I’m in the same boat as you, my father was disconnected, absent, aloof, mean, or drunk. The generations raised by boomers seem adamant to not repeat the abuse and neglect we received. I’m sure some is the lead as others have mentioned, but I think it goes back further and has more causes.

When my partner and I discussed the parallels in our dysfunctional families, we realized that our parents had similar histories of emotional and almost certainly physical abuse at the hands of their parents. The Greatest generation really did a number on them.

In addition to that, boomers felt the pressure to start families, but are the first generation to do so after suburbanization took hold. Add to this their own great numbers in comparison to their parents generation, and you have an enormous number of households going it alone for the first time. I think generations before the boomers had a lot more community resources to fall back on, since people were less spread out.

Another likely factor is all the propaganda they were fed. Baby boomers grew up in the start of the cold war and had their opinions and values shaped by the flood of propaganda that came with that. I don’t know if we’ll ever understand the damage that did, just having the backround noise of your life be the growth of the modern propaganda machine. Is it any wonder boomers find comfort in the conservative alternate reality? Its the only world they’ve ever known.