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This article is part of\u00a0Upstream,<\/a>\u00a0The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n It\u2019s a common conversation among millennial parents, so common that it isn\u2019t worth remarking on beyond the brief acknowledgement of shared pain. A writer colleague on a trip together broke the ice with a mention.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, we\u2019ve got three at home, and my husband has them; he\u2019s very capable. Grandma is there, too,\u201d she said with a long sigh. \u201cShe actually makes things harder. I just wish she could, you know, help? I don\u2019t get it. She always wanted grandkids, she always told me she wants grandkids, but now it\u2019s like, \u2018It\u2019s Tuesday. I have pilates.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The Baby Boomer generation is the greatest generation in only one measure: in terms of the redistribution of wealth to itself. No other American generation comes close, thanks to the timing of the Great Society, the expansion of old-age benefits, the timing of Wall Street booms, and a real estate market Boomers continue to dominate. They are the largest group of homeowners by far, despite being just 20% of the population; in 2025, they were also the largest group of home buyers, typically with cash. Empty nest boomers own a third<\/a> of all three-bedroom homes in America. They own double the percentage of homes millennials do, and according to a 2025 survey<\/a>, 61% of boomer homeowners say they never plan to sell their homes.<\/p>\n Those homes are often the epicenter of family moves. Because millennials rent when their parents bought, they are the ones who have to move when they have kids, proximity to grandma and grandpa being a presumed benefit offering free childcare and occasional help. Three-quarters of millennials say it\u2019s important to live near their parents after having kids, and depending on the survey, approximately a third say they\u2019ve relocated or already made a point of living near their parents because of the kid factor. But when it comes to delivering on that help, Boomers are sorely lacking: Just one out of five millennial parents says parents help with regular childcare. The anecdotes are ubiquitous, and they are not flattering.<\/p>\n \u201cWe moved 15 minutes away from my parents after we had our second,\u201d a friend tells me. \u201cSince we had a boy, I thought my dad would want to spend time with him. We\u2019ve lived here a year, and he\u2019s seen him four times. He held him once.\u201d<\/p>\n The Boomer drive-by seems to be the most common interaction: a momentary disruptive pause in the day when kids are taken to do some activity that could conceivably give you enough time to run a few errands, get the car serviced, or spend actual time picking out a steak. But it turns out that something happens, or the kids were rowdy, or grandpa forgot he has to do something, and they\u2019re back on your doorstep 45 minutes later, somehow still hungry. Or there\u2019s one level worse: the drive-by for social media, where grandma is just in the house long enough to snap a picture for her friends on The Facebook.<\/p>\n \u201cMy brother had kids 10 years before I did, and he got \u2018grandma weekends,\u2019 the kids staying over at their house for two to three days,\u201d another friend tells me. \u201cI didn\u2019t get married till a decade later, and I\u2019m lucky to get \u2018grandma lunch.\u2019 She\u2019s in Europe for a month. He played golf at Spyglass; I\u2019m lucky to get a Costco run in.\u201d<\/p>\n You can ascribe this social trend to any Boomer aspect of your choosing: permanent main character syndrome, an abiding aversion to any reminder of their aging nature, belief that they \u201cdid their time\u201d changing diapers and shouldn\u2019t have to do another run, or just a rejection of the parenting styles of millennials as being too demanding, too helicopter for their tastes. But it is an undeniable trend, one that virtually every millennial parent knows all too well.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom changed our diapers growing up, and she says she\u2019s done enough for her life,\u201d yet another friend tells me. \u201cBut it sure would be nice if she was willing to do it just for one Friday a month.\u201d<\/p>\n You can dismiss this development as just a generation that has lived longer enjoying life to the fullest. You can describe it as irrelevant because millennials should figure out ways to pay for childcare and take care of it themselves. But the hard fact is that an underlying reason for the decline in American population<\/a> that we see so regularly reported, year after year, is this Boomer attitude.<\/p>\n It is a simple binary: In the absence of date nights, without a break from the kids, millennial parents simply do not have time to make more kids. If that\u2019s something America wants to change, it\u2019s going to have to bring back shame for our elders. Help your kids, or get used to fewer grandkids. You\u2019re the product of a Baby Boom, but you seem completely uninterested in creating another one. That\u2019s the reality. Change starts with you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n