Baby Boomer And Millennial Moms Are At Different Stages Of Processing Oppression
The fight for women’s rights takes generations.
Danik Prihodko | Pexels Editor's Note: This is a part of YourTango's Opinion section where individual authors can provide varying perspectives for wide-ranging political, social, and personal commentary on issues.
As a young woman, my mom dealt with financial insecurity and objectification. Now her retirement is in the hands of the stock market, and some billionaire bros are making her feel scared.
She’s 69, so she’s feeling that the story of America, from her perspective, is over halfway through, and it might not have a happy ending. This is not the America she wanted for her daughters, and definitely not for herself.
Mom’s moving to a 55+ community called Traditions in a few weeks. Even though she’s a Democrat, she feels safe in Florida. She’s been a Florida person since she escaped the cold Adirondacks for college at sunny FSU.
Mom’s a working psychologist, so she’s in the emotional trenches with a lot of people who think about the world much differently than she does. Sometimes, she feels depressed and anxious, not only about money, but all the hate and bad behavior by the men in power.
During the first term, Mom took all the money out of her retirement account, put it in the bank, and held it while the stock market soared to great heights. Now, the opposite seems to be happening.
As a Baby Boomer, Mom feels vulnerable because her right to enjoy retirement is completely dependent upon the stock market.
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This concept seems problematic to begin with, but now oligarchs, industrialists, and profiteers can manipulate the market at scale.
My mom talked to her financial guy, who said she had thirteen years of retirement — and this was before the trade wars. I keep telling her: “Mom, when your money runs out, I’ll take care of you! Seriously. I got you. Don’t worry.” But she can’t stop worrying. She’s a mom.
Mom told me that she feels more anxious now than she has at any time in her life, and I relate. Some days, I can’t get out of bed without coffee and a joint, which I can hardly enjoy, because I’m anxious about how it will affect my health, or whether my neighbors can see me.
At 42, my story is going like this: perimenopause attacks Mom of six-year-olds. It’s kind of like an energy crisis inside my body. But it’s also like a war, because as an American mother of young daughters, I’m feeling the need to prepare for a worst-case scenario.
I’ve never been a real worrier, but the news is knocking my socks off. Last August, we moved up to our northern Michigan cottage and were tasked with buying a house during this whole ordeal, the political transition.
After weathering a snowy winter, which froze the housing market along with the lakes, we ended up buying one of the first houses to pop up on the Spring market. I just couldn’t stand to be in limbo anymore.
I threw my dream house out the window and boiled the decision down to ease, proximity, space, and price. We spent only half our budget, grabbed a 15-year mortgage at 5.75%, and are shopping for a camper to sleep four.
As a Millennial, I’m trying to be conservative and make sure my nuclear family is prepared to deal with whatever shock and awe comes our way over the next three years.
After that, at least things can start getting back to normal, errr, better-than-normal. (Normal and new normal were not cutting it.) Mom and I shake our heads about the latest headlines and think: these are the dangers of having a silver spoon tycoon of a man in office. To me, he’s the reality TV guy, to her, he’s the 80s schmooze, to both of us, he’s the bad guy, and a seedy character.
Now he’s the fearful leader, throwing what was left of America’s reputation into the garbage. My mom’s looking back, feeling the great despair of not having manifested the world she wanted for her daughters or granddaughters.
I’m still looking forward. What choice do I have? My daughters are five years old. My friend Sarah is the same age as me, with two pre-tween boys. She lives outside Philadelphia and is married to MAGA. (Great title for a reality TV show, by the way — Trump should be taking notes.)
Sarah’s husband is great. I liked him from day one. Before Trump, he was a Republican, which wasn’t a problem for me or Sarah. She used to celebrate their ability to come more toward the middle. That’s what marriage is about, right?
Now it’s different. Sarah fears their values are out of alignment. She’d been breaking up about it for months, ever since she became an innocent bystander on a multi-generational group text celebrating abortion bans.
She called me and said: “The women who want to be mothers can be mothers, the women who don’t want to, don’t have to. Why is this so crazy?”
“If they’re worried about scarcity, what about all these extra mouths to feed?” I said. “Don’t they realize that these babies are just consumers to the industries that make politicians rich — hooked on corn syrup, damaged by broken family systems, emotional trauma, and environmental toxins?”
“I know,” said Sarah. “Not everyone has the wherewithal to raise kids in this society.”
Sarah and her husband finally went to see a marriage therapist, who explained to her husband that many women and marginalized groups are feeling vulnerable now.
“Did that make sense to him?” I asked Sarah. “Yeah,” she said. “I think it did.”
Sarah’s mom is a painter. She did a piece about the fearful leader that patrons requested be taken down. She’s still engaged with the news, and each story is hitting her like a dagger.
Like my mom, Sarah’s mom is mad at the people who voted for him. They should have known better. What were they thinking?
“Shame on them,” she says. Sarah says to me, “I don’t know what she wants me to do, divorce my husband?”
“Do you think she wants you to do that?” I ask.
“I don't know, maybe.”
My mom and Sarah’s mom share a common thread of steadfastness — they don't want or aren't willing to see the other side, or examine how we got here.
They are sick of this garbage, and they want the bad guys to pay. Can I blame them?
As fifties babies, our moms were some of the first actualized feminists. They worked as almost-equals to men, raised children, and kept house. In mid-life, they both exercised their right to divorce. They had educations, careers, and some financial independence.
That’s a lot of progress, considering our mothers were born a decade before women even had the right to sign a mortgage. Until that point, we women were domestic servants, unable to live in our own homes without a benefactor.
