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I love my Boomer mom, my in-laws and my aunts and uncles dearly. Many of them fell into the social traps of the 70's and almost everyone in my family is from a broken home.

We traveled through life's disappointments and difficulties with our parents and we feel a lot of love and compassion for them even while we're rolling our eyes.

But I did have an argument with my mom a couple of months ago that does show where the front-lines of the generational war will be fought and it's Social Security.

My mom went off on how she paid into it for years and it is money owed to her. I told her that my husband pays in $500 a month and we'll *never* see a dime of that money if the Boomers don't take some sort of hit. (Like not getting the money if one already receives a retirement or raising the age to 70, like it already is set for many of us Xers.)

She brought up the "trust fund" and again said that it's "my money!" I had to explain to her that the fund was empty. That politicians had drained it years ago. That my husband and I were already paying for *her* Social Security right NOW. That there was nothing else left.

She got quiet for a bit then told me that she was promised that money and she was damn well taking it. I told her that that promise was a LIE. I asked her why my generation was expected to accept that we were lied to, but her's wasn't.

Finally I concluded with the statement that *everyone* will have to take a hit over the next few years. Seniors, government workers, welfare moms - everyone on the gov't dole. It has to stop or there will not be an America for her grandchildren.

And so the argument goes.

Most Boomers that I've talked to about this mess are bothered, but not bothered enough to do something about it. Not bothered enough to not take the money. And definitely not bothered enough to vote for a politician who promises to mess with their precious gov't check.

This stupid program is going to be the death of our county in many ways. It's ripping us apart economically and ripping apart the generations like nothing else ever could. I'm terrified that the economic pressures *will* bring out the animal in the younger generations and that the solution for an unwanted child since Roe will be applied to an unwanted grandmother very soon.

And no, I don't blame the Boomers for starting this mess. The whole party began with the generation before. With that said, generational warfare gets us nowhere. We're all going to have to act like adults now.

So, when your mother, who depended on the “honesty” of the government doesn't get the money that she expected, and when she has nothing else to live on or not enough, you will be willing to take her into your home, as was done for hundreds if not thousands of years, and make your home hers? Or are you advocating the solution to which you alluded when bringing up Roe vs. Wade with regard to unwanted parents?

How dare you even argue with your mother about something that threatens her very security? Shame on you. What goes around comes around and you will be approaching that time in your life someday, when not all looks as possible as it does with the strength and blush of youth. When you lie awake at night after living your life and giving your all to family, and wonder if there will be enough and if you are going to be a burden.

After the economic debacle we have just witnessed, if you think that this administration or group of progressives worldwide is going to allow individual solutions like IRA’s or 401k’s go untouched then you are suffering from the same trusting naivete that you proclaim your parents suffered.

Social Security is a complicated subject. The main problem is demographics. My parents were born in 1913 and 1916, my father had three brothers and four sisters who lived to adulthood, one or two died as infants. My mother had six brothers and two sisters and one died in infancy. This was common for their generation. I have three brothers, most of my first cousins were born into families with from two to five children, this is a big drop from the previous generation. There is no way that people in America could have kept having families the size of my parents families, you wouldn’t be able to move now. The generation that started social security had no idea of the fact that it was impossible to sustain, there were no doubt some in government who understood the math but they were not about to tell people that this pyramid scheme will fail when the pyramid turns upside down.

Of course a lot of people bought into the idea that if they just had enough monetary income they would live the live of luxury in retirement but it isn’t quite that simple. Regardless of what a person sets aside, the only way people can live well in retirement is if there are a sufficient number of people of working age who are willing to support them. Anyone who doubts this can just imagine being the last person alive on Earth, you would own it all by default but you wouldn’t be able to get a crumb except by your own effort. As soon as all the gasoline in all the cars went bad you would have to walk everywhere you went. There would be millions of hotel rooms empty and available for nothing but you couldn’t get room service no matter what you did.

A lot of people thought that SS and retirement plans meant that they didn’t need to have descendants to take care of them but it isn’t quite that simple. I don’t know what the answer will be when all of this filters out but I know that the generation following the boomers is a much smaller generation and that does not bode well at all.