
The New 30-Something - vinnyglennon
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/style/financial-independence-30s.html
======
floatrock
> _Then there are the free services. Ms. Palmer, who is 39 and lives near
> Washington, D.C., said that the free 20 to 25 hours of child care she
> receives every month from her parents contributed to her family’s decision
> to have a third child. If she were to pay a babysitter, Ms. Palmer estimates
> it would add up to around $6,000 a year._

This kinda bugs me, not only because inter-generational child rearing has been
the norm for most of history rather than something unique that deadbeat
millenials are relying on, but also because it propagates the belief that
anything you don't pay for with money is considered "free" (the bad "free", as
in "deadbeat" or "moocher").

There's the whole debate that GDP is the wrong measure precisely because it
doesn't measure these kinds of "unpaid services", but I prefer to look at it
another way: a "livable" city is more than what restaurants and bars are
around, but also who your neighbors and social connections are (I've heard
this described as alternative forms of capital beyond financial capital like
social and cultural capital).

It's not that millenials are killing the babysitter industry, it's more
millenials are reaching the age where they understand the whole "it takes a
village" folk wisdom.

~~~
cflewis
"It takes a village" has really bitten for me, I've seen just how bad it is
without. Moving to the Bay Area, far away from any parental help, seemed so
great when I was 25. Now I have children that I am raising without family
help, while trying to do well in my own career, can just be totally
emotionally crushing sometimes.

~~~
steve_adams_86
I'm deep in that too, right now. My partner badly wanted one last kid, and
knowing we were already resource-tight and having no family around, I was very
hesitant. Logistically I knew it would be a disaster but I agreed to it. I
love the hell out of this kid, but "totally emotionally crushing" is apt. I'm
not new to this, but I can only do so much. Working my job, being a stay at
home dad, and having to maintain our relationship (plus my relationship with
my son and adopted son) is genuinely outside of my ability. But it's what we
have to do here. Expensive city, no connections, 3 kids.

I know it's stupid to go into it knowing it'll be hard, and I can't complain.
I'm not. This is just what it takes, and I went into it knowing it would be
temporary. Kids get a lot easier as they get older.

A lot of things that are worth it in life take a lot of work. I'll feel better
in a few years. At the moment I feel like I'm dying.

At any rate, here's to things getting easier. I'm sure our hard work will pay
off soon enough.

~~~
cflewis
It's the relationship with the significant other that suffers the most IMHO,
and I think most people ignore that bit. You can just about find hours in the
day to work a job and get the kids fed and to bed, but then you have < 1 hr
before you have to go to bed and do it all again tomorrow.

It feels like mine is on pause until the kids grow old enough to be left to
their own devices, taking their own baths, brushing their own teeth, reading
their own bedtime stories etc etc.

~~~
steve_adams_86
> 1 hr before you have to go to bed and do it all again tomorrow

This is very real. Sometimes I sit to do some more work before bed and think
wow, I'll finish this... Go to bed... And wake up as early as I can to work
some more. Then my son will wake up, and I'll be with him until 6 or so in the
evening. While he naps I work more. Rinse and repeat. It's a gauntlet.

Things being on pause isn't really a bad thing at all, but it certainly feels
bad in the moment. I have two 9 year olds though, and it's true. Eventually
they want to read before bed on their own, they want to play on their own
during the day, and the pressure is off. There's a lot more time.

I also have the luxury that on weekends, during the day my older kids will
play with the baby and give me a bit of a break. Sometimes even for an hour or
so. It's usually an opportunity to catch up on work, but it's often badly
needed and a big relief.

------
40acres
I was born in NYC to Haitian immigrants, if you didn't know Haiti is the
poorest country in the Western hemisphere. I grew up in a neighborhood with a
lot of West Indian first generation children, a common theme for us was that
we were "tougher" than the white kids who grew up in NYC because they lived
easy lives. It was typical short sighted thinking that young kids do.

I wonder what that kid would say now after reading this article. A lot of the
people I grew up with went to crappy colleges. I did too, and we were too
broke to even think about tuition so PELL grants funded my education. College
Textbooks? You mean PDFs from The Pirate Bay.

I made it out and got a nice job in tech, but like many of my peers it is I
who support my parents. I pay their health insurance, I lend them money for
groceries, and I'm financing my dad's chemotherapy. Do you know how hard it is
to save up for a house (on the west coast !!) knowing you'll never get a
windfall from Mom and Dad? When in fact they are a liability budget wise?

I wish more articles were written about this side of the coin, it is my
experience that many young people, especially minorities, are shouldering the
burden of "elder care" earlier than they ever thought they would.

~~~
david-cako
>I made it out and got a nice job in tech, but like many of my peers it is I
who support my parents. I pay their health insurance, I lend them money for
groceries, and I'm financing my dad's chemotherapy. Do you know how hard it is
to save up for a house (on the west coast !!) knowing you'll never get a
windfall from Mom and Dad? When in fact they are a liability budget wise?

I can only imagine how difficult that is. This is an interesting distinction
between western and eastern culture too. I wonder if the obligation to take
care of your parents is less pronounced in eastern households that are
wealthier.

~~~
godot
It's the opposite. The obligation to take care of your parents is definitely
more pronounced in eastern households. See filial piety [1]. I'm Chinese and
grew up in both Asia and the US. First of all, wealthy Chinese is a pretty
small minority, so most working 20-somethings and 30-somethings are paying a
portion of their paychecks to parents to support them. For those lucky enough
to come from wealthy families, most are still expected to care for them in
other non-monetary ways. For example in America many Chinese immigrants of the
older generation can't drive; taking time off your work and taking your
parents to their doctor's appointments is often a responsibility you have.
(which of course means you can't live far away from them; there's going to be
more and more work caring for them as they grow older.)

Like GP, I also grew up in a lower income family and made it out well in tech.
My only advantage is that I'm older and started working 15 years ago, which
lead to being able to afford to buy a house during the lowest years of the
housing market (2010-12) so I have a really low mortgage in crazy bay area. I
don't know how anyone in the bay would be able to save up for a house if they
have to support their parents in addition to paying their own rent.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_piety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_piety)

~~~
xvedejas
The question was about wealthier eastern households, not western versus
eastern. I too wonder about the differences between richer and poorer eastern
households.

~~~
mntmoss
What comes to mind is the stories about "parachute kids" with (relatively)
wealthy parents that sent the kid abroad, ostensibly for study. They end up in
an extreme form of latchkey existence - still Eastern in intent, but living
largely alone and with few obligations, they tend to be adrift at a much
earlier stage of life, leading to occasional news stories about crimes that
earn prison time, or of "little emperors and empresses" that have been spoiled
and have difficulty adjusting to interaction with the rest of the world.

