Ah, the timeless generational standoff: a millennial watches their boomer mother triumphantly furnish an entire house through Amazon and Wayfair, bragging about how cheap it all was - same with the clothes - while the millennial quietly dies inside, because cheap usually means bad and disposable, not a flex. The advice column in question asks whether to explain this point of view or just let Mom have hers, and whether it's OK to think you know better.

The answer, refreshingly, starts with curiosity rather than frustration. The key isn't who knows better - it's building a cross-generational bridge, which happens to be absolutely crucial to the broader climate movement.

Here's the context you might be missing: a lot of boomers came of age in an era of genuine economic turbulence - oil-crisis inflation, layoffs, and mortgage rates that hit 18 percent in the early 1980s. Getting more for less was a survival strategy, absorbed at home first. Their own parents had lived through the Great Depression and World War II, and that generation's habits of rationing, saving, and stretching every dollar shaped how boomers were raised. Our economic stressors and bargain sources have changed, but for some people, finding the best deal never stops feeling like a win.

Nor is this purely a boomer impulse. A college student today buying a back-to-school outfit at H&M isn't necessarily anti-sustainability or pro-fast fashion. Consumer choices are often about what's within reach, not what a person truly values.

The suggested opener is an empathic statement as simple as, "I get why that felt like a success for you" - validate the thinking first, and it gets easier to have an honest conversation about why you'd approach, say, a home furnishing project with different priorities. You might even unlock more intergenerational learning by asking Mom what she used to make from scratch, or what her own mother taught her to fix instead of replace. Sustainability meant something different then; it was just how things were done.

This matters beyond resolving family tension, because intergenerational alliances carry real political weight. The prevailing belief that older generations don't care about the planet is overstated: research from King's College London found that roughly 7 in 10 people across every generation, boomers included, think environmental problems are serious enough to justify real changes in how we live. Actions differ by age group - older people tend to be more consistent voters, while younger people are more likely to turn out for protests (though some organizations are specifically mobilizing older Americans for climate activism to buck that trend).

So if sharing your sustainability values with Mom matters to you, look for common ground. Meet each other halfway, share the small planet-friendly things you each already do, and invite each other in on your beliefs and practices. Two people, two generations - one relationship worth the effort, and one planet worth uniting for.