As we all know, economic times are some of the toughest we’ve ever endured. Some data even shows that we might be at Great Depression levels, and it’s starting to bite even the people most insistent that everyone’s economic problems are their own fault: the boomers.

Boomer unemployment and homelessness are skyrocketing, and perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s not a whole lot of sympathy about it among younger people. This includes a woman on Reddit, the daughter of two flat-broke boomers, who is now considering giving them a taste of their own medicine.

A Gen Z woman doesn’t want to house her unemployed boomer parents.

Things aren’t going great even for the overconfident boomers. A Wall Street Journal analysis recently found that nearly 25% of all boomers and Gen Xers laid off in the past decade are still unemployed, and 11% of those who are employed have had to take a drastic pay cut.

Meanwhile, boomers have become the fastest-growing demographic of homeless people in the country, in large part because so many were relying on parents who’ve now passed on for financial support.

This 28-year-old Redditor’s parents are among the youngest boomers, but they are already in the thick of these trends. After recently becoming unemployed, they are about to be evicted, and are now turning to their successful daughter for help. The problem is, after the way they’ve treated her, she’s not inclined to come to their rescue.

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Her parents have repeatedly told her she’s ‘too lazy’ to succeed and have denigrated her accomplishments.

If it’s one thing boomers have become well known for, it’s abusive parenting, albeit most often abuse of the inadvertent kind. And this woman’s parents seem like poster children for that particular trend.

“Growing up, my parents constantly told me I was ‘too lazy’ and ‘not smart enough’ to ever live independently,” she wrote in her post. “When I announced I bought a house, they literally laughed and said, ‘we’ll see how long that lasts.'” All this despite the fact that even being able to buy a house at 28 is basically unthinkable anymore.

Maksym Povozniuk | Canva Pro

Now the shoe is on the other foot: Her parents are drowning in debt, unemployed, and out of options, and everyone, including this woman’s siblings, thinks it’s her “duty” to save them as “the one doing well” in the family.

“Problem is, I live in a two-bedroom with my boyfriend, and the idea of cohabiting with my parents, who still treat me like a failure, stresses me out,” she wrote. “I feel guilty, but also resentful,” she went on to say, and it’s left her contemplating telling them the one-word sentence seemingly every baby boomer has never learned to cope with: “No.”

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It is not anyone’s ‘duty’ to help their abusers, even if it is their parents.

Despite how clear-cut this is from the outside looking in, this is no small quandary. Leaving your parents to fend for themselves, potentially in the streets, is no small thing, no matter how contentious your relationship may be.

Many of us wouldn’t be able to do it, and many others of us would relent anyway just on principle. Personally, if it were me, I’d do the latter and take them in with an entire LIST of rules and boundaries and an agreement that the moment they break one of them, they’re out. Regardless, the fact of the matter is, there is no wrong answer here, even if the answer is “not my problem, sleep on the sidewalk.” Because nobody has a “duty” to their parents when their parents couldn’t be bothered to, you know, parent them.

Telling your child they’re too lazy and incompetent to ever stand on their own two feet is verbal and emotional abuse. It is cruel in a way that is not accidental. It is, in fact, a choice. And while that doesn’t negate the struggle that they’re going through, it also doesn’t entitle them to their daughter’s largesse.

It’s like author Anne Lamott said about writing memoirs: “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” In this case, if these parents wanted to be able to lean on their children in their old age, they shouldn’t have treated them poorly. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way. Hopefully, these parents aren’t “too lazy” or insufficiently “smart” to absorb it.

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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.