The film "Better Luck Tomorrow" explored this - not specifically the parachute
kid status, but the trouble that overprivileged Asian teens get into. It's
fictionalized but also based on some real events.

------
nimbius
What the article doesnt mention is college debt. I know tons of people who
have college debt for degrees that pay absolutely nothing. Its debt they will
never escape, and im guessing mom and dad feel guilty about it to some extent.

I came from a poor family, so college wasnt much of an option. My mom and dad
had lived their whole lives under check cashing shysters and credit card debt
until dad hurt his back and went on disability/heroin. Mom did the best she
could at the local truckstop diner where i spent most of my time after school.
College was never an option and looking back im glad it wasnt.

I grew up to become a damn good diesel engine tech. not the best, but i walk
out of the shop every day feeling like I actually did something meaningful.
Some days im even making cut-rate lawyer money. but I see college kids at my
local bar, partly because thats an aesthetic for college kids my age, but also
because its a necessity. They buy a round of el-cheapo beers and sit in the
corner on their phones for an hour. They rarely tip or if they do its some
weird math that comes out to screw over the barman, but its hardly their
fault.

I bought a Sam Adams for one of these guys who was fired from mcdonalds for
showing up to work late just _once._ He had a masters degree in business
management. He came home to see his prius getting repossessed, and decided to
just decided to keep on walking past his apartment and down to the local
watering hole. His plan was to ride out an eviction and move back in with his
folks.

~~~
lanewinfield
They definitely mention it!

"Those who do not have parental assistance in their 30s, however, continue to
be at a disadvantage. “They are grappling with paying off student-loan debt,
their savings might not be as strong because of that, and many are taking care
of other family members,” said Iimay Ho, 32, the executive director at
Resource Generation, an organization that works with people ages 18 to 35 with
wealth or class privilege to engage on issues of inequality."

...

"For those without parental cash at the ready, there’s often some kind of debt
hangover that holds them back in significant ways. Roger Quesada, 34, calls
his $65,000 of student-loan debt to Sallie Mae, which incurs $400 a month in
interest payments alone, “a jail sentence.” A lapse in his payments ruined his
credit, he said, and has hampered his financial and career aspirations."

And I feel for it, too. Compounding debt instead of compounding interest.
Reminds me of a very relevant Onion headline:

"Lazy Poor Person Has Never Earned Passive Income From Stock Dividends A Day
In His Life"

[https://local.theonion.com/lazy-poor-person-has-never-
earned...](https://local.theonion.com/lazy-poor-person-has-never-earned-
passive-income-from-s-1832537497)

~~~
hopler
> savings might not be as strong because of that,

Is incredibly tone deaf way to describe people living paycheck to paycheck.

~~~
yathern
Paying off loans doesn't also mean you are also living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Even if so, this article is well researched and has sparked good discussion -
accusing the author of being tone deaf, with no other contribution or
criticism is not very nice.

------
cflewis
> Mary Wallace, a real estate agent... said that in 20 years she has rarely
> seen anyone in their 30s who did not have family help or an inheritance for
> their down payment.

This is the unwritten law of California first-time home ownership: you are
waiting for your parents to downsize and cash in, or just to straight up die
and inherit their house. You do not just get a job in CA and buy a home. The
article also talks about the US in general, throwing around "six figures" as
some indication of being financially safe. In CA, that is just not true.

I would not have a home without significant assistance from my parents. I
can't imagine how it would be if I was saddled with large student loans as
well (came from the UK where college education was cheaper) or had a job where
the health insurance could leave me one bad situation away from bankruptcy.

Even if wealth distribution is possible, it comes with its own hurdles: early
wealth distribution leads to questions about how elder care is going to get
paid for, late wealth distribution leads to questions about how stunted the
career and life development of the child is.

I think this is the new normal, and will be for generations past us, but I
wonder what it will mean for G8 countries. I think step one is abandoning the
idea that if you try hard you're going to live better than your parents. You
might, you might not. It's not a given anymore.

~~~
dfxm12
Why is CA so expensive? Is it something intrinsic to the land (weather,
natural features, etc.) or is it something more _variable_ , like job &
entertainment opportunity? If it's the latter (and I suspect it is), it is a
solvable problem, at least for most G8 countries, since there is a lot of
un(der)-developed areas out there.

 _I would not have a home without significant assistance from my parents._

I don't know your specific case, but on average, you could have bought a home
without assistance if you wanted, just maybe not when & where you bought.

~~~
cflewis
It's the jobs. You want to work at Google, you work in CA. You want to work in
movies, you work in CA. There are various environmental factors (like the
weather) and economic factors (like locking in property taxes when you buy)
that keep people in their homes, stunting inventory.

Yeah, I _could_ buy a house somewhere else, just like I _could_ give up on a
fulfilling career. But I don't think people are willing to spend the majority
of their waking hours in a job they don't like so they can have a house, given
the alternative of having a job they do and renting. Everything is a life
choice, and home ownership is not be all and end all, but I think it seems
very wrong that the dichotomy of career vs home-ownership is as harsh as it
is.

~~~
rcpt
It's not the jobs.

In New York you can get an apartment in Jackson Heights for $200k and take the
F train to work.

[https://www.redfin.com/NY/Corona/112-50-Northern-
Blvd-11368/...](https://www.redfin.com/NY/Corona/112-50-Northern-
Blvd-11368/unit-6B/home/113180232)

In the Bay Area it's expensive near job centers but it's still expensive 40
miles away. The sprawling mess is too low density to sensibly cover with
trains so people end up with insane highway commutes.

California's problem is property taxes. Tax people fairly - not based on the
time they joined the class of property owners - and our problems go away.

------
dvtrn
_“I think millennials need to get past this narrative they’ve made it on their
own and ‘I pulled myself up by my boot straps,’” Mr. Isaacs said. “It hides
all the kinds of ways they have been privileged by their race or parental
help.”_

I started to fire a snarky comment about how nice it must be to fit into the
category of millennial who have enjoyed the listed privileges, but instead
I'll just adopt the position that I am not the "target demographic" here, and
maybe that's why after reading that entire article, finding _this_ remark as
the closing statement caused me to involuntarily furrow a brow.

~~~
komali2
I've met a member of every class that's lied about "pulling themselves up by
their bootstraps" (by the way, isn't that meant to be an ironic paradox?).

From the rich white male Boomer to an immigrant Chinese business owner,
everyone seems to feel the need to make more of their struggle than it was.
Like, it was already a struggle, why lie and make it seem more so? You started
your business by working 12 hour days funded by the pennies in your pocket...
And the 300k business loan someone was willing to give you on the basis of
your bachelor's in business, which meant a hell of a lot in 1957. Or the
classic "came into America on a boat with seven dollars in my pocket," not
mentioning the family safety net back home or the fact that the 7$ was more
like 7,000 and this was 1965.

But it's obvious why people do that, because people have been doing it for ten
thousand years and it's nothing new. We like to feel important, and if our
truth doesn't make us feel important we'll lie a bit until we feel important
again.

So I'm tired of old people making flippant statements like above about
millennials that are either completely off base or simply applicable to every
human on the planet, for as long as we've been able to talk. Allow me to
engage in my own psychological fallacy - I feel like with enough years under
your belt, you should just know that's how we work.

