Depressed

I think part of the problem is that the " Baby Boomer" generation has been expanded to include people who technically shouldn't be in it.

Some " Never had it so good" and could walk into jobs at will My dh was born 1950 and he just about falls into this. I was born 1957 and I recall a very different world where jobs were getting scarce. People were losing jobs. Factories were closing and it was a time of economic depression and high levels of competition even for quite low paid jobs and zero hours contracts (rather like today in many ways).

I was getting a house when negative equity hit. I was lucky.
I got a house on the down of that in 1985 and then prices went silly and came down with a thump.....).

I think if you were a post war baby (1945 - 50) Your experience may be quite different to that of those born mid fifties to 1960/1.... and I think the real baby boomers
(around 1962 - 1967 - when a real surge in population was experienced)) had a completely different time again. They were the first to have it all as kids. I missed that but watched my brother (b 1966) having it all and having it now. The first of the expectant and entitled attitude group I suspect. He still has the same attitude to day (as does his son).

I also think that possibly if we werent all lumped into together, you may find that " Post War Babies" and " The In Betweeners") and the "Baby Boomers" and even the " Seventies Babies") may well have voted quite differently to each other.

I do not consider my self to have been privileged as the post war babies were with economic stability (many of my family were post war babies and I see them now and their experiences were so different to mine) but neither was I as consumer led as the seventies babies.

Quite a lot of us on GN were "prewar babies" or "war babies" and our experiences were different again from any of those.

There is too much fog in the view back in time to the lives of previous generations. Everyone is presumed to have lived in some kind of Shangri-La where all the necessities and a lot of the extras were there just for the picking. All in the same Shangri-La, too, where they gobbled it all up and left none for their children.

Money, education, full employment, equality for women, foreign travel, access to information of every kind, all these things were in variable supply at different times, and often the supply was non-existent. There wasn't a time when ALL of them were guaranteed to EVERYONE, no golden age which has vanished today, just Life with all its frustrations.

And let's not forget how the goal posts have been moved now that a lot of us are at what we thought was going to be our retirement age. Instead of the 60 we were told when we started working we now have to continue to 66. That'll be, in a lot of cases, whilst caring for our elderly parents and all the complications that brings.

Glad you've brought this up as I am still angry about this. First, humbug says we had free university education - in fact, none of my friends or family went to university and I was made to leave school at 15 as my parents said they couldn't afford for me to stay on. I started work in London at 15 and 2 months old and went to night school to learn shorthand/typing - one of the few jobs promoted to girls in those days. DH & I got engaged and saved every penny to buy a flat which was furnished from family and friends cast offs. We didn't have a honeymoon as all our money had been used for a desposit - we had no credit cards or bank of mum and dad. Because of this we have never been in debt and I still check my bank account item by item each month. I do feel for the young people these day regards housing, perhaps a good thing to come out of 'leave' is that house prices may fall. I think they do better put some of the blame on the young people who didn't bother to vote, despite Cameron giving them an unprecedented extra 2 days to register. My first and last rant about the referendum.

Well said SallyDapp

I think our children are very happy that we ' had it so good' otherwise they wouldn't be getting so much when we pop our clogs.

What amazes me now is how unable the younger generation are. We live in a "nice" neighbourhood and the last two families that lived next door to us, earning very well as it happens, were unable to do simple things like change a plug! In both cases they had to ask their dad to do this for them. But they look down on anyone that can do basic things for themselves.

LOL Petras. ours aren't --- we are spending it

Subsidised them through Uni and for a few years after, they are on their own financially now.

Too right Gandtea spend spend spend!!

They are earning 3x what we earn't, even taking inflation into account.

