Millennials Are Revealing The Most Tone-Deaf Comments Boomers Won't Stop Saying (2025)

Recently, we discussed the many things young people say that are, well, just extremely out of touch. And those were pretty shocking. But as it turns out, older people can be equally as insensitive — and people have tons of examples to prove it.

So without further ado, here are some of the most popular stories Reddit users shared in response to the question, "What's the most out of touch thing an old person said to you?"

Note: Due to some of these being*really* out of touch, please proceed with caution.

1. "I was homeless a while ago and my great-grandfather found out. He gave me $50 and said to rent a motel for a week. My heart completely broke."

—Shayducta

2. "'You don't know what it’s like to lose a parent' –my father, who lost his mom when he was 61. I was 18 when my mom died."

"Like you were there, motherfucker."

—AmatuerCultist

"My coworker once told me it was easier for me when my dad died when I was 13, compared to her dad dying when she was in her fifties."

—MHG73

3. "'Just walk up to her, grab her, and kiss her.' 'That’s assault now, grandpa.'"

—Alert-Lawfulness2232

"It was assault back then, too, but women weren’t allowed to have opinions about it."

—Wrong-Grade-8800

4. "My grandpa had similar advice: 'Your grandma probably said no to me 20 times before we went on a date. I made sure I was on her porch everyday knocking to she if she had changed her mind!'"

Yeah, pop, I’m pretty sure I’m getting arrested on day two for that."

—what_the_shart

5. "An elderly lady once told me, 'Just walk into a company with your resume, shake the boss's hand, and you'll get the job!'"

"Ma'am...they won’t even let me past the front desk. 😂"

—SugarSummerbliss

6. "That my generation is easily offended. I mean, come on, your generation was offended if a Black person drank out of the same water fountain as you."

—EatPumpkinPie

"We're not offended, we're angry at the world you created."

—Piratesmom

7. "My elderly professor told me I shouldn't worry about student loans because 'back in her day' she paid for college by working summers as a waitress. Yeah, that $80K in debt will definitely be covered by my summer job at Denny's."

—Naughty00Nbusty

8. "I was on my honeymoon back in 2009, and this guy sitting next to us on the plane started chatting me up and asked what I do for work. He told me I should go out and start buying houses to flip them or rent them out for extra income."

"Buddy, I'm 24 and making $40K, how the hell am I supposed to just buy a house, let alone multiple houses?"

—csonny2

9. "About a year ago, I was being stalked by an ex-boyfriend. When I told my mom about it, she told me that back in the day his refusal to give up would've been seen as endearing. Like, no mom, that's harassment."

—noiness420

"Rom-com movies are part of this. If he keeps trying eventually she'll say yes and this has been normalized. It's just really messed up."

—eddyathome

10. "In Southern California, my aunt, who heard we still rent, was like, 'You don’t have to buy a new home. Just get yourself a $200K starter home and fix it up.'"

I was like, 'Starter homes that need fixing up in LA start at, like, $1.2M.'"

—Stella_AzureGlow

11. "'Why are you renting? Why don’t you just buy a house?'"

—k00lkat666

12. "Them: 'Congrats on your $500 scholarship! That should cover one of your two classes this semester!' Me: 'I appreciate it! But...that won't even cover a credit, which is $900. Each class is three credits.'"

"Them: 'Are you serious!?!?' *surprised Pikachu face*"

—impromptu_dissection

13. "Had dinner with my grandmother last week, and she genuinely asked why I don't just marry a doctor to solve my student loan problems."

—Naughty-Sweetheart

"Wait 'til she hears about the doctor’s student loans."

—Afraid-Somewhere8304

14. "My grandpa told my dad to tell me not to ever bring my Chinese boyfriend over to his house for holidays, dinners, or anything like that. He said something about my great-uncle (his brother) being a POW in Japan during World War II as his reason for hating Asians."

"My dad informed him that the boyfriend was Chinese, not Japanese.

He said, 'Same thing. All the Asians came from China; that's where they all came from to start with.'"

—will_write_for_tacos

15. "'How bad can rent really be for a nice one-bedroom? Like $800?'"

