Claire Reid
A Gen X mom has gone viral after she shared an angry rant about her adult kids on TikTok.
Now, if you happen to be of the younger generation, you may be used to hearing those older than you talk about how much easier you have it than they did - but 51-year-old Jessica McCabe strongly disagrees.
In fact, she’s so upset by seeing the life her kids, aged 25 and 28, have that she took to TikTok to vent her frustrations, and it seems to have struck a chord, racking up more than two million views.
McCabe, from Alabama, opened up about feeling ‘helpless’ as she watched her kids struggle through life.
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“I am so tired of feeling helpless as a parent,” she began.
“Yes, my kids are grown adults. My oldest is 28. My youngest is 25. And I thought by teaching them what I learned, which is you work hard, you get a good job, you're gonna get the things in life that you need, right? Worked for me, why wouldn't it work for them? Because it doesn't, because the world has f***ing changed.
"I see them struggling, and before my generation comes at me, yes, I understand struggling as a part of life. We all struggle, but there's a difference between struggling and drowning. So we struggled, and it was tough. But you know what, we made it.
"We knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel with our struggle. It seems like kids today, no matter how much they struggle, they just get further and further down.”
McCabe then used her son as an example of the sort of issues younger people are facing today. "I told my son, all you have to do is work hard, go to college or join the military like I did,” she went on.
“He went to college, got his degree, got a full-time job. He moved back in with me right when he graduated from college because he said, 'Hey mom, as soon as I get a job, which was within two weeks of him getting out of college, it'll maybe take me two months, and I'll save up enough money for me to move out.'
"Okay, cool. It's been 10 months. He has saved almost every dime and still can't afford to live. Why are one-bedroom studio apartments almost $2,000 a month. Why?”
The mom-of-two was soon flooded with responses from equally frustrated parents, with one mom admitting: “Nothing that worked for me as a Gen X works for my kids. The rules are stacked against them.”
Someone else wrote: “I’m worried for my son. He’s 16. I moved out and lived on my own as soon as I turned 18. There isn’t any way he’ll be able to.”
While younger people also appreciated the post, with one person chipping in: “Honestly, it’s so refreshing to have the older generation acknowledge this.”
And another said: “Hearing a parent GET IT like this is so healing.”