my dad is a boomer born in the 60s. he had a preacher father, served in the vietnam war, then spent the rest of his working life in a cushy office position for a good company. he was middle class, and it showed in his spending habits as well as his values and what he tried to teach me.
i always, always considered him out of touch, even from a young age. i could always see that he didn't know what he was doing with me, so his parenting often rolled off my back and i sort of raised myself. i could never meet his expectations of becoming a Good American Citizen with a Degree and a Career. he didnt understand how hard it is to get a job. he told me multiple times to just walk into a warehouse and ask for a job, to which i always replied 'that's tresspassing and they'd just tell me to go to their website and apply.'
now my dad is retired, and now he's poor. i can't imagine how much of a disappointing shock it is to get to his age thinking you're gonna retire into a nice RV and travel the country with your wife, only to be bogged down by unreasonable medical bills and abandoned by the company you worked decades for. not to mention TWO of his kids are homeless. he's having a hard time.
and part of me really wants to rub it in his face and go 'i told you it aint easy out here! i told you your spending habits were horrible! i told you im not terrible with money. i TOLD YOU things are fucked!'
but honestly, he gets it. it didnt take him very long at all to understand my position and start praising me for my survival skills and resilience. that kind of praise isn't something i'm used to hearing from him.
even though he's never really going to be liberal (not that he was ever really all that conservative) he understands now that things are fucked in this country. poverty does that to people. it doesn't matter who you are, or what you believe. you are always at risk of being a victim to the system, and once it happens you can never trust that system again.