The Gen X Career Meltdown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most Gen Xers have Boomer parents and even fewer, Silent Generationers.

I’m one. Born 1970 to parents born in 1934 and 1937.

DH has parents a full decade younger.

Boomers were born 1946 to 1964

GenX 1965 to 1980.

Most GenX have silent generation parents.

GenX here.. (born in 1971) parents are boomers born in 1948 and 1952

A 19 year old parent even in the 50s is pretty exceptional.

I mean 70s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most Gen Xers have Boomer parents and even fewer, Silent Generationers.

I’m one. Born 1970 to parents born in 1934 and 1937.

DH has parents a full decade younger.

Boomers were born 1946 to 1964

GenX 1965 to 1980.

Most GenX have silent generation parents.

I’m an early Genx - 1965- parents born in 1929. One parent grew up in Europe during WW2. Both worked hard, were thrifty and savers and as a result left a lot of generational wealth to their kids.

[Anonymous]

I left home at 17. College job grad school etc. I lived in dc on 13,500/year in 2000. I had a stipend/presoc fellowship , I lived in a total dump and lived when I could. I longer take th cockroaches or the screaming family upstairs who routinely led t their baby to crawl unattended around the stairs while they fought.

Two years later those same fellows were given 18k and housing included because it became clear that dc was starting to get expensive (of course what came next was really unexpected). The I my was I was able to get any financial foothold was buying a house in 2004 and selling later and moving to cheaper place.

Both dh and I have been in creative and non profit fields. We have never made a lot of money but enough. However we are seeing our parents burn through their funds with memory card and assisted living as we have no idea what the future holds for our kids, given the self destruction of the United States and AI. One kid is resilient and adaptable and high achieving but the other is probably not going to launch before mid 20s, despite all our efforts(therapy, private schools, etc). So now we worry about supporting g our parents and our kids for far longer than we anticipated.

I’m past worrying about me. We are okay, even if dh (fed) is fired we will manage somehow. But future for our kids looks grim.

[Anonymous]

I actually think this article missed an additional industry that lured so many of gen x’s best and brightest to a dead end: international development. So many who had all the options in the world chose that path and now, with the end of USAID and so many supporting contractors and non profits, they are now at peak earning potential in their late 40s and 50s without any clear future path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most Gen Xers have Boomer parents and even fewer, Silent Generationers.

I’m one. Born 1970 to parents born in 1934 and 1937.

DH has parents a full decade younger.

Boomers were born 1946 to 1964

GenX 1965 to 1980.

Most GenX have silent generation parents.

GenX here.. (born in 1971) parents are boomers born in 1948 and 1952

Gen xer here (1970) with parent from 1944 and 1942. I always called them war babies I had no idea “silent generation” was an expression. I changed my profession multiple times during the course of events (cashier - journalist - photographer - web designer- PR - SAHM - management consultant.) I had a Eurajlpass in the early 90s and visited 20 countries with no phone and stayed at youth hostels. My first car I earned the money for working at the mall and it was an old Honda Civic with 150k miles and no radio or heat. my brother had a dirt bike and skids were big. My older sister went to secretarial school to be Working Girl on Wall Street like Melanie Griffith and I was the first to go to college. I have moved and lived in four states. i worked in downtown Manhattan during both World Trade Center bombings. (Yes it happened twice.) .
Currently I am paying for the kids braces, saving for college and also helping my elderly parents out at the same time. I have very little retirement saved up and am looking in the face of major recession.

I have lived a good life and have seen a LOT but I am so tired. And I am sad my kids will have way less than I had in this stupid world of iPhones and Ai and Trump and techbros.

[Anonymous]

I'm early Gen X and I am just so tired of everything. I am not depressed or suicidal, just done with life!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We also dealt with rapidly rising house prices (as did Millenials but they had much much richer parents who could help them out).

Layoffs were the norm for our generation, as our parents were the first to experience them and being unemployable at middle age and the fall out from that.

My husband and I are millennials and received zero help from our parents to buy a house.

Millennial, this actually isn't about you. But thanks for chiming in with your anecdote.

Yeah except a pp directly called millennials out. Gen x is if anything more deranged and selfish than the boomers, because they are so called "latchkey kids" who "take care of themselves" - why would they take care of anyone else when they "made it" taking care of themselves

Exactly. I took care of myself and my siblings because my mom worked full time and my dad lived I another state. We would stay home all day by ourselves sometimes during summer vacation and my mom would periodically call to make sure we were still alive.

They took care of themselves because they had poorer parents who left them to fend for themselves. Outcomes for more hardship doesn’t translate to more wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just finished reading this article two minutes ago.

I think we need to go back to when people had their own businesses. It wasn’t so long ago! The trouble is that America is optimized for large corporations and it’s hard to survive as a mom n pop operation.

Single payer health care would boost entrepreneurship by helping people untether from wage slave jobs where employer-paid health insurance is a big part of compensation.

DP and totally agree. If not single payer, than at least universal and consumer driven by letting people pick affordable health plans, Kaiser Permanente being an example of effective + affordable. We need to untether our health care from employment to allow creativity and risk-taking that we need to stay innovative and dynamic.

But we also need to keep our border secure and enforce employment eligibility and tax laws because that is a huge problem when it comes to healthcare sustainability and wage growth.

Therefore we need a centrist government who is willing to do these things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most Gen Xers have Boomer parents and even fewer, Silent Generationers.

I’m one. Born 1970 to parents born in 1934 and 1937.

DH has parents a full decade younger.

I was born in 1966 to early Boomer parents (1945). My DH is the same age as me, but his parents were born in 1922 and 1923. As you can imagine, our childhood experiences were very, very different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe Gen X and their Gen Z kids shouldn’t have disproportionately voted for the guy who decided to dismantle the economy yesterday. Even with all the lead poisoning, you should have known better.

I'm a Gen Xer who agrees with this. I know all the jackasses I went to high school with voted for this. I guess we're all going to get what they wanted, good and hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just finished reading this article two minutes ago.

I think we need to go back to when people had their own businesses. It wasn’t so long ago! The trouble is that America is optimized for large corporations and it’s hard to survive as a mom n pop operation.

Single payer health care would boost entrepreneurship by helping people untether from wage slave jobs where employer-paid health insurance is a big part of compensation.

DP and totally agree. If not single payer, than at least universal and consumer driven by letting people pick affordable health plans, Kaiser Permanente being an example of effective + affordable. We need to untether our health care from employment to allow creativity and risk-taking that we need to stay innovative and dynamic.

But we also need to keep our border secure and enforce employment eligibility and tax laws because that is a huge problem when it comes to healthcare sustainability and wage growth.

Therefore we need a centrist government who is willing to do these things.

Sigh. You people still don't get it. The only way to fund universal health care is to have a large working population paying taxes to support it. For that, given the birth rates in the last 50 years, we need more immigration, not less.