Remember mocking our parents for printing emails and refusing to text? For their paranoia about online privacy? For fixing things instead of buying new ones? Well, prepare for some uncomfortable truth: the Boomers were onto something with almost all of it.

The irony of generational wisdom is that it usually takes about twenty years and several hard lessons to appreciate it. We had to live through our own digital disasters, career burnout, and anxiety epidemics to understand what they were trying to tell us. Now, as millennials creep toward middle age and Gen Z discovers adulting, we’re quietly—very quietly—admitting they had a point.

1. Not everything belongs on the internet

They watched us document every thought and feeling online with genuine alarm. “This will come back to haunt you,” they warned, while we posted another questionable party photo. Now we’re panic-deleting our digital history before every job interview.

Younger generations are now embracing “digital minimalism,” curating sparse profiles, going dark on social media. Turns out that Boomer suspicion of the internet wasn’t fear of technology—it was healthy skepticism about human nature.

2. Talking beats texting for anything that matters

We mocked their phone call obsession mercilessly. Why call when you could text? But after years of misread tones, autocorrect disasters, and relationship-ending message threads, we’re learning what they knew instinctively.

Important conversations need vocal inflection. A five-minute call resolves what becomes a two-hour text spiral. Even Gen Z is rediscovering phone calls, treating them as intimate connection rather than digital intrusion. Voice notes are just phone calls with commitment issues.

3. Making things with your hands keeps you sane

While we optimized our screen time, they puttered in workshops and tended gardens. We called it outdated. Now we’re paying therapists who prescribe “grounding activities” and downloading apps to remind us to touch grass.

Their generation knew intuitively that physical creation beats digital consumption for mental health. The explosion of pottery classes, sourdough starters, and houseplant obsessions? That’s just younger folks discovering what Boomers never stopped doing. Their garage workshop wasn’t avoiding technology—it was preserving sanity.

4. Staying in one job wasn’t giving up

We pitied their “lack of ambition,” stuck in the same company for decades. We were going to chase passion, optimize fulfillment, never settle. How boring to do the same thing for thirty years.

Plot twist: they have pensions and houses while we have side hustles and anxiety. Their deep expertise made them invaluable while our job-hopping made us replaceable. The gig economy promised freedom but delivered precarity. Turns out “boring” stability funds retirements better than “exciting” uncertainty.

5. Privacy strengthens relationships more than publicity

They couldn’t understand why we announced every anniversary online and live-tweeted our dates. “Some things should stay between you,” they’d say. We thought they were repressed and secretive.

Now couples are discovering that keeping relationships offline actually improves them. No performance pressure, no comparison scrolling, no public breakup drama. The younger generation’s “digital detox dates” are just returning to the radical concept of being present with one person instead of curating content for strangers.

6. Knowing how to fix things is financial freedom

They fixed everything themselves. We hired apps for everything. They had toolboxes; we had TaskRabbit. They read manuals; we called customer service.

Then the bills came. Those DIY skills they insisted on teaching us? They save thousands yearly. YouTube repair tutorials are younger generations frantically cramming for the test Boomers passed decades ago. The right-to-repair movement is basically us realizing that self-sufficiency isn’t outdated—it’s revolutionary.

7. Boredom is productive, not problematic

They could sit still without entertainment, just thinking. No podcasts, no content, no stimulation. We thought they were wasting time. They were actually processing life.

Now we pay premium prices for meditation apps and silent retreats to artificially create what came naturally to them. Boredom sparks creativity and self-knowledge in ways constant input never allows. Their “doing nothing” was actually doing something we’ve forgotten how to do: existing without distraction.

Final thoughts

Here’s the generational plot twist nobody expected: the Boomers aren’t gloating. They’re just quietly continuing their analog habits, occasionally offering to teach us basic life skills, watching us rediscover their wisdom through expensive apps and wellness trends.

I’ve been thinking about this generational wisdom gap since reading Rudá Iandê’s Laughing in the Face of Chaos. He writes beautifully about how “we mistake the map for the territory, the name for the essence, and the story for the truth.” Maybe that’s what happened here—we mistook newness for progress, innovation for improvement.

The truth is, progress isn’t always linear. Sometimes the old way remains the best way. And maybe—just maybe—we should stop filming ourselves long enough to ask them how to balance a checkbook. Because at this rate, they’ll be right about that too.