10 things every boomer has strong opinions about that younger generations don't care about at all and it drives them quietly insane

Last week at the grocery store, I watched a man about my age have what can only be described as a meltdown over the self-checkout lanes.

He was muttering about "proper customer service" and "the way things used to be" while a teenage employee patiently tried to help him scan his items.

Behind him, three twenty-somethings breezed through their own checkouts without a second thought.

It struck me then how many hills we boomers are willing to die on that younger folks simply step over without noticing.

After 32 years of teaching high school English, I learned that generational divides are real, but they're also fascinating windows into how the world changes.

My former students taught me that what matters deeply to one generation can be utterly irrelevant to the next.

And honestly? Sometimes that's exactly as it should be.

1) The sanctity of phone calls

Do you remember when calling someone was the polite, proper way to communicate?

I still believe there's something special about hearing someone's voice in real time.

Yet my own grandchildren look at my incoming calls like I've just thrown a live grenade into their day.

"Why didn't you just text?" they ask, genuinely baffled.

I've adapted, learning to text with the best of them to stay connected across the country, but part of me still treasures my standing Sunday evening phone calls with my daughter.

Meanwhile, my younger friends tell me they'd rather walk on hot coals than make an unexpected phone call.

2) Cursive handwriting

The death of cursive handwriting might be the thing that makes my generation collectively weep into our coffee.

We learned it like it was sacred scripture, practicing those loops and swirls until our hands cramped.

We worry about historical documents becoming unreadable, about the lost art of a handwritten thank you note.

But when I mentioned this concern to a young colleague recently, she looked at me with genuine confusion and said, "But why would I need to read something in cursive when everything important is digitized?"

I had no good answer.

3) Dressing up for specific occasions

There was a time when we had church clothes, work clothes, and casual clothes, and heaven help you if you mixed them up.

I remember my mother's horror when someone wore jeans to a nice restaurant.

Now? I've seen people in pajama pants at the theater and sneakers at weddings.

Part of me still cringes, but I've also noticed that younger generations seem far more interested in comfort and self-expression than in following arbitrary dress codes.

Who decided a tie makes you more professional anyway?

4) The correct way to load a dishwasher

This might seem trivial, but ask any boomer about dishwasher loading and prepare for a dissertation.

Plates face this way, cups go here, and don't even think about putting the good knives in there.

We have systems, theories, and strong feelings about water spray patterns.

Meanwhile, younger folks throw everything in however it fits and call it a day.

The dishes still get clean.

The world keeps spinning.

5) Thank you notes and formal etiquette

Growing up, if you didn't send a handwritten thank you note within a week of receiving a gift, you might as well have slapped the giver in the face.

The rules were extensive: what kind of paper, how to address the envelope, and the proper wording.

Today's young adults send a quick text or emoji, and they mean it just as sincerely.

But try explaining that to someone from my generation who's still waiting for a formal note from their nephew's graduation party three years ago.

6) The importance of staying with one company

Job loyalty was everything to us.

You found a good company, you stayed put, you worked your way up.

Job hopping was for flakes and failures.

Now I watch young professionals strategically change jobs every few years, doubling their salaries and expanding their skills in ways we never dreamed possible.

They look at our gold watches for 25 years of service like museum artifacts from a bygone era.

7) Respecting your elders no matter what

"Respect your elders" was gospel when we were growing up.

Age automatically conferred wisdom and authority.

But younger generations have this radical idea that respect should be earned through actions, not granted by birthdate.

They'll respectfully disagree, call out problematic behavior regardless of age, and expect to be heard as equals.

After years in the classroom, watching teenagers respectfully challenge ideas while maintaining genuine kindness, I've come to see the wisdom in their approach.

8) The proper way to maintain a lawn

The suburban lawn might be our generation's most bizarre obsession.

We fertilize, edge, mow in perfect patterns, and wage chemical warfare on dandelions.

I've watched neighbors nearly come to blows over grass height.

Meanwhile, younger homeowners are ripping out lawns for vegetable gardens, native plants, or just letting things grow wild for the pollinators.

They look at our manicured green carpets like we're tending alien landing strips.

9) Cable TV packages and channel surfing

We still can't quite grasp why anyone would give up having "all the channels."

The idea of not being able to flip through 200 options seems limiting.

We pay astronomical cable bills for channels we never watch because we might want to someday.

Young people, meanwhile, subscribe to exactly what they want to watch, when they want to watch it, and think we're insane for paying $150 a month to channel surf through commercials.

10) Physical media collections

Our carefully alphabetized DVD collections, our walls of CDs, our bookshelves that required reinforced flooring - these were signs of culture and sophistication.

We displayed them proudly, spent weekends organizing them.

Young people look at our media shrines like archaeological curiosities.

"But it's all on streaming," they say, or "I have it on my phone."

They're not wrong, but something in me still mourns the loss of that physical connection to art.

Final thoughts

Here's what I've learned after years of watching these generational canyons form: being driven quietly insane by change is part of getting older, but it doesn't have to make us bitter.

Every generation thinks the one after it is doing everything wrong, just as the generation before us surely shook their heads at our radical ideas.

The secret is knowing when to hold onto what truly matters and when to let go of what simply doesn't anymore.

Sometimes the kids really do know something we don't, and that's not just okay - it's how the world moves forward.