~~~
lordnacho
I concur. What irks me the most is when the backstory contains unmentioned
unethical elements.

I come across several people in business who all gave the "oh it was so hard
in the beginning" while not mentioning their dark pattern websites (people
unwittingly buying subscription), wolf-of-wall-street v1 of their broking
business, or outright money laundering.

There needs to be a catchy phrase for the "I had it so hard" story.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
4 Yorkshiremen (from the Monty Python sketch)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE)

------
gorpomon
This all rings true, but it doesn't have to make you feel like America is
broken. I'm of South Asian descent, where finances between generations are
even more intertwined. In America we've created a narrative of one generation
being completely free of the last, and when we don't fulfill it we feel shame.
Like many destructive narratives our society has, it might be time to let this
one go.

~~~
zimablue
"let go" the notion of individual freedom, and replace it with your parents
having control via financing over your life for most of it. Yeah I'll pass.
Alternative proposal - vote for parties who will reverse intergenerational
inequality: reform the housing market, dispose of the (corporate and literal
property) rentiers, introduce a wealth tax, equalise pensions (it's insane
that one generation is going to get pensions and the next basically isn't).

"Let go of the idea that you can live as an independent human" have a word
with yourself.

~~~
komali2
>Let go of the idea that you can live as an independent human" have a word
with yourself.

I assume your family has a couple generations of America under their belt? If
so, I'm not surprised you find the statement your op to taste bad. It's
fundamentally opposed to the American value system (though as this article
indicates, at odds with the reality of America today).

Are they wrong? If you had time to apply for colleges because you had housing
in high school and didn't have to work all day to pay for food and housing,
are you truly independent? If you didn't have to fetch your own water every
morning and hunt your food? Maybe you think I'm taking the argument too far,
but I see where they are coming from. True "freedom" is a bit of a myth, and
shouldn't it be? Do you want to be the sole party responsible for ensuring
your medicine isn't laced with arsenic?

In any case, other cultures have taken on the idea of familial responsibility
and wealth to great success by their own measures. Just because it is
different, doesn't mean it's bad.

~~~
zimablue
I'm not even American, and for the record I got a couple of K a year at uni
which I'd have survive without and never a dime since. Having to live under
the control of your parents (which is fundamentally what happens when they
hold the purse strings) past the age of 18-21 depending on taste is messed up.
I know plenty of people from both camps and it's definitely bad for you to
have your parents controlling your life past 21. It's different when you're
younger, but even that is painful - at 15 I was ready to operate independently
and my parents having some control over me until 18 probably messed up our
relationship a lot. Not everything which is cultural is also arbitrary, as
humanity advances we tend to promote individual freedom to the maximum extent
we can support (and this is coming from a lefty). This isn't even bringing it
how it will perpetuate class-systems, even for the beneficiaries I think it's
incredibly harmful.

~~~
screye
> couple of K a year at uni which I'd have survive without and never a dime
> since

And tuition ?

> your parents controlling your life past 21.

I think you have some kind of archaic idea of what parents supporting their
child looks like. My parents let me pursue my dream (tbf conveniently it was
in STEM) and funded my undergrad and masters. It cost them their life's
savings, but it comes with an understanding that I will support my brother's
education and we will support them in retirement.

I've been away from home for 8 years at this point, and I can't think of any
major restriction on me, as a result of being financially dependent on my
parents.

As a family, it is a win-win. My parents get a better retirement through me,
both me and my brother can get educated debt free and if anything goes wrong,
it would delay our plans but won't destroy us financially the way a $100k loan
would. (my parents' annual income is ~12k)

> at 15 I was ready to operate independently

If you still believe that, you might have some maturing to do. Every person
I've known at 15 has been too young to live independently without screwing
themselves over in some way or form.

___________________

> individual freedom to the maximum extent

I have to ask. What are these things that you felt you couldn't do when you
were financially dependent on your parents / living with them.

~~~
v64
> I think you have some kind of archaic idea of what parents supporting their
> child looks like. My parents let me pursue my dream (tbf conveniently it was
> in STEM) and funded my undergrad and masters.

Your experience is not necessarily universal.

> I have to ask. What are these things that you felt you couldn't do when you
> were financially dependent on your parents / living with them.

I'm from East Texas and I know of many families back home that have a "our
money, our roof, our rules" mindset. It's not uncommon for these parents to
use the threat of "do what we say or we're pulling your support" to control
them. For instance "We don't like your girlfriend, break up with her or we're
cutting your support", or "We'll only pay for your college if you major in
what we want".

I've also seen these families impose curfews on their adult children, prevent
them from drinking at home, prevent them from having certain hobbies or
socializing with certain people, etc.

Myself and many of my peers moved away from home and became financially
independent from our parents to avoid this situation.

------
rayiner
This strikes quite true to me. When we were between one apartment lease and
buying a house, my wife, daughter, and I moved in with my parents. My mom
stayed home with our daughter for almost a year, and my wife’s mom did the
same for another year. We are also considering having a third child, in large
part because my parents live 5 minutes away and provide a lot of free child
care.

But I question whether this is “new.” None of this would be unusual in the
least in Bangladesh, where my family is from. I strongly suspect that it’s not
new in the US either, or at least was only unusual compared to a status quo
that existed only for a blip of time during the 20th century.

~~~
learc83
>I strongly suspect that it’s not new in the US either, or at least was only
unusual compared to a status quo that existed only for a blip of time during
the 20th century.

You're entirely correct. I'll go a step further and say it never even went
away--at least in my experience as a child of lower middle class White baby
boomer parents in the South.

I have a great uncle on my mom's side who stayed at home while he finished
college and then him and his wife lived with his parents for a while after he
graduated.

My dad's oldest brother and his wife lived with their parents for a while.

My dad's youngest brother lived with his parents for years.

My grandparents eventually moved in with my dad and his wife--partially
because they were getting too old to maintain a house, but also to help him
afford a new house after he'd gone through a bankruptcy.

Both sets of grandparents also provided my parents with free childcare, and my
parents and aunts and uncles all borrowed plenty of money from my grandparents
over the years.

