NYT Opinion Piece: This Isn’t What Millennial Middle Age Was Supposed To Look Like

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, at least Millennials didn't have to deal with the kind of violent crime that GenX dealt with as young adults. It's like 50% of what it used to be.

Well now we just live in fear that some madman with a gun will shoot up our grocery store, or elementary school, or concert, or or or…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m 38, married 11 years, have 3 kids, own my home, have a healthy retirement savings.

I’m absolutely dumbfounded by how few of my peers have progressed down the “normal” path of adulthood with me. I kept thinking they’d catch up to me at some point, but the door is closing.

Um, maybe they don’t want to “catch up with” you. Stop being such an arrogant, smug tool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m 38, married 11 years, have 3 kids, own my home, have a healthy retirement savings.

I’m absolutely dumbfounded by how few of my peers have progressed down the “normal” path of adulthood with me. I kept thinking they’d catch up to me at some point, but the door is closing.

Yawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Gen Xer who graduated into the recession of the early 90s and then endured the financial crisis I find the millennial attitude/ignorance that they are apparently the first generation ever to face economic hardship laughable. This generation has been feeding at their boomer parents trough all their lives is on track to receive the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history.

No one is arguing that they are the first ones to face economic hardship. If you can't see how things in the mid-90s were different from things 10 and 20 years later, in terms of housing and college costs, I can't help you.

Also, the people complaining are not the ones with boomer parents about to transfer a bunch of wealth to them. It's the people whose boomer parents don't have wealth to pass on for whatever reason. The assumption that everyone is going to inherit a bunch of money from boomers is myopic. Some will and some won't. Wealth has become more concentrated so there are plenty of millennial who are not benefitting from what you think "everyone" is experiencing.

Stop being so myopic.

-- Fellow Gen Xer

Another Gen Xer here as well. Agree. While a lot of the drama from Milennials that I see online is annoying, life is different than it was "in our day". The cost of living has gone up, the costs of college have gone up, etc. I graduated college in 1994 (born in 76) and remember paying right about $1/gallon for gas for instance. My parents purchased a house when I was in HS that doubled in value by the time they retired...great for them when they sold, awful for the next person who wants to buy it.

Yeah and the minimum wage was much, much less than. I saw a sign the other day paying $15 - $17per hour at target with benefits, that goes a long way in the cost differences between that time and this time. Stop making excuses, if you only want to work fifteen hour weeks and take three day weekends then you'll reap what you sow. Maybe someone should find that article from last weeks papers that talked about young people rejecting having to punch in at work at 9, or having to work five days a week, from home or in the office. I was always dreaming of the house I wanted and would never have, still do, so I settled for something most on this forum would never settle for, but I have a roof over my families heads and we are employed and enjoying our simple lives.

You do realize that these dramatic increases in retail wages have only started since the pandemic, right? And that $15/hr in DCUM land goes a lot less far than $5/hr did back then, right? You do understand that housing, medical care, and education costs have wildly outpaced wage gains in most places, correct? $15/hr PT is barely enough money for a teenager to cover extra curriculars and gas, let alone rent and food for a family.

I don’t think you understand just how badly younger generations have to “settle”. Some people are in a position where they are settling for not having a family so they can pay back their loans before they die. It’s not about whether they are getting 3 bedrooms or 4, it’s whether they are ever going to rent a 1 bedroom without roommates.

When the system has burned people as bad as it has, it’s no surprise that many are giving up the hussle and working the hours they are paid to work and no more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am 34 and I am NOT middle aged. F off.

If you go by the median age of death in US you most certainly are

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, there are some really outdated talking points on this thread. The only thing I'm missing on my bingo card is "avocado toast."

At this point, there's a ton of data showing broader circumstances are different for millennials, especially Black millennials. We're not talking about participation trophies and individual-level factors. Here's a write-up for anyone truly interested in understanding the problem. Although, there have been tons of such write-ups about macro effects in recent years, so I imagine anyone who wanted to be informed would be by now.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/27/990770599/there-is-growing-segregation-in-millennial-wealth

[And before someone calls this whining, I say this as a successful elder millennial, who understands that for many people in my generation, external circumstances look very different than mine.]

Thanks for posting this! Very interesting read!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a GenX I love this : One thing Millennials do have that we in GenX do not: enough numbers for people to write articles like this about them. Where the the thought pieces when we turned 40??

Though we did have This is 40

+1. Gen Xer as well. I cannot decide if the Millennials are fragile, or arrogant, or both. They seem to have so little resilience to life. Life isn't easy, but apparently they got the message that it should be? Whoever sent that message didn't serve them well. It will be interesting to watch them hit 50 and be treated as completely invisible. They will collapse like flan in a cupboard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am 34 and I am NOT middle aged. F off.

If you go by the median age of death in US you most certainly are

Middle age starts at 36. The average lifespan in the United States is 72 years old. 36 + 36 = 72

You are almost middle aged right now. Wake up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting article. I read it - and to PPs, I don’t think it is people moaning at all. It is about how life if different for today’s 40 year olds - objectively different, from the sorts of crises we have experienced in recent times, to the cost of housing, the aging population, etc. The headline refers to the idea that the pop culture mid life crisis where a guy buys a flashy car and runs away with a younger woman is unlikely for today’s 40 something men, who may have only just got married/had kids for the first time.

