I have some input to give you that may shed some light on why some Boomers are the way they are.
I’m a cusp Boomer, old enough to remember what the generations before me said to me and other youngsters when we were young.
We complained about how we were treated by some of the silent generation and their parents. Some friends and I were griping how badly we were being treated, and one of the silent generation snarkily told us that we had to suck it up, that this is how things are and when we get older, we’ll have earned the right to treat the youngsters the same way.
That really hit me wrong. I told the person that just because they treated the young people like crap doesn’t mean it’s right to do that to others. They smiled at us, got patronizing and said “you’ll see!”
I decided that I wasn’t going to live that way. I don’t believe that anyone earns the right to treat others badly. I guess there are other Boomers who feel as I do and others who feel entitled to pass on the crap they endured.
This can also be true of why some parents end up treating their kids the same way they were treated. I know my mother had confessed to me once that the thought of not treating me the way she had been treated felt grossly unfair to herself. She felt that if I didn’t suffer that somehow her own suffering would be in vain. As a child I had tried to explain to her how this seemed to be a strange logic, but in her mind it made absolute sense.
As a young adult I had to wrestle with that. I knew I didn’t want to be like her, in fact I did everything to be her opposite. I saw my father as her opposite, so I did my best to emulate his behavior even though she had broken me and damaged me in ways that I had to make conscious choices to not only become a different person than her, but to learn how to heal and become healthy. Choosing not to follow in the footsteps of our elders and teachers becomes a conscious choice.
Just because we reject their ways of thinking or behaving towards others doesn’t mean we have to reject them entirely. Sometimes it is necessary to go low contact with people we come to see as being unhealthy or toxic, and other times it is shown to us that they willfully choose their behavior, so going no contact is our next option.
In an ideal world the hurt and damaged people who choose to pass it on would see our examples and hear our words, but unfortunately that’s not often the case. People who are hurt and damaged and not seeking healing often encase themselves in hard shells that perpetuate the hurt. They may find a sense of personal retribution when they hurt others, much like those of the Silent Generation felt they had earned the right to hurt others in turn.
We cannot help other heal and grow if they do not wish to. Sometimes their persona becomes so wrapped up in their own unhealed inner pain that they can’t imagine themselves without it. Their own anger and pain stops them from being able to do the inner work, for although their pain came from an exterior force, their healing now requires their own inner work, and that can seem grossly unfair to them. “Why should I have to do all this work when I wasn’t the one who caused it?” was one of my mother’s own laments.
The very fact that we each need to do our own inner work in spite of others having willfully hurt us can be a bitter pill to swallow. Why are we required to do something we never asked for?
The difficult truth is that no one else can do this for us. Yes, therapists and counselors can help us, but they don’t possess magical powers to undo the hurt and pain that was caused to us. This is hard work we each have the personal responsibility for. Many get drawn to different religious groups in the hope that connecting with the Divine will heal them, and for some it might help, but for others it just doesn’t work out that way.
This may land very hard in some people’s hearts. This may seem terribly unfair. This may seem to be impossible.
I’m here as a guide to show you that it is possible. I never say that “if I did it you can too”, for I don’t walk in your shoes. All I can offer is the truth that healing from past pain and learning new living skills is possible, with personal effort.
There were many times I wanted to give up on that work because it was too painful, I felt as though I was being split in half through my core. There were times I felt unworthy of healing. There were many times I told myself I was unworthy. Let me tell you now that you are worthy, each of us is worthy of healing and redemption.
Sending love and blessings to you.
- Accepting blame or responsibility for our actions shouldn’t include keeping score
- Changing ourselves and others
- Choices, Chances, Changes. You must make a Choice to take a Chance or your life will never Change.
- Do you only accept yourself if you look a certain way?
- Emotions and where they intersect with each other
- Forget the pain but never the lessons you gained.
- God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know… it’s me.
- How people treat you is their karma… How you react is yours…
- Time to Change the Negative Tapes!
- 13 Signs of Serious Anger Issues (you may not think yours are all that bad!)
- 16 Phrases People Use When They’re Angry Inside but Don’t Want to Show It, (and how to move beyond.)
- Angry judgementalism is tearing us all apart!
- Can emotional regulation help prevent crime and addictions?
- Everyday is a new beginning. Take a deep breath, smile, and START AGAIN.
- How DOES anger affect our health?
- How to trigger your Narcissist (not that you should), and what you can do to live a sane and healthy life
- Internet shaming is more than repressed anger; there’s everyday Sadism underlying it.
- “Telling it like it is”, it’s hurting us all…
- The power of stepping away!
- What is the purpose of an Anger Journal, and why you need one!
- Why venting anger just makes us angrier, and ways to deal with it.
- A new you! Is this possible?
- Are you co-dependent and trying to hang on at all costs?
- As we practice being gentle and kind with ourselves, we actually help to speed the process of helping our lives become more positive!
- Be kind to past versions of yourself that didn’t know the things you now know.
- Be the flawed, QUIRKY, unique, beautiful and MAGICAL person that you are!