I have many friends who've had similar experiences.

~~~
WorldMaker
I think the solid, seemingly disconnected "nuclear family" is an interesting
mythic tale in the American Dream that is an accident of consumer marketing
more than anything else. It sold more homes, it sold more goods, so it became
a useful myth to marketers. In reality it never existed, not even in the
mythic 50s where it got so ensconced in television sitcoms and advertising.

~~~
throw0101a
Depends:

> Historians Alan Macfarlane and Peter Laslett postulated that nuclear
> families have been a primary arrangement in England since the 13th century.
> This primary arrangement was different than the normal arrangements in
> Southern Europe, in parts of Asia, and the Middle East where it was common
> for young adults to remain in or marry into the family home. In England
> multi-generational households were uncommon because young adults would save
> enough money to move out, into their own household once they married. [...]

> Critics of the term "traditional family" point out that in most cultures and
> at most times, the extended family model has been most common, not the
> nuclear family,[26] though it has had a longer tradition in England[27] than
> in other parts of Europe and Asia which contributed large numbers of
> immigrants to the Americas. The nuclear family became the most common form
> in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s.[28]

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family)

See also:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_family)

~~~
learc83
Be careful about what research you look at when looking into the history of
the Nuclear family. It's a very politically charged topic, and a lot of what
you'll find is more of an agenda driven defense of the nuclear family (or the
opposite) than an explorative scholarly work.

It's difficult to find a trustworthy source on the matter if you're just doing
a quick google search.

Probably the primary reason that multi-generational households were less
common in England people married much later there than in the rest of Europe
(Laslett does mention this in _The World We Have Lost_ ).

------
CompelTechnic
>On average, each millennial parent receives $11,011 per year in combined
financial support and unpaid labor, the 2017 TD Ameritrade Millennial Parents
Survey found, for an annual total of $253 billion in America.

I wish they had separated the unpaid labor from financial support.
Grandparents helping raise the kids is a tradition as old as time; the labor
portion is not the surprising part here.

~~~
blang
That did seem like a really weird framing. It seems like the corollary article
would be. "Family ties eroding, grandparents no longer spending time with
grandkids"

------
weberc2
This comment from the NYT comments section captures my reaction well. Note
that the subject of the criticism is the article, not millenials:

> I find the tone of this article just stunning. Since when is there a
> sacrosanct right to live in the most expensive housing markets in the
> country? NYC is not newly expensive - it has always been expensive. When I
> graduated from college many years ago, I got a job in Manhattan, but
> certainly couldn't afford to live there. So I did what most people in my
> situation did: I lived where I could afford and commuted to work over an
> hour each way on public transportation. This is hardly a radical proposition
> except to those who somehow think they are entitled to have what they want
> when they want it. Sometimes you have to learn to defer gratification. The
> easiest time to do this is when you are young. After 8 years of saving, I
> was able to make a down payment on a house. 4 years after that I finished
> paying off my student loans. There is great value in learning to live within
> one's means and I am grateful that my parents found it more important to
> foster self-reliance than to insulate me from disappointment.

~~~
anonymousJim12
really? It reads like the subject of the criticism is millenials...

I find the tone of the criticism stunning, even if it were about the article
and not millenials. The article is laying out how millenials have it different
than previous generations. Yes NYC was always expensive but even now places
that are 1 hour commute are out of reach for your average 30 something. It's
tough to say when the commentor came up but the article is painting a picture
that the game has changed and it isn't as easy as it once was to delay
gratification for 8 years because it's more like double that amount of time.
At that point we need to start asking questions to understand if this is
sustainable.

~~~
weberc2
> really? It reads like the subject of the criticism is millenials...

It’s quite explicitly a criticism of the article’s tone, which suggests
millennials should feel entitled to certain luxuries. This is markedly
different than arguing that millennials hold an entitlement attitude.

> The article is laying out how millenials have it different than previous
> generations. Yes NYC was always expensive but even now places that are 1
> hour commute are out of reach for your average 30 something.

Perhaps that is the case the article means to make, but it supports itself
with anecdotes about how a down-on-her-luck millennial was able to buy a $400K
San Diego condo on the beach thanks to a $40K gift from her parents. That
might sound reasonable to a New Yorker, but to the rest of the country that is
incredibly tone deaf.

This isn’t dunking on millennials—I’m a millennial in my lower 30s and I come
from a lower middle class background. I’m renting downtown in a major US city,
and I’m saving to buy property, so I’m very much the demographic in question.
Still, I can’t imagine expecting my parents to help financially (they didn’t
help with college either). The economy is perhaps worse, but the salaries in
the article are still perfectly manageable if you don’t have to go out to eat
every week or take annual international vacations or live in the hottest
neighborhoods.

------
tyler-
Seems like most articles written on this subject assume young people come from
"well-off enough" families that can support them, even if they themselves are
broke. It seems like "my family can support me" is universally accepted as
truth for such people in those situations.

Are there any articles or studies done on young people from working-class
families or families that aren't affluent enough to support them?

~~~
CM30
Rich kids are very overrepresented in journalism. Perhaps because the wages
are so bad for much of it that anyone without a decent support system/trust
fund can't afford to live in a place like New York City or London on a
journalist's salary.

There's been a fair bit written about this:

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-
blog/2018/apr/29/jou...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-
blog/2018/apr/29/journalism-class-private-education)

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/apr/07/pressandpublis...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/apr/07/pressandpublishing4)

[https://mumbrella.com.au/journalism-is-becoming-a-
profession...](https://mumbrella.com.au/journalism-is-becoming-a-profession-
for-only-the-rich-so-why-wont-anyone-talk-about-it-535796)

[https://www.cjr.org/special_report/journalism-
class.php/](https://www.cjr.org/special_report/journalism-class.php/)

------
g_z_m
I can't understand the tone of this article-- is there something inherently
wrong with receiving parental help? What's wrong with family members helping
each other? It's part of being in a family, people of your own blood helping,
protecting, and lifting each other up. In an article slighting millennials for
claiming to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps", it's even weirder to look
in the NYT comments section filled with boomers talking down at struggling
millennials while bragging about how they themselves worked 8 jobs, saved 10
years for a Honda Accord, trekked 5 miles in the snow to get to work.

~~~
kokokokoko
Yes. In a market economy it is wildly unfair to take family assistance because
many people do not have access to it.

~~~
matz1
Life IS unfair.

~~~
DangitBobby
Recognizing that fact, many people spend quite a lot of time, thought, and
energy to make it less so.

~~~
franch
If make it less so means reducing personal freedom to the point of regulating
how much time a grandmother can take care of it's grandchildren, I really
strongly disagree with that vision.

~~~
bryondowd
I believe the solution is probably more along the lines of taxing everyone
fairly, and using some of the funds to provide free or affordable childcare to
everyone who wants/needs it. Likewise with other forms of family
support/advantages. Provide alternatives for people who don't have things by
birth-lottery.

