My boomer dad asked me last week why I'm still renting at 43. I told him a starter home in our area is $410,000. He said "so save up." I said the down payment alone is $82,000. He said "that's not so bad, break it into pieces." I said after rent, insurance, and daycare I put away maybe $400 a month. He did the math out loud. Got to seventeen years. Went quiet. Then he said something I didn't expect. "I put down $3,200 on our first place. I had it saved in eight months working at the plant." Then he just sat there for a second. "I always thought you kids were exaggerating." That's it. That's the whole conversation. He wasn't being cruel. He genuinely had no idea. Nobody ever showed him the number. Most of them aren't defending the system. They just never looked at it.