- Be the one who lights the darkness for others… with a good deed or kind word!
- By being yourself you put something beautiful into the world that was not there before!
- By changing our inner dialogue, we change EVERYTHING!
- Changing how we see ourselves; moving from dislike when we yearn to be able to go forward into something more positive
- Fall in love with taking care of yourself
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Blessings!
Thank you for liking, sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara
I hope you’ll poke around my Archived Posts Main page divided up into 3 sub-pages: Mental Health and Rewiring the Brain || Healing and Developing Ourselves || Positive thoughts and Affirmations to find a wonderful trove of supportive and encouraging posts!
https://tamarakulish.com/
My books: Developing Happiness When You Can’t Find It and How to Heal Your Life on a Deep Heart Level are available in paperback and Kindle. Audiobooks are available for the busy person!
Guided Journals help you work on a particular issue by answering questions to help see patterns and to find solutions:
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Tamara Kulish 
Beautifully said, Tamara. So many people feel it’s all so unfair, but as I always say, everything has its opposite. And we can’t truly understand these things unless we experience them ourselves
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Very true! Hopefully we’ll all get to experience healing and growth instead of hardship and abuse. Some things are in our power to change! Peace to you!
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Love this and what you said is true. Whatever we have endured as an individual does not define who we are or can be. A good life is made by our own efforts.
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So true Pennize, so true! Glad this resonated within you. Hope your week is lovely!
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Thank you. I hope that your week is a nice one too.
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❤ ❤ ❤
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Yikes! What a horrible thing to say to children and a horrible way to treat them! That’s so sad. Seeing every perspective helps, of course, but still.
Above this box is your response to Wynne. I’m loving your second paragraph there especially. So, so true. I’m so grateful for healing. So needed.
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Thanks so much! Yes, those kinds of things are quite hurtful and my mother said them quite matter of factly, as though she was trying to get me to understand why she treated me and my brother the way she did.
She was a true narcissist in that she didn’t feel she was wrong, and even on her deathbed, a couple of hours before dying she held onto her excuses. She only changed her thoughts when she realized she wasn’t going to recover but would meet her maker shortly.
Having spoken with many people from the silent generation, they felt this was how life worked… they suffered so they got to pass on the suffering.
We now see today that way of thinking was based in emotionally damaged people trying to make some sense, and thankfully today we have access to treatment and healing.
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This sounds just like my MIL: “She felt that if I didn’t suffer that somehow her own suffering would be in vain.” Sigh. I’m so sorry for all you’ve had to navigate in life, Tamara, but truly admire what you’ve overcome, what you’ve learned, and you’re willingness to pass along those valuable lessons to the rest of us.
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Thanks so much Erin, I’m sorry that you have such a MIL who needs others to suffer. I find it quite sad that they operate on that level. Hopefully you both will be able to move on with your lives soon!
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Since I am able to stay away from those in my generation if I wish, the leading edge of the Boomers, I suspect that they are unlikely to target me.
It is likely that whatever inappropriateness they have to offer is visited on those who are younger. I will have to ask my younger friends about their experiences with my generation.
Surely you have been through enough in your life, Tamara. No one of any age deserves to give you more.
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Thanks Dr. Stein, I appreciate your kind words. I don’t receive grief from those kinds of Boomers but they do love to gripe about the younger generations and give them grief. I’ve been very impressed by so many in the younger generations, in some ways they seem more advanced than the older generations.
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Beautifully spoken Tamara. There are so many that feel it is all so unfair, but as I say there is opposites to everything. And we cannot understand them unless we experience them. Yes we seem to be dropped into the deep end but we will never truly understand happiness unless we experience sadness too, and from that give the appreciation of what happiness truly is. It is those empathetic connections because we ‘have’ experienced both sides, in those and many other emotions. Hence the love we build, and to finally reach its true understanding within us. You are guiding well kind lady, because you have touched them all. Great share, thank you 🤗❤️🙏
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Thanks so much Mark, I appreciate your supportive words. Yes we get to experience a wide range of things that help us become better people, if we allow them to. I never subscribe to the school of thought that justifies passing on the pain. I’m the opposite really, I prefer to pass on kindness and help to others, I feel that is more uplifting. Wishing you a wonderful weekend!
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Passing on the pain and abuse from generation to generation.
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Yes, exactly. We each can break that cycle when we gain more healing and improve our life skills. It’s a healthy target to shoot for when first on the healing path. Thankfully there’s a better way, and a path to become a better version of ourselves.
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“She felt that if I didn’t suffer that somehow her own suffering would be in vain.” That logic is so strange — but I love that you are shedding light on it and showing how it doesn’t need to be the case. Thanks, Tamara!
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Thanks Wynne! Yes, I found her logic strange even as a child, but when I examined it later as an adult I realized that it shed light onto how many others have lived and are living their lives.
As you know, I try to show that just because we may have been raised in such a way, doesn’t mean that we need to continue with it. Many very damaged people construct a sort of pretzel logic in order to make some sense of what they suffered. Hurt people very much create other hurt people, while healed people break those cycles.
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