So you can still have grandma watch your kid all you like, while the person
who has no living relatives can still have a kid and hold a job by taking
advantage of subsidized daycare.

~~~
roguecoder
And under that system grandmother could be paid for the value she provides.

------
SovietDissident
There are a lot of problems---namely: debt, cost of living, and third-world
immigration---that this generation has to face.

That being said, we are still probably the second-richest generation _in the
history of the world_. Look at the squalor people lived in only 80 or 100
years ago: whole families in one-bedroom houses with no central heat or A/C, a
chamberpot in the corner of the room, wood-burning stove providing all heat
and cooking, and almost certain death by most diseases. If they wanted to
start a business, they'd have to save enough capital to start a brick-and-
mortar enterprise in a local market.

We have the ability to buy a $500 computer and start a business or learn a new
skill from anywhere. We have access to wondrous modern healthcare (yes, which
gov't interference has increased the price of, but the quality is nonetheless
excellent). Cars are much better than they used to be---your 10-year old
Japanese car with power windows will run until the bumpers fall off, and then
probably keep going.

I'm certainly nowhere near where I want to be financially, but perhaps I'm
striking an optimistic tone today because I watched _They Shall Not Grow Old_
over the weekend. One of the veterans talks about how he was retreating after
an offensive and saw a fellow 16-year-old writhing on the ground in pain after
being blown to bits. He knew the boy was done for, and put him out of his
misery. By comparison to what they endured, we live in Heaven-on-Earth.

------
dsugarman
There's some really good research in this article and then some really poorly
researched topics and it seems like the entire thing was written with an
agenda to please an anti-millenial audience. Specifically, an agenda to prove
that millenials are given way more than previous generations (especially
boomers) with really poor research and a really shaky narrative.

This one part shows it pretty clearly:

>n the television show “Thirtysomething,” which aired from 1987 to 1991, the
all-white cast of characters seemed to be economically emancipated from their
parents, who rarely factored into the story lines. Today’s series about
30-somethings portray a decade that seems far less adult, at least by
traditional standards. (Think “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” or “New Girl.”)

~~~
screye
A bit off topic but ,is it just me or have articles by the NYT become more and
more ideology driven over the last few years ?

The whole process seems to be structured around finding data to support their
preconceived notions, rather than using the data and research to craft the
hypothesis.

I hate Trump as much as the next guy on HN, but his criticism of the MSM isn't
totally unfounded. I used to look at NYT and WSJ are paragons of journalism,
and they've routinely disappointed over the last few years.

Many youtube channels seem to be a lot better researched than these
'prestigious' outlets. Channels like CGPGrey and Kurzgesagt give much better
common-man explanations of complex problems. On the other hand, niche channels
like Caspian Report and Healthcare Triage stick to things they have expertise
in, and make no attempts to water down the news or risk losing nuance in the
process.

With big outlets, it is hard to calibrate an article to account for the
implicit bias of the outlet itself. When it is instead a youtube personality
who you feel like you know better, it is easy to identify the lens through
with information is being delivered and build trust over time.

~~~
burlesona
I agree, and actually I cancelled my subscription and wrote the NYT a letter
to the editor over this. I ran an analysis on how many of the front page main
headlines were about Trump in the year after his election, versus being about
Obama, and it was ridiculous. I don’t have the exact numbers handy but
something like 2-3x as many articles written about Trump vs. Obama and
basically all negative. I get it, the guy is a clown show, but at a certain
point not all of his antics aren’t newsworthy anymore and the media just comes
across as obsessed. If anything they’re just playing into the opposition
narrative that somehow he’s a good guy who is unfairly being persecuted by the
media and that you can’t trust them.

~~~
newnewpdro
How much worse does an administration need to be before this amount of
coverage is acceptable to you?

I don't think the potential for audience fatigue is a valid reason to start
ignoring a president continuously embroiled in _legitimate_ controversy
causing irreparable harm to our nation.

You found your limit, I get that, but it's the administration who exceeded
your capacity with their newsworthy actions - not the media.

~~~
Glyptodon
I hate how imprecise and tabloidesque a lot of the "reputable" coverage is.
There's a lot to cover. And by any reasonable standard Trump should probably
have been embroiled in an impeachment process already. But does that really
mean speculation about the Mueller investigation is news and not speculation?
I don't think so.

~~~
newnewpdro
I hate everything you're pointing out as well, but it seems more a product of
news and journalism in the 21st century in general - not specific to coverage
of the 45th president and/or his administration.

My impression is that quality journalism has been defunded into the toilet now
that newspapers and magazines have been displaced by click-bait websites
desperate for ad revenue competing with randos spreading nonsense via facebook
and twitter.

------
g_z_m
I can't understand the tone of this article-- is there something inherently
wrong with receiving parental help? What's wrong with family members helping
each other? It's part of being in a family, people of your own blood helping,
protecting, and lifting each other up. In an article slighting millennials for
claiming to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps", it's even weirder to look
in the NYT comments section filled with boomers talking down at struggling
millennials while bragging about how they themselves worked 8 jobs, saved 10
years for a Honda Accord, trekked 5 miles in the snow to get to work. I mean
is there some joke flying entirely over my head that I'm missing?

~~~
antisthenes
No, poor quality American journalism just likes to "re-discover" how basic
things work (like family) that have been figured out in the rest of the world
for centuries.

------
martythemaniak
It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Property owners use their powers to
increase prices on non-owners, efficiently siphoning off as much of their
income as they can. In a lot of cases this amounts to parents siphoning off
their children's income, so why wouldn't they have both the ability and
obligation to kick back that income? Seems like one of the main effects will
be greater interfamily inequality.

The housing trick only works in some places though, so the best way to break
free of this is to move to a 2nd or 3rd tier city and try to make it on your
own. Many thing (jobs, free parental childcare, aesthetic preferences etc)
make this not possible for many.

------
jarjoura
Is this article implying that previous generations did not have assistance
from family? Were families too poor to help in previous generations, but now
are better off? I'm a bit confused on the take-away here. Instead this reads
as a smug piece about how lucky some families are to enable their children to
live better lives. The article isn't even framed as a matter of them being
lucky or not. It's as if we're supposed to feel bad that these people aren't
making enough to support themselves.

I certainly didn't have any help from my parents. So hearing that my peers did
during all the pivotal moments in their lives certainly feels heavy.

~~~
cflewis
I think most Boomers didn't have financial support, and they didn't need it:
their wealth accumulated at a faster rate than large expenses (college,
healthcare, housing) grew.