Well I have to say that not ALL of the younger generation take the view that we older folk had it better in times past. My children span the ages from 43 to 24 and are well aware of the sacrifices we had to make; partly because they all experienced them first hand. When my eldest child was born I had never been on a foreign holiday (I was 32 the first time I holidayed abroad - it was my honeymoon in 1986 - and apart from a four day trip accompanying my daughter to Paris in her GCSE year I didn't go abroad again for a holiday until the year 2000), I had no fridge, freezer, washing machine, car, television or vacuum cleaner (who remembers sweeping the carpets and floors?). By the time my youngest child was born I still had no car, all my furniture was still second hand (it's only in very recent years that I have replaced most of my second hand items with new things) and I was working two jobs as my husband was at university and only able to take a part-time job. I finally went to university after my youngest child was born.

My children all know and appreciate that my life was a struggle in many ways and are very appreciative that we are now in a position to help them out. They don't blame the 'older generation' for anything as they are well aware that even the term is meaningless.

I am fed up with blame being put on the boomers and the elderly for the brexit vote. If you had been able to vote online or via mobile phone, I expect remain would have won. However, because you had to vote by post (this seems alien to some of the young) or physically go to a polling station which seems to have been too much trouble, I have little sympathy with all the bleating going on. If you don't vote, then don't whinge.

I think you are over estimating the number of remainers who didnt vote amongst the young and old alike. I know a number of youngsters who voted out. I know others who simply were not bothered and so didn't vote (and still are not bothered).

Further you may find a lot more of the "didnt vote" who would have voted out will come out too.

You may well find that a re run might increase the number of exist voters. Remember,it might have been a split of 52/48 nationally but that was skewed by certain areas. In my own area, several neighbouring counties ranged from 60% - 79% for an out . This picture was repeated across many areas outside London, the SE and Scotland.

However, there should not be a re run. The decision was made ( just as one was made in 1975 - I remember that one too). When a decision is made you should stand by it, not messaround trying to get your way. When the election didnt go the way I wanted I didnt ask for a re run because less than 40% came out to vote (remember Brexit was over 72% turnout, this is high in the UK for any vote).

Relying on polls to tell you who voted which way is rather silly. After all they predicted the vote wrongly. The predicted the last election wrongly.... I could go on. They also sit on their backsides phoning and taking online measurements. I have never been asked what I was going to vote, or what I voted ( except in one poll a week or so before the referendum , run by a newspaper - not the Daily Mail - and it was the only time I actually answered , and that poll got it right......) Neither can you be sure anyone is telling the truth either.

Coming here, and seeing the comments I was in two minds as to whether I might just shut up or worse, pretend I voted remain too. You cannot trust anyone these days. We are far more savvy (dishonest maybe?) than we once were.

Yet, most of the 48% still cannot shut up can they? You lost. Now lets get on with it. Many like me have experienced what it means to be poor and jobless and see our work go elsewhere and to others in the EU ( and directly as a result of the EU) first hand and we want a chance to change things.

We do not want you scuppering us just because you get on the streets and complain in a few hundreds. ( NO, I have a sister in Law in London and she tells me categorically there were not thousands protesting but a few hundred and a lot of sight seers apparently ). SiL didnt vote. She doesnt qualify for a a postal vote but was having difficulty getting out of the house that day and couldnt get to the polling station
(following a stoke a few weeks ago). She might well have voted out had she done so.

Whilst I am on the soap box. Another of the attitudes and comments that has sent me ballistic is the idea that old people and working class people were the only ones who voted out and they had no right to vote. They should have been prevented from voting because they were uneducated and too thick to understand (because of course they were not voting to remain).

What kind of education did those " young(er) " and other remain voters actually obtain that they think that is acceptable? Certainly they clearly lack any understanding of democracy but more than that they do not have any apparent comprehension of what sacrifices were made by the "thick and ignorant" old ( er) people to actually get them a vote at all -and how many generations of those "thick and ingnorant" people fought for that right to vote and create a better place for them to be.

How long before we get a situation like that of Stalin or Nazi Germany ( which of course was socialist, not fascist at all)where people are disenfranchised and disappeared because they are not " educated" the correct way.

Such remainers are treading a dangerous path with such thoughts.

