Do you worry about your children experiencing downward mobility?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was a thread a week ago with parents asking how much to subsidize their college graduate with living expenses. I think the parents have a harder time seeing their kids live with roommates, tiny apartments, etc.

Why? Most of us (Gen Xers) had roommates and/or tiny apartments after college. And it was some of the best times of our lives!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to remember when you were 22 years old and long with cast of furniture and an older model car. Young adults should not expect to live like their parents at that age.

I agree with this. Young adults never saw how their parents lived at the same age. They shouldn’t expect to start off after college with the same lifestyle as their parents when it took their parents 25 years to get to that point.

+1 I was thinking about what I made just out of college. Ran an inflation calculator on that and it was the equivalent of about $55k today. That's about the current average for new college grads. I lived with my parents for a bit, then with roommates. Salary grew over time and then I married someone with a similar salary. We're very comfortable now.

And regardless of income, unless you are really at poverty wages or made the mistake of taking on a lot of student loan debt, living paycheck to paycheck is more about how you choose to spend your money. #1 don't take a lot of student loans and #2 don't over spend on rent.

[Anonymous]

No. Meeting or exceeding my SES is not a goal I have for them.

[Anonymous]

No. They’ll be rolling in the dough compared to what I started out with..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes and I vote accordingly

Me too. I worry about my girls losing their reproductive rights, I worry about climate change, I worry about the crushing load of student loans, the ending of "entitlements" they've already paid into, unaffordable health care if they get sick, a lack of reasonable maternity leave, unlivable wages, tax breaks for millionaires, the criminilization of them traveling on state roads if they want an abortion, and much much more.


I also vote accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was a thread a week ago with parents asking how much to subsidize their college graduate with living expenses. I think the parents have a harder time seeing their kids live with roommates, tiny apartments, etc.

Why? Most of us (Gen Xers) had roommates and/or tiny apartments after college. And it was some of the best times of our lives!

Boomer bootlickers, Genx are their enablers

[Anonymous]

No, I don’t. I was raised LMC and now am UMC. Most people I meet who are LMC and MC are very happy and well adjusted if they don’t have addiction or mental health issues.

Also I believe the so-called housing crisis is complete nonsense 99% of the time. When people complain about their inability to afford a home, it always means a very specific type of home in a few very specific geographical areas. There are plenty of affordable homes (even in the DC metro area, much less places like Milwaukee or Houston) but people feel entitled due to their upbringing and don’t want to make any tradeoffs.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I am downwardly mobile. I grew up in family in top 1%. We’re still UMC, but have to make sacrifices such as private school tuition vs. bigger house and more/nicer vacations. I don’t see my kids being able to maintain their lifestyle. We certainly couldn’t buy our house at today’s prices with today’s interest rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was a thread a week ago with parents asking how much to subsidize their college graduate with living expenses. I think the parents have a harder time seeing their kids live with roommates, tiny apartments, etc.

I think often parents do this for their own convenience. They don't want to visit their adult kids living in tiny apartments or groups houses. They'd rather visit them in a nice, comfortable 2-bedroom apartment with a dishwasher, especially if hotels are pricy in their city (and hotels are pricy everywhere these days). They want to be able to communicate really easily, so they buy them a phone and a computer (and oh while we're add it let's pay the cell phone bill too, since it's on a family plan). They want to vacation with them, so they foot the bill for their vacation so they can go somewhere a middle aged or older person wants to go. And so on.

I think often the kids like this and it allows them a much more comfortable lifestyle in their 20s than they can actually afford. But I also think in some cases, the kids would be more than find living with roommates, eating ramen a lot, taking trips with friends where they split gas money and pack 10 people into a hotel room. Young people tend to care a little less about some of this stuff, and there is fun and romance in making it work with little money. It's not the selfless sacrifice people make it out to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I don’t. I was raised LMC and now am UMC. Most people I meet who are LMC and MC are very happy and well adjusted if they don’t have addiction or mental health issues.

Also I believe the so-called housing crisis is complete nonsense 99% of the time. When people complain about their inability to afford a home, it always means a very specific type of home in a few very specific geographical areas. There are plenty of affordable homes (even in the DC metro area, much less places like Milwaukee or Houston) but people feel entitled due to their upbringing and don’t want to make any tradeoffs.

