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

[Anonymous]

Who here actually read the article?

Why would these people have a THIRD child when the wife/main breadwinner was out of a job?

Why can’t they just do a story on any of the bajillion people in this country who have a more relatable story that doesn’t involve “briefly moving to Japan because pandemic”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I am 35 and nobody in my orbit was talking marriage at 27. It feels like it took my circle (myself included) until 30 to start "growing up" - I was married at 31 and that was the first of my friend group.

Marriage has nothing to do with maturity or growing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry I don't pay to read news. It's part of my "adulting"

+! I agree. I think someone does this on purpose, writing a catchy headline to get our attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was a good article.

I am an early millennial who is married, home, and one kid. It's not fully expected or achievable any more.

And, my parents had a comparable home in this area, but many MORE kids (3) and lower-paying jobs (GS-13 equivalent military and SAHM who later worked PT as teacher, versus us today as two GS-15 level).

Also, unless people understand student loans, they don't fully understand the ramifications.

People don't really get how student loans can impact their life even when it's explained to them, when younger people have asked me advice about career tracks, etc.

I have a graduate degree that is not the most prestigious but these many years out career counts much more. Going for highest "prestige" can mean more stress and negative impacts to present and future (savings for kid etc).

I think this is key. Teaching young people what debt is and somehow getting them to listen is important. But, as PP noted, younger adults are not necessarily inclined to hear that advice.

As for the statement that being married with home and kid isn't achievable anymore, it is. You have to be willing to do stuff for it, though. Like move to a lower COL.

This! It’s part of why I give my kids an allowance and let them make choices with it I wouldn’t necessarily want them to. My oldest wanted to sign up for a one year subscription video game thing. I said okay but you have to pay me back the monthly break down from your allowance. Let me tell you, a few months in he was not happy about having to pay me back each month before getting the rest of his allowance paid out. But he had committed to repaying me for the full year. Once the year was up he was so happy to no longer owe it and said he wouldn’t be buying stuff like that on a whim anymore. I also explained he was lucky he didn’t owe interest, that I only made him repay the principle. Imagine if I had charged you extra on top of that.

I hope this lesson sticks with him. It’s so much easier to understand when it’s tangible and you have to live with the consequences.

[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.

I am early 30's and the majority of my friends (1) own homes; (2) are married/engaged/cohabitating; (3) have kids or plan to start trying in the near future. I am constantly reading about the "struggling" delayed adulthood millennials in publications like NYT and I am just not seeing the reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I am 35 and nobody in my orbit was talking marriage at 27. It feels like it took my circle (myself included) until 30 to start "growing up" - I was married at 31 and that was the first of my friend group.

Marriage has nothing to do with maturity or growing up.

Right. Marriage (and dating in general) is not an accomplishment. Or a sign of anything, really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I am 35 and nobody in my orbit was talking marriage at 27. It feels like it took my circle (myself included) until 30 to start "growing up" - I was married at 31 and that was the first of my friend group.

You were not in the right orbit. God 27 is late to be married if you want to be somewhat responsible.

[Anonymous]

Even as a millennial, so much of this depends on exactly what you were up to during various points in time. I was in college during the dot com burst and things had reasonably recovered by the time I graduated. I was in grad school for the 2008 recession. I first bought a house in 2010 at the bottom of the housing market and have seen insane equity growth. I'm also an older millennial so college tuition hadn't risen nearly as much as it did for the younger segment of millennials, so my loans were reasonable after some significant merit scholarships.

By contrast, there are folks just a couple of years older than me who got pummeled with both job loss and loss of home equity in the 2008 recession. There are also folks a few years younger than me who graduated into the 2008 recession and never did find a job in there field, stunting then professionally. There's a big range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As A Gen Xer, I am unsurprised that the millennial whining continues into middle age.

Well I think the Millenials deserve a trophy just for showing up in adult life!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I am 35 and nobody in my orbit was talking marriage at 27. It feels like it took my circle (myself included) until 30 to start "growing up" - I was married at 31 and that was the first of my friend group.

You were not in the right orbit. God 27 is late to be married if you want to be somewhat responsible.

NP. I married at 26 forever ago and we were the first of our friends to marry, by a wide margin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry I don't pay to read news. It's part of my "adulting"

Someone is paying for the news to be written. Do you know who paid for the “free” news you read, and why they paid for it? As the wife of a journalist I can tell you that journalists actually need to be paid to do their work. If you pay them by subscribing to a paper you get the news. If you get your news from an entertainment company that pays them instead…you get entertainment, ie content created for maximum clicks.

Pay for your news, the same way you pay for books. Or read a newspaper through your public library. That’s good too.

[Anonymous]

Unless you're a white guy, life and economic prospects are better today than they've ever been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even as a millennial, so much of this depends on exactly what you were up to during various points in time. I was in college during the dot com burst and things had reasonably recovered by the time I graduated. I was in grad school for the 2008 recession. I first bought a house in 2010 at the bottom of the housing market and have seen insane equity growth. I'm also an older millennial so college tuition hadn't risen nearly as much as it did for the younger segment of millennials, so my loans were reasonable after some significant merit scholarships.

By contrast, there are folks just a couple of years older than me who got pummeled with both job loss and loss of home equity in the 2008 recession. There are also folks a few years younger than me who graduated into the 2008 recession and never did find a job in there field, stunting then professionally. There's a big range.

This. I'm a "cusper" (born 1980) and I have a lot of empathy for many younger millennial who I think got kind of screwed. If you graduated college in 2007 or 2008, for instance, the job market was really rough, and you were too young to take advantage of lower housing costs and increased housing supply (unless your parents financed a house purchase, in which case no one feels sorry for you and it's not about your generation anyway). By the time you were making okay money and ready to start settling down, housing prices were skyrocketing. And your college was very expensive and your kids college will be outrageously expensive.

I really do think some people got very screwed by timing in ways that some people refuse to acknowledge. Everyone wants to act like they were just very prescient and smart but many of us just benefitted form good timing with the job and housing markets, and lucked into good timing with investments. If you can't acknowledge this about yourself, you're delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As A Gen Xer, I am unsurprised that the millennial whining continues into middle age.

Well I think the Millenials deserve a trophy just for showing up in adult life!

Mic drop and so true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you're a white guy, life and economic prospects are better today than they've ever been.

Hahahahahahahaaaaa