They never really had to work or watch their parents have to work hard just to make ends meet like their parents did.
Everything was too easy.
I am a product of the 60's. My parents toiled very hard and they climbed the social/economic ladder right there in front of us kids and we grew into hard-working individuals that have raised kids who are hard-working members of society.
I have many friends who are products of the 60's that have worked their way into very productive, upper-middle class members of society.
Like much of everything else in life, it depends on the character of your family and the part of the country from which you came. Lumping everyone from the 60's into a group of ne'er-do-wells is not very accurate and doesn't show a great deal of thought, IMHO.
We kids who grew up in the sixties were products of parents who were “The Greatest Generation” - and it breaks my heart to see what so many in our generation did to trash everything they were given by the hard work, love and generosity of that generation. The Sixties kids DIDN’T in general have to work as hard as TGG did, and that generation wanted us to have what we needed and to have the childhood they didn’t get to have. They educated us beyond our intelligence in many cases, and a lot of us got too big for our britches as a result. - The answer isn’t all that easy; it was a restless period of time and there are many explanations to the complex question of just why in the world did so many of the smart-aleck sixties’ kids end up as smart-aleck middle aged socialists. Hint: I think a lot of them started out as “lifetime” Democrats and just devolved into the crooked, corrupt, lying, socialists we see now. Also, LSD and all the rest of the drugs back then simply burned out some brains and left hollow shells that only look normal and human.
“They never really had to work or watch their parents have to work hard just to make ends meet like their parents did.”
I am from this generation, and my Purple Heart decorated Marine veteran father kicked me out at age 18, since he had enlisted at 17.
They could have afforded to help me, but decided it was the right thing for me to get started on my own.
I got married, became a father, got drafted, finished college at age 25, homeowner at 26.
I worked hard, to support my family because I learned from hard working parents and grandparents.
In California. So take your stereotypes if it makes you feel any more self-satisfied in some kind of generational snobbery.
I see later generations finishing their teen years at about 30ish, because their parents and teachers didn’t want to upset their self-esteem.