Millennials and baby boomers keep blaming each other for not handling the coronavirus pandemic correctly, and they both have a point
- The coronavirus pandemic is further dividing millennials and baby boomers.
- Baby boomers are calling out the youth for traveling and going on spring break.
- Meanwhile, millennials are frustrated they can't get their boomer parents to stay inside.
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There's been a lot of generational fingerpointing going on during the coronavirus pandemic.
Millennials don't care for the way baby boomers are handling the crisis, and baby boomers don't like how millennials are dealing with it. Each generation thinks the other generation isn't taking the pandemic seriously enough.
Turns out, both of them are right.
Baby boomers are mad that millennials are out partying
Baby boomers aren't happy that younger generations are acting like they're invincible to the coronavirus.
Look no further than the youth who are taking advantage of cheap coronavirus airline tickets to book travels. "I feel like if the coronavirus would get even more serious and like wipe out a large amount of people, I might as well be somewhere having fun," Ashley Henkel, who booked flights to Vancouver, New York City, and Portland, Oregon, for the summer told Ben Kesslen for NBC.
They've also been crowding beaches and partying on booze cruises while on spring break. "We're not worried about it - we've been drinking Coronas all day, bro,"a spring breaker who visited South Padre, Texas, told local station KRGV-TV of the coronavirus pandemic.
Millennials have also gotten flak for flippantly approaching the pandemic with memes. Taking off on Reddit and infiltrating social media, "boomer remover" has become a coronavirus catchphrase among younger generations, reported Hannah Sparks for The New York Post.
The catchphrase - and the youth's invincible attitude - stems from the fact that people over 60 are at greater risk of becoming seriously ill than younger folks who don't have underlying health conditions (those who do have preexisting conditions are also at higher risk). Coronavirus risk increases with age, making people in their 80s and 90s at the highest risk.
Because of this, half of respondents age 18 to 34 said they believe that people of their age demographic were less likely to contract COVID-19, according to a recent survey by MedicareAadvantage.com.
But here's where baby boomers have a point: While older adults face an increased risk of severe illness from the coronavirus than young people without preexisting conditions, young people can still become infected and transmit the virus even if they're not showing symptoms. And recent cases and reports have shown that even healthy 20-something individuals have been hospitalized.
However, baby boomers aren't throwing their disdain in quite the right direction: While both millennials and Gen Z have been seen using #BoomerRemover and booking cheap travel, it's Gen Z , not millennials, who are out partying and ignoring coronavirus warnings on spring break.
Millennials are mad their baby boomer parents are still socializing
Millennials, instead, are more concerned with their baby boomer parents.
The coronavirus is scary to the millennial generation because it shows them how old their parents are. Many have baby boomer parents in the 60-plus high-risk group for the coronavirus. But millennials say their parents aren't taking the pandemic seriously enough, a valid concern considering the stats.
Business Insider's Hayley Peterson spoke to several millennials who said they are worried about their parents' health and who voiced frustration in trying to convince them to stay inside. Jared, 31, told Peterson: "Literally was fighting with my mom this morning about her a) going to Atlantic City last weekend; b) going to another casino via bus this weekend; and c) a cruise in April she refuses to cancel."
Alessandra, 32, told Peterson her 67-year-old mother, who lives in a golf community in Florida, had recently refused to cancel trivia plans with 300 of her friends who had all traveled outside the US within the last three months.
Kathleen A. Hughes, a 64-year-old, wrote about this millennial concern for The Wall Street Journal. "Naturally, some boomer parents are bristling a bit, despite all of the expressions of love and concern," she wrote. "They are bristling both at the idea that they are elderly and at the fact their offspring are suddenly telling them what to do."
Millennials are also annoyed that boomers are panic buying toilet paper during the pandemic, Hughes added, and are taking to Twitter to make fun of them (yet another meme that has, in turn, annoyed baby boomers).
A meme may be over the top, but the frustration may also be valid. Experts have said that stockpiling necessities like toilet paper wasn't necessary, as governments and suppliers have warned people not to do exactly that.
Could all these differences further deepen the millennial-boomer generational divide?