I consider growing up in a specific geographical area and then not being able to afford to buy a house in that area downwardly mobile. It doesn’t mean someone is doomed to a life of unhappiness, but they are not maintaining the same SES of their childhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I don’t. I was raised LMC and now am UMC. Most people I meet who are LMC and MC are very happy and well adjusted if they don’t have addiction or mental health issues.

Also I believe the so-called housing crisis is complete nonsense 99% of the time. When people complain about their inability to afford a home, it always means a very specific type of home in a few very specific geographical areas. There are plenty of affordable homes (even in the DC metro area, much less places like Milwaukee or Houston) but people feel entitled due to their upbringing and don’t want to make any tradeoffs.

I consider growing up in a specific geographical area and then not being able to afford to buy a house in that area downwardly mobile. It doesn’t mean someone is doomed to a life of unhappiness, but they are not maintaining the same SES of their childhood.

Right, but to answer the question, it’s not something I care about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you worry about your children not being able to maintain the standard of living they have as adults? How do you help them so they don’t fall down SES?

No. We have also lived below our means and that lifestyle is what they know. We have made sure that they have an excellent education in in-demand STEM majors, we have guided them in their profession (internships, certifications, networking, manners, attire, professionalism). and we have guided them in an organic manner that they have chosen life partners from different race and culture who were similar raised with same values. We have made sure that they do not have student debt, did not have to pay for their wedding, took money from us for down payment and we have continued to give them financial leg-ups. Our expectation from them is that they continue to make good choices, they save money for their yet unborn kids education now and position them well.

Our kids are intelligent and educated people. I am sure they can connect the dots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I don’t. I was raised LMC and now am UMC. Most people I meet who are LMC and MC are very happy and well adjusted if they don’t have addiction or mental health issues.

Also I believe the so-called housing crisis is complete nonsense 99% of the time. When people complain about their inability to afford a home, it always means a very specific type of home in a few very specific geographical areas. There are plenty of affordable homes (even in the DC metro area, much less places like Milwaukee or Houston) but people feel entitled due to their upbringing and don’t want to make any tradeoffs.

I consider growing up in a specific geographical area and then not being able to afford to buy a house in that area downwardly mobile. It doesn’t mean someone is doomed to a life of unhappiness, but they are not maintaining the same SES of their childhood.

The thing you are missing is that geographical areas are not static. That area they grew up in, is different now. Most of these people didn't buy their first house in the most desirable geographic area at that time. While it may seem close by or affluent now, at the time it was considered far and middle class. So a home in Bethesda 30 years ago isn't the same as a home in Bethesda now. It might be more like a house in Germantown but they want to live in Bethesda. This idea that you get to live exactly where you want to is silly.

[Anonymous]

Boomer bootlickers, Genx are their enablers

Most Gen Xers actively hate Boomers. I know I have some serious generational resentment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I don’t. I was raised LMC and now am UMC. Most people I meet who are LMC and MC are very happy and well adjusted if they don’t have addiction or mental health issues.

Also I believe the so-called housing crisis is complete nonsense 99% of the time. When people complain about their inability to afford a home, it always means a very specific type of home in a few very specific geographical areas. There are plenty of affordable homes (even in the DC metro area, much less places like Milwaukee or Houston) but people feel entitled due to their upbringing and don’t want to make any tradeoffs.

I consider growing up in a specific geographical area and then not being able to afford to buy a house in that area downwardly mobile. It doesn’t mean someone is doomed to a life of unhappiness, but they are not maintaining the same SES of their childhood.

The thing you are missing is that geographical areas are not static. That area they grew up in, is different now. Most of these people didn't buy their first house in the most desirable geographic area at that time. While it may seem close by or affluent now, at the time it was considered far and middle class. So a home in Bethesda 30 years ago isn't the same as a home in Bethesda now. It might be more like a house in Germantown but they want to live in Bethesda. This idea that you get to live exactly where you want to is silly.

+1 my kids grew up in Ashton Heights. When we bought our house it was a $200k fixer-upper in a neighborhood full of similar houses. Yes, walkable to metro and a lot of other things but that included the run down/nearly empty mall and not much was in Clarendon. Over time the commercial area was developed, and we fixed up the house. We couldn't afford to buy in the neighborhood now. If my kids wanted a similar life to us, they'd need to luck out in finding a soon-to-be-gentrified neighborhood and find a house that needs work. Those neighborhoods do exist but they are not where we live now.