Those large expenses are now almost all exhibiting bubble-like costs, but
probably aren't bubbles. They're the new normal. Millenials, and at least the
generation after them, will need financial support to live similarly to the
environments they were raised in.

~~~
oldprogrammer2
It wasn't so easy for all the boomers. I remember my dad losing his business
after he lost a loan during the S&L crisis, and I remember my parents
struggling to afford a 3-bedroom house in 1983 at something like a 16%
interest rate on the mortgage. And I'm sure they remember gas lines during the
1979 oil crisis, as well, even though I don't.

------
nell
Somethings mentioned in the article are common in Asia.

\- Parents funding their children until they settle down to the extent they’re
capable of. That’s partly why they tend to be frugal to a fault.

\- Grandparents helping raise kids. My great-grandma helped my mom for the
first year. Now my mom helps my sister raise my niece. And not to mention,
kids and grandparents love being around each other.

If you take a long view, these “millennials” who get assistance from parents
will one day help them have a comfortable oldage* and assist their kids in
raising families.

* My opinion here is influenced by an old lady who died alone in our apartment complex yesterday. No one should go like that.

------
cascom
I think this issue is illustrated in a different way - the asset/wage ratio of
the 70's/80's vs today...

To take a yuppie example:

If you went to work for a white shoe law firm or top investment bank right out
of graduate school in the 1970's in new york maybe you made ~$30K a year but a
really really nice apartment or townhouse cost $150k-$300K so it was a 5x-10x
ratio between starting salary and really nice house

Now the houses that sold for $150k-$300K in the 70's sell for like $7.5m -
$30m, but those same first year banking/law jobs at top firms pay like $250k
so a ratio of 30x - 120x!!!!

~~~
kevindong
> Now the houses that sold for $150k-$300K in the 70's sell for like $7.5m -
> $30m

I think you're off by an order of magnitude. 432 Park Ave, which is by any
account one of the most expensive buildings in NYC, has a 2 bedroom / 2.5 bath
apartment listed for just shy of $12 million [0]. In fact, there's only 13,
2-bedroom apartments more expensive than that for sale in Manhattan [5].

In Manhattan, there's currently 134 listings for 2 bedroom apartments with a
listing price of under $750k [1], 1596 listings for under $3 million [2], 1998
listings for under $7.5 million, and a total of 2034 listings for all 2
bedrooms currently listed [4].

[0]: [https://streeteasy.com/building/432-park-avenue-
new_york/53a](https://streeteasy.com/building/432-park-avenue-new_york/53a)

[1]: [https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cpric...](https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cprice:-750000%7Cbeds:2)

[2]: [https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cpric...](https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cprice:-3000000%7Cbeds:2)

[3]: [https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cpric...](https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cprice:-7500000%7Cbeds:2)

[4]: [https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cbeds...](https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cbeds:2)

[5]: [https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cpric...](https://streeteasy.com/for-
sale/manhattan/status:open%7Cprice:12000000-%7Cbeds:2)

~~~
cascom
Nope - if I log into the New York Times and look at the real estate section
for Sunday, March 2, 1975 (pg.294 if you have a subscription) you'll see an ad
for a 5 bedroom (10 rooms total) on 5th avenue in the 80's for $150K that
would be more like $12M today or a whole townhouse in the east 60's (pg.273)
for $164k...

------
throwaway934898
> New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco or Washington, D.
> C.

Maybe they need to accept that they can't all live in the cities that they
want to.

~~~
claudiulodro
I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at. Should those cities be reserved
for the wealthy and their children?

~~~
malvosenior
No more "reserved" than any other luxury good. They list the most expensive
cities in the world and lament not being able to own a home in them. _Of
course_ the average person can't buy a house in SF. There's very limited
availability and millions more people who want to live in the city than it can
support.

No one has a right to live in a super trendy, naturally expensive city.

~~~
Apocryphon
You forget that to many, the point is not to live in trendiness, but to live
where the jobs are.

~~~
malvosenior
There are jobs everywhere though. Billions of people do not live in the cities
listed and do just fine. I think the _trendy_ jobs are in these places.

~~~
nubbins
I have to live in one of these places to do my career that I trained for (not
trendy or super high status). If you could go back in time and say to a
student "you can't actually be whatever you want, learn something that is
regionally employable" then maybe they could change. Even then with the
concentration of jobs in major US cities and contraction in 2nd tier ones you
might get it wrong.

------
ryandrake
In my 40s so too old to have the “millennial” label, but there definitely
seems to have been some kind of generational shift in terms of what’s normal.
I would be absolutely mortified and ashamed if I had to ask my parents for
help with a down payment for a house or for a car, let alone routine bills.
They’re retired and on fixed income, and in my 30s they were financially just
barely getting to that point where they _could_ retire. I think most of my age
cohort would say the same thing. I’d rather cut the size of my home in half
and drive a 20 year old beater Toyota than depend on my parents, who already
spent the prime of their adult lives supporting me.

Not saying the new attitude is wrong, but is seems so foreign to me. I guess
my question to a 30 year old whose parents pay their bills is: what would you
do if they died suddenly or became unable to continue support? You must have
some kind of plan..?

~~~
refurb
Same attitude as you. I wouldn't dare ask my parents for financial help,
they've done enough.

I had a coworker whose parents paid for his college. They were low income
gov't workers. He gets a good degree and starts raking in the cash and
spending like no tomorrow. How could you possible do that and still look your
parents in the eye?

------
galfarragem
This article doesn't fit the typical millenial in the HN bubble. Most people
_here_ have a prized lottery ticket in their pocket (IT) and consistently want
to ignore it. Most times they are in position of helping their parents, not of
being helped.

~~~
roguecoder
It was a lot easier to get that lottery ticket with parental help in the first
place. For many commenters here, just having access to a computer before
college was a mark of family wealth.

------
chris_mc
In Hawaii, where housing is physically limited and prices are insane (maybe
not like SF but still), a lot of families live with 2 or 3 generations in the
same house. It's perfectly normal there, for example, for kids to live with
their parents until their late 20's in order to save money, and some live with
their parents until they pass away and then they inherit the home and live in
it as their own. It's a much more diverse place than the US mainland, and it
has a heavy dose of several Asian and other cultures which make it this way
(Hawaii is kind of a "stew" rather than a "melting pot" like the mainland).

------
throwaway-1283
Living in SF, the very real phenomenon I've noticed is friends who hit late
20s/early 30s, get married, and then leave with varying intentions but many to
move closer to their parents (presumably in a cheaper area) so that they can
get help raising kids while both continue to work.

This article doesn't really capture the fact that this only works if the
30-somethings move out of SF, NY, LA, etc. to move closer to home (unless
those are the places where the parents are already living), which may be an
area outside of a major urban job center.

------
SketchySeaBeast
> Over half of these millennial parents ... say they have a generalized
> anxiety about not earning enough to support themselves and their families.