—Luddite_Literature

16. "When I was a teenager, my parents kept pressuring me to get a summer job. My dad claimed that it was as easy as going door-to-door and applying."

When I was in grade 11, my dad lost his job and found no one wanted to hire him — in spite of his decades of work experience.

He shut up about that soon afterwards."

—sheikhyerbouti

17. "I work six days a week, and seven days a week November–Christmas Eve, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and I do overtime. But apparently I don't work hard enough, and that's why I can't afford to buy a home."

—Fun-Membership-9795

18. "'Just because he cheats, doesn't mean you should go ruin your entire family over it. Do better and he'll be better."

"Thanks dad. Glad you’re dead."

—ninjabunnay

19. "My grandma (mid-80s) called me greedy and irresponsible for spending $250K on a house in 2024 ('affordable' in my area) when she only spent $10K on her first house and raised 3 children in it. 🙄"

—msbeesechurger

20. "I was a young, single gal when I used to take care of my brother in law's elderly great aunt, and she apparently figured I could use some adventure and advice. She told me that I should travel the world and see as much of it as I can, but that there was no sense in paying for it because that type of thing can be had for free. How? Her advice was to start a relationship with a married man — the wealthier, the better, she said, because they would go out of their way to make sure that nobody they knew would see them stepping out on their wife with a mistress, which meant TRAVEL."

"'That's how I got to visit the Vatican with Pete the Greek!' she pointed out proudly. Apparently, 'Pete' was a wealthy married guy she hooked up with when she was 19 years old, and in their small town, he was a prominent member of the Greek orthodox church, so people in town called him 'Pete the Greek.'"

—Edelweiss827

21. "'At your age, I was already in command of 100 people.'"

"Well, good on you for taking over the family business."

—st0pmakings3ns3

22. "'You’ll change your mind,' about me not wanting kids. Still no desire!"

—AgentJ691

23. "I'm six months pregnant. Prior to getting pregnant, I had some blood pressure issues, so I’m being closely monitored for preeclampsia, but no problems so far. My mom said maybe I shouldn’t be working."

"Sure, mom. Are you going to give me thousands of dollars so I can afford not to? I'm a nurse and she was too, and she quit when she started having kids, but that was in 1976 and their ranch on 300 acres was paid for in cash…"

—HotSauceSwagBag

24. "'If you think a CEO isn't a good fit for your agency's culture, it's your responsibility to tell them that.'"

—Content-Strength-275

25. "Our baby had been born with a tongue tie, and nobody could figure out why he was losing so much weight despite frequent attempts to breastfeed him. He couldn't latch on. By the time we figured it out, my wife's breast milk was no longer coming in. So it was either formula or lose him. A few weeks later in the checkout line, where we were buying two cans of baby formula, a rando elderly rando man said, 'Breast milk is best.'"

—Thin-Rip-3686

26. "My grandma used to ask me if I got a pension every time my job came up in conversation. She could not grasp that pensions basically don't exist anymore except for unionized positions and the military."

—Noteworthy-Poster

27. ""Pull up your bootstraps, stop buying a coffee every day, and save money. You'll have a house in no time.' –Boomers, not having the simplest clue that houses aren't $1,500 anymore, and the cost of living is 3000% higher than when they bought their house."

—Sarge1387

28. "My grandfather told me I was wasting time learning how to use computers, as they're hardly used in the workplace."

—ThatLid

29. "Every time the topic of transgender young people comes up and a boomer says something about how they're 'putting litter boxes in schools now because kids are identifying as cats,' I want to light myself on fire."

—highly_uncertain

30. "Back in 2016, when I had a Friday off, an older woman in an elevator told me, 'Maybe if Donald Trump gets elected everyone will have Fridays off!'"

—vaca232

31. "My dad doesn’t believe that there is even one woman out there that works 10 hours a day AND comes back home to take care of their kids. According to him, that’s 'impossible.'"

—Sure-Setting-8256

32. "To my father in my presence (somewhere in Asia): 'You let your daughters study abroad? I would never. They'll just marry foreigners and never come home.'"

—nogardleirie

33. "'If you're ill, then you're ill. Work will understand. You can't go in and teach when you're ill.'"

"LOL, OK HUN."

