Everyone loves to tell young people how soft we are compared to boomers, how they worked harder and sacrificed more. But I actually looked at the numbers - like really looked - and it's mostly nostalgia dressed up as morality. My parents bought their first house at 26 on a single income. The house cost 2.5x their annual salary. Today that same house would cost 8x the median household income. They had a pension. Healthcare was cheaper. College cost something you could work through. But sure, we're the lazy generation because we need roommates and student loans.

What gets me is the righteousness about it. My dad will tell me how he "worked his ass off" and therefore deserves his retirement, which is fine - he did work. But then in the same breath he'll say young people don't want to work, when the real difference is we're expected to do the same work for less security and at a higher cost just to exist. A boomer at my salary level in 1985 would've been comfortable. I'm here budgeting for a future that might not have Social Security.

And I'm not even angry about this being done to us. I'm angry that when we point out the actual structural differences, we get dismissed as making excuses. Like, acknowledge the game changed, even if you won the version you played. Stop acting like the only difference is character. My parents worked hard. But they also got lucky with timing, and that's not something I can replicate no matter how much I optimize my life. That's the conversation I wish we could have - but apparently recognizing luck is somehow an insult.