That's pretty much the entire reason that my wife and I haven't chosen to
start trying for children - we're equal earners, and we don't know if we can
afford to have her reduce her hours. It would be a choice to lose any current
potential savings safety net we have, and to put a huge hit to our mortgage
and our already iffy retirement.

------
ljm
Various parts of my family are pretty damn wealthy, as far as I can assume. I
cut contact. I won't be in any of their wills, I won't have their money.

And I am immensely happy for that. It means that everything I achieve is
purely my own, and with people I love dearly. It's a lot less comfortable but
it opened me to opportunities I never would have had.

Like other commenters, my nice programming job in tech helped make that
happen. We're pretty damn lucky to learn these skills at this time.

------
chipgap98
> More than half (53 percent) of Americans ages 21 to 37 have received some
> form of financial assistance from a parent, guardian or family member since
> turning 21, according to a 2018 report by Country Financial, a financial
> services firm in Bloomington, Ill.

This seems like a weird age range to pick when talking about 30 somethings.
Many kids are still in college in their early 20s. I'd be interested in
knowing how many people in their 30s are receiving family aid

~~~
softawre
That number wouldn't get as many clicks though

------
Causality1
The idea it's somehow wrong or shameful to share a house with your parents is
a very culture-bound one that doesn't have many objective advantages.

------
saosebastiao
> On average, each millennial parent receives $11,011 per year in combined
> financial support and unpaid labor

That's the _average_?!?! What's the 90th percentile like, cause I've been
sitting on a big fat zero since before I was a legal adult. And I know I'm not
alone. These numbers are blowing my mind right now.

~~~
trowawee
Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. Flights on private jets when
there's a pressing need for travel. Rent and food and entertainment in major
cities, full tuition payments for millennials and, as they reach the point of
starting their own families, their children.

Relatedly, one of my strongly-held, but weakly-sourced opinions is that the
disparity between anger about financial inequality (wildly inconsistent
throughout the country, but not really dominant anywhere) and the level of
actual financial inequality (higher than ever before in the history of the
country) is largely due to the fact that most people, like you are realizing
here, don't actually see that disparity that much. A lot of this wealth
transfer is obfuscated (very deliberately!) and laundered through less-
explicit mechanisms, like the aforementioned "paying for the ludicrously
expensive nightmare that is childcare".

~~~
mrep
Not even close. 90% wealth has a little over a million and even the 99% has a
little over 10 million. At 10 million, you can live in perpetuity with
$400,000 which is good, but not private jets good.

------
AtlasBarfed
The intergenerational social contract isn't justified by laissez-faire
economics of the baby boomers and globalization.

Don't worry, the uplifting of people in other countries via globalization
justifies the disenfranchisement of the younger generations of America.

Of course, we won't talk about the fact that the super rich in all countries
are the true beneficiaries of the wealth redistribution of laissez-faire free
trade globalization.

The article is spot on though. No jobs, regressive pay (stagnant is for people
in gen Y, the Millenials are experiencing shrinking pay both in real and
equivalent dollars, while housing, healthcare, education, have skyrocketed.

Consumer spending may buy a bit more than it used to...

But good luck having a house, staying healthy, and getting a job to buy all
that plastic crap at target, or even... food.

------
bandrami
Part of this is the peculiarly American obsession with moving out of your
parents' house and living independently as soon as possible. When I was living
in India that was difficult for my coworkers to understand.

------
rabidsnail
Housing development is one of the highest on the ripe-for-disruption list,
maybe second after higher education. Virtually none of the money these people
are going into debt to spend on houses generates real value in their lives,
they're doing it because they think they're supposed to. If you can figure out
how to build cheap housing on cheap land that offers good living standards
(doable now that you don't need access to the power grid) then you'll unlock
literally trillions in value.

------
skywhopper
Ugh, yet another millenial-bashing thinkpiece constructed from soundbites of
consulting agencies and web startups who have a vested interest in pushing a
particular storyline. I suppose this sort of thing gets clicks, but it's toxic
in a dozen different ways to pretend that these anecdotes and overgeneralities
are representative of Americans in their thirties. Not to mention the loaded
assumptions that cross-generational support is something unprecedented or
negative.

~~~
sime2009
Did you even bother to read the article? It is nothing like that. It is really
an article about terrible economics young adults have to face.

------
gerbilly
Why insist on buying in those hyper inflated areas anyway?

Why not go found a millennial utopia in some (as yet) undervalued part of the
country, and start creating startups there etc...?

~~~
hobofan
Isn't that what Portland/Austin is/was?

------
jumbopapa
This article strongly rings of the "Economic Outpatient Care" chapters in The
Millionaire Next Door.

------
jayd16
I remember when I was setting up a home purchase, the bank was really pushing
for an extra $30k as a parental gift. They were pretty adamant. They know they
can probably get it and they push for it.

~~~
jakemoshenko
Genuinely curious: for what? Under what context can the bank push for you to
have more money? Debt-to-income? More down payment? Assets after closing? Why
should they care?

~~~
jayd16
>Debt-to-income? More down payment?

Those two.

------
bkohlmann
As a (older) millennial, one of the unanticipated benefits of my military
service was near financial freedom. When I was 18, all I wanted to do fly
airplanes. I didn’t realize it would help me have options when I decided I was
done flying.

I graduated from a top private university with no debt in 2004. My parents
didn’t pay for any of it (indeed, they couldn’t). I was on a full ROTC
scholarship which covered all my tuition and books. It also paid a monthly
stipend of ~$350/mo which covered my minimal needs. Room and board was covered
by summer jobs like painting houses and some other random scholarships I got
from other sources.

No one goes into the military to get rich, but if you are savvy, you can do
very well in your 20s. I always had a roommate. I ended up buying two (low
cost) houses which I then rented to buddies on the same base. When on
deployment, in a combat zone, we got tax free pay – and almost nothing to
spend it on. Being a saver anyway, I threw them into index funds and a few
tech stocks in the early 2010s. I started a Roth in 2004, maxing my
contributions every year since (benefitting from having no loan payments).

When I got out of active service, I went to a very expensive, top graduate
school using the GI Bill. It paid for over 80% of tuition, and since I was in
the Bay Area, a very generous housing stipend. The rest I made up for via
other veteran and religious related scholarships.

At 35, I had a nice nest egg built up, two prestigious degrees paid for via my
early military career choice, and a very nice job lined up after graduation
with significant upside. My wife and I have no debt (aside from our current
house), some cash flowing investment properties, and positive career prospects
going forward. I also have the option of continuing with (minimal impact)
reserve service to get a small, but meaningful monthly pension at the age of
60.

The decisions (unanticipated in many instances) early on have enabled an
empowering financial future. We’re not uber-wealthy…yet. But we are secure -
all without family contributions.

Some caveats: Most of my military career I lived in low cost of living areas
(think rural Mississippi, Texas, and California). I was unmarried with no
kids. I had a propensity to save (similar military peers with a similar
trajectory had a lot less cash when they got out…and some have a lot more).

I write this only to present an alternative, showing the unanticipated rewards
from making a particular career choice. The key thing here is the immense
value of getting education paid for and being able to invest the money that
would’ve gone to loan payments over a decade or more.

For many the military may not be the right move (and there are downsides)…but
in my case, it had immense financial upside (and I got 1800 free flight hours
out of the deal!), especially for a public school kid coming from a modest
family. To you 17 year olds without money looking for options, taking
advantage of government funded education in return for military service can be
a lucrative path if tied to other cost-minimization strategies.

