Adults Are Getting Real About How Their Parents’ Finances Are Shaping Their Future

What started as a simple question about generational wealth turned into something way more complicated: the messy, sometimes infuriating truth about money across generations and how much it defies any neat narrative. When u/LowInternet4726 asked older millennials how they felt about their parents being “significantly more financially well off,” the responses cracked open assumptions about boomer prosperity and millennial struggle in a way that felt deeply personal — and incredibly relatable.

Some discovered their “poor” childhoods were actually funded by six-figure incomes their parents secretly hoarded. Others are dramatically outearning parents who made terrible financial decisions for decades. Many are watching parents who seemed comfortable suddenly facing poverty because they never learned to save, invest, or plan beyond the next paycheck.