I am somewhat sick of hearing it from you ( remainers) now. You lost. Instead of complaining about how you were robbed, get used to the fact you actually lost. if your arguments were so good, then why was the campaign run on fear? Why not just say " These are the three (or more) good reasons to stay in the EU and be positive about them . Since that was not done, it is my conclusion that there were no good reasons.

Further, what made your side (the remainers) think that rolling out a bunch of has beens, dead ducks, and celebrities with pink berets and cabbage patch kids should be a better influence that a decent argument?

If I had to weigh it up, I certainly feel the remain side did more of this " I am ( a very rich) celebrity) do as I say" than the leavers.

I had many reasons for feeling that the EU was not good. Much of it my own experience. Much of it based on having a brain and being able to think for myself ( being educated actually)and not I was not "duped" by lies (there was plenty on both sides). I didnt even listen to most of the arguments.

I did my own research. I reviewed my own experiences and I waited for good arguments from the opposite side. None were forthcoming. I voted to leave.

Now, get over it and start asking why your campaigners were so bl**dy limp and lacking in good reasons, instead of asking for a re run. MAYBE, just maybe, the leave voters were right and you are wrong. Either way, leave was a majority and in this country ( not the EU) we tend to believe in free votes and doing as the majority decide, like it or not. Its called democracy.

Or is that something else that has to go in an EU and a UK dominated by remainers?

well said Abbey

I'm a babyboomer and because of it was'nt allowed to stay on for furthur education because I was a girl and would get married and have children (had to pay for my keep). I so envied my brother as he was encouraged all the way career wise. I was desperate to leave home and fulfilled my parent's proficy and surprised them by not being pregnant. Lol
We were a lucky generation job wise but it was low pay and we worked 6 days a week grabbing any overtime offered, husband did a pools football round for his pocket money and me night cleaning. Because I was married I couldn't get day release to college like my single collegues but paid for my own night school classes. Unfortunately I landed up being a one parent family through no choice of my own. Lost everything landing up in council flat with child and I never went on benefits - it never occurred to me to claim for benefits. I worked and lied about my situation or else I wouldn't of got employment. My child went to childminder school friend - no grandparents taking up the slack. My god we've had it easy. Take off your rose tinted glasses youngsters.
yes we bought a house and struggled to pay our morgage. We lived on eggs, beans on toast and got 4 meals out of a chicken. Even bought fish trimmings saying for the cat we never had so I could make fish cakes etc., Of course these skills were learnt at domestic science classes in school and from parents. Life skills our children and grandchildren haven't had.

Anya
I've now been singing 'The Living Years' for over three and a half hours, and DH is beginning to get a little stressed

I was amazed to hear that some Gnetters were being accused by their children of voting wrongly or having it all better or too easy.
They are your children they lived with you they must know that you had money problems when they were growing up.
We never have such discussions in my family because my children - andthe rest of the family and friends are not on Face Book, nor Twitter so we still come to our own conclusions like in the past. I'M sure that being confronted with bitterness and doubtful opinions etc must have a depressing effect.

Sorry Juggs

Good post MargaretX - Thankfully the same in our family.
These social websites are poisonous.

I voted to leave. I haven't whinged, whined or called for a further referendum. A democratic decision was made and, although I was disappointed to be on the losing side, it's time to move on.

Please don't tar us all with the same brush.

well what a load of grumpy moaning ' ooh we had it hard in our day'. I really thought that GN was better than this! As for Abbey with your description of todays undergraduates not being fit for the checkout at ASDA.....well, I am speechless. If this had been my first visit to GN I would not have come back. This is a nasty, moaning and divisive thread.

I thought the Leave side won, vampirequeen...

I did not say they were not fit for the check outs as Asda Gill. That would be disrespectful to those who work for Asda anyway, I know many quite able people working there.

I said that in todays world, getting a degree is available to anyone who wants a place and who can pay the fees and this has significantly impacted on the quality of those degrees. Whether you are speechless or not, that remains a fact.