. My mom is much more level headed about it. She always told my dad, that is why we have homeowners insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Someday, it\u2019ll be their turn<\/p>\n

It all makes you wonder what new conflicts will pop up when the millennials become grandparents, and the Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids are the ones doing the griping. Probably that millennials will continue to insist on Googling things when traditional search engines have long been replaced, or that the 90s and 2000s kids will never stop listening to Lil Jon-era hip hop, no matter how old they get and how inappropriate it becomes.<\/p>\n

Guess we\u2019ll see. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared last year. It has been updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to intergenerational conflict, you never hear too much about Gen Z having a hard time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[89631,365514,19603,365515,365516,78065,110214,365517,87232,97,3103,365518,6069],"class_list":["post-866621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-2000s","tag-baby-boomer-grandparents","tag-baby-boomers","tag-best-of-humanity","tag-boomer-grandparents","tag-boomers","tag-generational-differences","tag-generational-humor","tag-generations","tag-health","tag-humor","tag-millennial-parents","tag-millennials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}