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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory
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To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (56882)4/3/2006 10:11:38 PM
From: GraceZ  Read Replies (1) of 110194
 
Are you better off than your parents were at your age? Probably not

I'm not a good example because I've done much better than my parents from a material wealth stand point, as have most of my siblings. My parents both came from families where they were expected to work to help support their families from a very early age, my was father out on the streets selling newspapers at 3am when he was nine and my mother was expected to work on the family farm from age seven. They both had to quit school after 8th grade to go to work full time and they were certainly not unusual for their generation, children provided a great deal of family support (paid or unpaid labor) up until the 1960s and still do in rural communities. None of my nieces or nephews had to work to help support their families, some worked as teenagers so they could buy stuff they wanted. The same is true of my husband's family. Each successive generation has done much better than the preceding ones.

After you get past penury, more wealth doesn't make people happier. I think this is why most don't feel like they are better off than their parents. They cling to this "Donna Reed" 1950s TV vision of their childhoods yet very few Americans grew up in that situation. What they are forgetting is that they take trips to Europe or the Caribbean every other year when their parents felt lucky to take that one big "second Honeymoon" vacation. They have two or three cars that they change every 3-5 years when both their parents drove the same one for 8-10. Now each kid has their own phone, car, computer, TV, etc whereas most Boomers grew up in households where everyone shared the one no matter how well off they were.
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