Any discussion as to the impact of marrying later in life?

The reality is that a couple can begin building assets when they combine their two incomes.

I wonder if maybe they’re just doing it wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, at least Millennials didn't have to deal with the kind of violent crime that GenX dealt with as young adults. It's like 50% of what it used to be.

Well now we just live in fear that some madman with a gun will shoot up our grocery store, or elementary school, or concert, or or or…

Yeah because we didn't grow up with Son of Sam, the Unabomber, the Oklahoma City bombing, the World Trade Center (hello? 9/11), shall I continue?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Gen Xer who graduated into the recession of the early 90s and then endured the financial crisis I find the millennial attitude/ignorance that they are apparently the first generation ever to face economic hardship laughable. This generation has been feeding at their boomer parents trough all their lives is on track to receive the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history.

No one is arguing that they are the first ones to face economic hardship. If you can't see how things in the mid-90s were different from things 10 and 20 years later, in terms of housing and college costs, I can't help you.

Also, the people complaining are not the ones with boomer parents about to transfer a bunch of wealth to them. It's the people whose boomer parents don't have wealth to pass on for whatever reason. The assumption that everyone is going to inherit a bunch of money from boomers is myopic. Some will and some won't. Wealth has become more concentrated so there are plenty of millennial who are not benefitting from what you think "everyone" is experiencing.

Stop being so myopic.

-- Fellow Gen Xer

Another Gen Xer here as well. Agree. While a lot of the drama from Milennials that I see online is annoying, life is different than it was "in our day". The cost of living has gone up, the costs of college have gone up, etc. I graduated college in 1994 (born in 76) and remember paying right about $1/gallon for gas for instance. My parents purchased a house when I was in HS that doubled in value by the time they retired...great for them when they sold, awful for the next person who wants to buy it.

Yeah and the minimum wage was much, much less than. I saw a sign the other day paying $15 - $17per hour at target with benefits, that goes a long way in the cost differences between that time and this time. Stop making excuses, if you only want to work fifteen hour weeks and take three day weekends then you'll reap what you sow. Maybe someone should find that article from last weeks papers that talked about young people rejecting having to punch in at work at 9, or having to work five days a week, from home or in the office. I was always dreaming of the house I wanted and would never have, still do, so I settled for something most on this forum would never settle for, but I have a roof over my families heads and we are employed and enjoying our simple lives.

You do realize that these dramatic increases in retail wages have only started since the pandemic, right? And that $15/hr in DCUM land goes a lot less far than $5/hr did back then, right? You do understand that housing, medical care, and education costs have wildly outpaced wage gains in most places, correct? $15/hr PT is barely enough money for a teenager to cover extra curriculars and gas, let alone rent and food for a family.

I don’t think you understand just how badly younger generations have to “settle”. Some people are in a position where they are settling for not having a family so they can pay back their loans before they die. It’s not about whether they are getting 3 bedrooms or 4, it’s whether they are ever going to rent a 1 bedroom without roommates.

When the system has burned people as bad as it has, it’s no surprise that many are giving up the hussle and working the hours they are paid to work and no more.

You do realize that wages are increasing at the fastest pace in generations, right? That recent law school grads are getting hired straight out of law school for what it has taken others 20 years to achieve? That currently young people will rapidly eclipse their elders' salaries? And that meanwhile you are not the only generation affected by the increased prices of ALL goods and services? Or do you think people older than you aren't saving for their kids education in these inflated times?

Your idea of settling is a joke-- everyone's desires and expectations are so inflated by TV and influencers and shelter shows and mags. Reality is anyone who did't marry early in our generation lived in studios and with roommates for a decade or more after college, many while working and paying for grad school, to earn wages you would laugh at today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting article. I read it - and to PPs, I don’t think it is people moaning at all. It is about how life if different for today’s 40 year olds - objectively different, from the sorts of crises we have experienced in recent times, to the cost of housing, the aging population, etc. The headline refers to the idea that the pop culture mid life crisis where a guy buys a flashy car and runs away with a younger woman is unlikely for today’s 40 something men, who may have only just got married/had kids for the first time.

Any discussion as to the impact of marrying later in life?

The reality is that a couple can begin building assets when they combine their two incomes.

I wonder if maybe they’re just doing it wrong?

+1

[Anonymous]

In my first job out of college in the 1990s I earned $19K with no benefits or health insurance for nearly 4 years.
In my second job I earned $29K.
I made $35K when I was 28
$50K at 32
$75K at 35, and
$150K at 40.
Now I'm 51 and make $230K.
I am still paying student loans.
What was that you were saying about how older generations didn't have to economize or struggle?

[Anonymous]

$15/hr PT is barely enough money for a teenager to cover extra curriculars and gas, let alone rent and food for a family.

They call it minimum wage for a reason. Who told you you should be able to afford rent and food for a family and non-public education on minimum wage?

Minimum wage is working poor/poverty level and it always has been.

Get some education get some skills.

[Anonymous]

What millennial fail to understand is that to get ahead you have to be willing to be uncomfortable, to sacrifice, to curtail a social life, to work long hours for less than perfect pay, to juggle priorities, to SERVE something or someone other than yourself potentially for quite a while. They want it to be easy, comfortable, instant, rewarding, acknowledged, all the things.