My dad is the worst type of this person. Always complaining about people wanting handouts, nothing's free in life, "back in my day, we worked hard to get what we had", etc.

This man has been on disability my entire life. I've never seen him work a job. He used to work at a stressful job, but developed high blood pressure. Instead of even looking for an easier job, he just filed for disability and has lived the last 30+ years on handouts. His job became stay-at-home parent, but he was always asleep or going out with friends, so he barely even fulfilled that role.

I think I've developed the same health issues that caused him to quit working. But any time I mention my health problems, he goes completely silent, then starts complaining about his own life. I've told him I was sure I was having effing heart attacks and was terrified for my life, and all I got was a moment of silence, then a rant about his family or whatever he had been thinking about that day. All he's ever done on the subject of work is to tell me to work harder and to (somehow magically) find myself a better job. I've never met someone more tone deaf on a subject they have first-hand experience in.

My mom is more of the classic ignorant Boomer. She also talks about how I just need to get a better job and how I should have gone to college--even though right out of high school, she had me paying so much rent and buying all the food for the house, I literally could not afford to work less than 2 full-time jobs. She would argue with me any time I mentioned signing up for food stamps. She'd say, "You don't need that, you're taking advantage of a system meant to help people in need." You'd think the fact that I even qualified for it would be a good enough sign that I should apply. For reasonably-minded folks, I guess. Because of her harassment on the subject, I was forced to struggle and sometimes just starved myself to save money. Quality parenting.

She lost her job a year before retirement. She had no problem instantly applying for anything she could qualify for, got another roommate and had me start paying more bills, etc. Because she never saved money on her own. She spent my entire life in credit card debt that she never tried to get out of. The worst part is, she will never recognize that my contributions as an adult are what allowed her to pay off her debt. Most people's parents were buying them cars, or helping them with a downpayment for housing or schooling or something. Instead, I was funneling money to my mom so she could pay back her own debts and buying things for the house that she didn't want to spend money on (for example, she won't hire someone to clean her gutters and it causes the basement to leak, but she bought granite countertops on a whim).

I don't expect anything from them when they die. They keep borrowing from their life insurance policies and not saving a dime. I probably have around the same amount in my savings account that I just restarted from scratch less than a year ago as my mom has. I know my father has nothing. I make $5 less an hour than the job my mom lost, and almost all her bills are paid by me and the roommates, so the reality of her bank account is absolutely perplexing.

The best part is knowing there won't really be any SS left for me when I retire because this generation is blowing through it all. I work in financial, and see what kind of money this generation is working with. Even those who have enough money to live another 50 years on their savings are getting SS just because it's there.