As teenagers, our mothers were the first generation of women to take the birth control pill and gain reproductive freedom — a huge leap in escaping domestic servitude, recovering from the trauma of rape, and moving women’s workplace equality into the next gear.
Now, forces are trying to take away our reproductive freedom, workplace opportunities, and even our ability to vote. Decisions are being made to defund women’s health research, which is already drastically understudied. There are social programs to help women and children that have been defunded overnight, both domestically and abroad.
To women who have been part of a sixty-year movement to liberate women, this is all like a punch in the gut.
Sometimes, after too many losses, it’s hard to shake it off and get back in the game. It’s hard not to become hateful of your opponent when the system’s rigged and everyone’s cheating.
Sarah and I were eighties babies, born into a culture where white male dominance and structural capitalism went largely unquestioned by the Western world. It didn’t seem so bad to us kids at the time. We were distracted by shiny stuff and popularity contests, just like everyone else.
It wasn’t until after college that I understood the full scope of how America’s ruthless acquisitions exploited and destabilized whole countries and ecosystems. You can thank Zeitgeist, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and the information age for that.
It wasn’t until after midlife that I realized I don’t even want what they’re selling — that this whole game of chasing carrots and running in wheels for a buck, is total bologna. I mean, there were hints along the way, but now I’m actively trying to escape the clutches of consumerism.
As young women in the modern world, Sarah and I were given opportunity, and we felt lucky to work alongside men. We were also objectified along the way.
The Diddy scandal didn’t surprise us in the least. Drugging and assaulting women was a real part of life as we knew it. Anyone who went to college learned that.
Up until recently, it seemed like these predators and misogynists were finally facing a reckoning. It seemed like we women had found strength in unity and power in our voices.
But predators and misogynists don’t respond well to women's empowerment. Now they’re taking us backward — cutting funding for women’s health, children’s education, and workplace equity programs.
Sarah and I are moms of young people. We have no choice but to envision a way out of this. We are thinking critically and plotting quietly. We are investigating motives and playing out futures. Yes, we’re tired. Yes, we’re scared. Yes, we’re hopeful.
Nowadays, my mother can’t watch the news at all, lest it send her into another depression. Her retired husband stays glued to CNN, promising to alert her if the apocalypse is near.
Last week, my mom said, “I’m so mad at Obama. Where is he? Why hasn’t he said anything?” As if on cue, he made a speech the following week.
“Are you feeling any better about Obama?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “One little speech doesn’t change anything. I hope he’s doing things in the background.”
This is the harsh reality Mom is facing: No one is coming to save us.
As if politics weren’t enough, she’s also facing a reckoning with healthcare. After dealing with Irritable Bowel Syndrome most of her adult life, she said to me, “Can you believe that not one of those doctors ever told me my stomach issues could be connected to stress?”
“Well, they can’t profit off teaching you how to strengthen your vagus nerve. The money’s all in drugs and surgeries,” I say. Part of me is secretly hoping the whole system implodes so that we can start over.
“Things are getting worse now, but ultimately it’s going to get better,” I tell my mom.
“I hope so,” she says, with defeat in her voice. Maybe she doesn’t believe it. Maybe she’s wondering if she will get to witness the phoenix rising.
fizkes / Shutterstock
Here’s the thing about generations: we all have different starting and ending points that color our perspective. Me? I’m at the midpoint of this movie, the turning point, the climax.
I’m an optimist, so it can only get better from here. For mom, she’s at the three-quarters mark, and this movie looks like a tragedy.
Sarah’s mom and my mom don’t want to get their hopes up only to come crashing down again. They’ve been hurt too many times. They don’t want to brainstorm theories about how department gutting and deportations are part of a robotics adoption plan to help Musk colonize Mars. It’s all too much to think about.
Our moms are still grappling with having the heroes of their stories rewritten as antagonists. Someone has ripped off the super-capes of trusted institutions like the press, hospitals, and even the DNC, and colored the villains even uglier than they could have imagined.
“This is not the America we believe in.” We can all agree on this.
For centuries of history across various civilizations, it’s the post-menopausal women who are the wisdom keepers, the threads that tie nets around the community, and keep them strong.
Here’s my message to the Baby Boomer women: It’s not over yet. Your Gen-X and Millennial daughters are with you, fighting for peace, each of us in our way. Art. Conversation. Kindness. Service. We are teachers, mothers, nurses, singers, and actors of love.
Certainly, each of us moves through anger, grief, hope, and action at different paces. Every day, week, and through the years, we move alone in our homes and together, in waves, each one of us trying our best to endure the shade and storms, and to keep loving through it.
Our maternal instincts don’t stop with our children. We strive for balance, peace, and justice here in America, in Palestine and Ukraine. We know these ideals aren’t a race, but a relay of women, across land and generation.
We will keep the fire burning. We will pass the torch. We will work without leaders, like a hive serving our Earth, the queen. Through our voices, our communities, our children, and our commitment to our beating hearts, we will restore balance to our society.
Let us teach our children, protect our rivers, and save our oceans. Using every stage of grief and every emotion as fuel for our cause, let us move mountains. Then we will celebrate and share gratitude with the unnoticed, unsung, and disregarded.
We will say: The crevices of your hearts gave us comfort. The cavities of your minds gave us inspiration. The echoes of your voices gave us power. We will bow our heads and whisper: Thank you. You are so important. We couldn’t have done this without you.
Ashley Kibby is a writer and mother of twins located in Northern Michigan. She writes about consciousness, culture, womanhood, and wellness with a focus on dismantling myths about materialism and productivity. Ashley holds a BA in Psychology, Certificates in Astrology, Spiritual Living, and Yoga, and has studied Creative Writing at Interlochen College of Creative Arts.