~~~
stillsut
Really informative and inspiring comment.

But I wanted to ask if you ever consider the counterfactual where instead of
flying planes you're peeling potatoes for four years? Let's just say due to
bad luck or a twist of fate - _I didn 't know he was Colonel's son!_

I mean nothing post discharge sounds like it was too associated with your role
as pilot - the benefits are available to any veteran. But it does seem like
you live life with a healthy amount of initiative and I wonder if you think
about starting life with less role-responsibility or have ever compared peer
outcomes in this way?

------
courtf
As a millennial born in the early 80s, I know a good number of people from my
college years who, I have learned over time, live a similarly charmed life.

Looking back, there was always something a bit odd about these folks: namely,
that they seemed to be far more concerned than I was about what to do with
their time. They seemed to really be concerned about having the "right" kind
of job, or the "right" kind of life. When I was working customer service or
slinging cocktails at the gay bars to pay my rent and food costs, they were
researching grad schools (only the best), or traveling to the third world on
short-term humanitarian missions. One took several years off from work without
much apparent anxiety. Another jumped from city to city, making large numbers
of fair-weather friends and throwing himself into startup after startup, never
settling down or really committing to anything or anyone. Another married a
successful artist, and raises the kids in Santa Monica. I know a few living
very bohemian lives, in high-minded intentional communities, writing books to
teach their peers about some obscure facet of culture. Some went into the
corporate world, where they adequately fill a suit and sometimes write about
M&A on a blog.

I've worked with lots of these types as well of course, in the tech industry.
They have no concern about being their own angel, and care a lot about
diversity, but have no qualms about asking you to work late, or over the
weekend to help "the business" meet its latest pivot. Needless to say, all of
these people are white.

My husband's family is white too, although quite poor. His father used to
break and shoe horses, and can track an animal through a desert. The sort of
man who relies on Medicare to pay for his liver removal surgery, his lymph-
node removal, his spinal growths removals, and any other places where the
cancer metastasized, but is out fixing a truck engine soon after, with his
oxygen tank dangerously close to the welding torch. This happens in the sort
of countryside where your trailer gets broken into, and the thieves drag your
refrigerator over to their trailer not far away up the dirt road, leaving a
trail you can see from space, but the police can't do anything. In an earlier
time, he would have solved that problem himself, but he doesn't hear so good,
or see so good thanks to a couple of strokes and type-I diabetes. The wife has
MS, so he spends most of his time taking care of her.

When the grandfather shot himself, the gun was one of the most valuable things
he left behind. Despite losing her retirement to shady financial management,
after 30 years as a charge nurse in the ED, the wife couldn't wait to blow
what little they got in the will on a new hot tub. Better enjoy it now.

Of course they'll have to sell their sandy little plot in the next year or so
anyway, before it becomes worthless due to the water table drying up. My
husband does what he can to bail them out when unexpected bills arrive, and
maybe he ought to spend more on their comfort. God knows his sister can't help
from behind bars.

My family is different, my parents paid for my bachelor's, just not my
master's, but we can tell some similar stories from a couple generations back.
My grandfather had to cut off his own father during the depression,
essentially dooming him, because the old man stupidly lost everything he
owned, and his only hope was the wage my grandfather earned, after a career as
a ship's engineer, shoveling coal into the furnaces of buildings in NYC. This
is the ugly side of progress no one wants to talk about: how people get left
behind. How the parents fight a losing battle, and the kid grows up knowing
their only hope is to get the hell away from it all. These callous things long
to be forgotten.

------
zeroname
Basically, you got:

\- overpriced health-care, because the government thinks everyone should be
able to buy health-care no matter what state their health is, but also
everybody should be able to _not_ buy healthcare when they feel like they
don't need to

\- overpriced private primary education, because the government thinks tax
money must be locked up in a garbage public education system

\- overpriced college, because the government thinks everyone should be able
to go to college (and go broke for it)

\- overpriced housing, because the government thinks everyone should be able
to buy a house (and go broke for it)

\- overpriced stock, because the government-created asset bubbles must be re-
inflated with cheap money in order to save the retirement funds

\- high taxes and deductions to mitigate the enormous amount of government
debt that this whole charade requires

As a bonus, trillions of unfunded liabilities going into the future, meaning
more taxes and deductions and fewer benefits for those suckers that'll have to
pay into it.

Mark my words, in the future we will need the border wall to keep people _in_.
Also don't forget that, as a citizen, you will owe taxes to Uncle Sam wherever
you go.

------
kokokokoko
I can't believe this would be a shock to anyone. How else does a first time
home buyer come up with a 20% deposit on a $500,000 house? There are obviously
exceptions, but generally speaking that's where the money comes from.

Money from inheritance and family grossly distorts the market. Anyone who
takes money from family or inheritance should be ashamed of themselves unless
that money is used for helping the less fortunate.

Edit: I should add that I had access to family assistance financially and
chose to not take it. Which made my life significantly more difficult. So this
is something I feel very passionately about. Those who take the money know it
is wrong, because most of them will never admit publicly they took any money.

~~~
manigandham
Children should be ashamed to use their family's money to better their life?
That's a rather extreme statement.

~~~
kokokokoko
Yes, absolutely. It is wildly unfair to those who do not have access in a
market economy.

~~~
MagicPropmaker
The compromise is to make sure this transfer of income is taxed like any other
income.

------
xxpor
>New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco or Washington, D.
C.

One of these things is not like the others.

~~~
Hortinstein
out of curiosity...guessing Boston?

[edit] more likely referring to Chicago

------
elorant
Thirty years ago you could raise a family with just one parent working.
Nowadays that's pretty much impossible. The cost of living has skyrocketed and
this leads a lot of people to seek support from their families.

~~~
oh_sigh
You can still do that if you don't mind living in a 1100 SQ foot, cheaply
built house in the suburbs.

~~~
occamrazor
1100 sq.ft is enough space for 3 bedrooms and one kitchen/living room, which
is definitely sufficient for a couple with 2 children.

~~~
oh_sigh
I never said it wasn't. But good luck finding houses being built like that
today.