—TopAd7154

34. "I was buying a pregnancy test. She told me she hopes I learned my lesson. Mind you, I was 23, and had been in a relationship for almost two years with the person who is my now-husband of 12 years."

—Jbrock1233

35. "When I was 22, I was working the cash register at Hallmark. his one old woman I was ringing up was digging in her purse and some loose Tylenol fell onto the counter. She was like, 'Oh, sorry that happens all the time,' and I said, 'Yeah, I suffer from chronic migraines and I’m always losing Excedrine in my purse.' She looked me dead in the eyes and said, 'Young people don’t get migraines, though.'"

"We just stood there staring at each other for a second, because I was kinda too baffled to respond. I've had them since I was in elementary school — they had to run a lot of tests of me as a kid — so I was like, what?! What planet do you live on???"

—gingergray

36. "They said the ADHD that my grandchild has is something that they will outgrow someday."

—Proud-Blood3238

37. "This one is mild and more funny, but sometimes when my grandparents tell me a secret or something not everyone should know, they say, 'Don't go sharing this on Facebook!'"

"Ma'am, I haven't posted on Facebook the last decade, and I doubt my comeback will be about a distant relative's divorce."

—daisybih

38. "My step-mom recently asked me why I haven't paid my mortgage off yet. I've owned my house for seven years."

—cestlahaley

39. "This is kind of mild compared to some...but my grandma used to always be like, 'Oh, you should date him, he has a car.' That was her standard if he was an OK level of human to date: if he had a car. It didn't matter if he was a trash human. Or if he had a job. But if he had a car...woohoo."

"I always thought that was weird. What her life must have been like growing up that she thought that made someone worthy of dating."

—No-Fishing5325

40. "'I thought you were from a third world country with all that body mutilation!'"

"While I was working and assisting his wife. I have the Kanto Pokémon badges tattooed under my collarbones. LOL."

—cthulhuuuuuuuu

41. "My old male finance professor in an all-woman's college told us that if we're looking into a buying a new house, take a hairdryer out if our purse and plug it in every outlet to make sure they work. We were confused, because...why a hairdryer? Why not a phone charger? And when he noticed our confusion, he said that women always worry about their hair, and that they bring their hairdryers with them everywhere."

"He said the only things women carry in our purses were makeup and girly stuff. It was...quite baffling."

—averyshortgirl

42. "My in-laws say this a lot, especially when talking politics: 'You'll understand when you're older.'"

"Motherfucker, we're in this mess because of you dumbasses. For being highly educated, they are kinda dumb."

—on_the_edgeofbarstow

43. "'If you want health insurance, you just need to get a job.' Bitch, I work 45 hours a week."

"I'm a pastry chef. The multi-millionaire, old-money family who owns the restaurant offers zero benefits of any kind."

—69schrutebucks

44. "My dad said going through active shooter drills at schools wasn't that bad compared to the duck-and-cover drills he went through during the Cold War."

—HASthisEVERhappened

45. "When I was having problems conceiving, I was constantly told to 'relax,' which isn't a thing. An older friend at work also told me to just take a month-long vacation in Hawaii and I'll get pregnant in no time. Like, who is that even an option for?!"

–MoreSeaweed6204

46. "'Working in retail is for people who didn't apply themselves in school and want to do absolutely nothing and get paid for it, so it looks like they are productive members of society. They shouldn't complain about the wages being so low because they made these choices.'"

"A few years ago customer told this to me when we were severely understaffed during a busy sale day."

—SeanSweetMuzik

47. "'A young lady like you shouldn't be drinking black coffee. That's a man's drink. You should have something sweet.'"

—wonderlandresident13

48. "'Sorry honey, I don't believe in global warming' –my old Boomer coworker during the hottest summer on record."

–Petty_Paw_Printz

49. "I have an ethnic name. An elderly guy asked me what my name was. I told him, and he said, 'What happened to the normal names, like Sandra or Nancy?'"

–atomickitty11

50. "'The hunting is great on that mountain — plenty of deer up there.' 'When is the last time you were up there?' '1956...'"

–KatanaF2190

And I know you've got a story to add to the list. What's the most irritating thing an older person has said to you? Tell me in the comments below, or use this form to remain anonymous!

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Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.