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By Alyce Collins
Senior Reporter
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"When are you finally going to get on the property ladder or make me a grandparent?"
Many millennials know what it's like to grapple with these tough questions, and the answers are rarely what people want to hear. But one man has finally found a way to help his baby boomer dad understand the perils of being a millennial in 2025.
"Millennial" refers to a person born in the 1980s or 1990s, while "baby boomers" are generally considered to be the generation born following the end of World War II in the years from 1946 to 1964.
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Like many people, Brendon Lemon, 39—who resides in Brooklyn, New York—works hard and has had plenty of career success, but he doesn't own a home and can't afford to start a family. However, he told Newsweek that his 68-year-old dad, Mike Lemon, sees these as "classic markers of success," so it's hard for him to understand the disparity.
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When Mike was the same age his son is now, he had a home and two children. He often asks why Brendon doesn't own a property or when he's going to have kids, despite owning a consulting company, publishing three books and running five online courses.
Brendon says the comments are "less accusatory than they sound," but he wanted an opportunity to explain his situation in terms that his boomer dad would understand.
"The best way to do this is by comparing how much buying power the dollar has lost since he was my age or younger," Brendon said. "So I told him that when him and my mom got married in 1982 and made $X per hour working as a stock boy at the grocery store, that would be like making $Y money today."
It's often difficult for older generations to understand the financial struggles of millennials, as Brendon suggests the "changes are invisible" to many of them. Indeed, his own dad's wealth has risen over time, accumulating with investments that he's accrued and so on.
The idea that younger generations are struggling to buy their first home or to have children can be difficult to compute when not faced with those challenges personally.
Brendon continued: "He's become a lot more amenable. It's literally taken years of this conversation for him to get it. In the video, it sounds like he said he's going to give me some of his wealth—that definitely isn't going to happen."
On February 20, Brendon did what many millennials would do and shared his thoughts on TikTok (@brendonfreakinglemon). The video explaining how he helped his dad understand his financial situation has gone viral with over 251,900 views and more than 19,400 likes on TikTok at the time of writing.
One of the points that Brendon shared with his dad was that boomers (among others) are "hoarding all of the wealth." This echoes 2024 data from Statista, which highlights that boomers account for 51 percent of wealth distribution in the U.S, and Gen X are the second highest with 25 percent.
Millennials own just 9 percent of wealth in the United States.
Brendon told Newsweek: "Boomers aren't retiring and are staying in the workforce, which prevents upward mobility from others and keeps careers stagnated. They also either can't or don't want to downsize their homes due to the rising prices. Why sell a home they bought in the 90s for $120K that they own outright, only to move into a smaller home at a higher cost?
"Boomers have pursued policies which have systematically enriched themselves at the expense of their children and grandchildren. My assessment is that they pursued these policies out of a naive worldview and distorted sense of reality that occurred from growing up in a world with working institutions which were dismantled after boomers."
After sharing this with his dad, Brendon says "he actually got it" and sees why so many millennials are struggling—or shall we say, financially challenged.
The TikTok video has generated a mixed response online, as many were sympathetic with Brendon, while others insisted that boomers aren't to blame.
"It's very frustrating when people do not realize that big, impersonal trends affect people's lives," Brendon said. "It's harder to buy a house, and therefore harder to create a family and build wealth. Home ownership has been the top wealth builder for the middle class, and an entire generation is being systematically locked out by the collective decisions of their elders."
Many social media users took to the comments section to share their perspective, leading to more than 600 comments on TikTok so far.
One comment reads: "They don't get it. It was so much easier for them."
Another person wrote: "My Boomer parents refuse to see how hard things are now. They think the usual avocado toast stuff."
A different TikTok user added: "My boomer parents aren't perfect, but they understand that the cost of things have changed considerably and it's much harder now. I'm grateful for that."
Do you have a monetary dilemma? Let us know via life@newsweek.com. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.
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