Might as well also bring up that the gig jobs highlighted dont include retirement benefits, and of course there is pervasive endemic age discrimination which will make it very hard for these gig jobs to continue as these girls age
2 Likes
Oh for sure. If my kids were not disabled and were just wanting to do gig jobs and spend a bunch of money while living at home, there would be definite problems with spouse and me. We’re majorly downsizing as soon as the youngest graduates HS, so that wouldn’t even be possible.
I do see a big distinction between adults who want to do the minimum work possible while “mooching” off their parents vs people who are self-supporting but don’t buy into the rat race. I wouldn’t allow a really unbalanced situation with my own kids. If I had daughters, I’d be particularly concerned about their ability to support themselves as they aged. But as long as the arrangement is mutually agreeable and beneficial between parents and their adult children, I have no problem with whatever others do.
1 Like
So no one should leave work to raise their kids full time?
4 Likes
I find this interesting, and very much a contrast to my own expectations. I‘ve definitely encouraged my kids not only to “lean in” coming out of college, at a time when they have no other commitments, but also to plan strategically for their career, while acknowledging that random opportunities may emerge to change your path.
I had a very clear plan 20 years ago about what I wanted to do (not just maximizing income but also having a job I loved and could do for life) and in large part achieved it.
My view is that if you are doing something you enjoy and have the talent to be the best at that, whether in your company, or in your whole industry, then why not pursue that as far as you can take it? My S sees it quite similarly, and he’s constantly figuring out what others in his company at various levels have done right or wrong to progress in the organization (in office time is hugely valuable, especially when your peers don’t take advantage of it!). So far it’s going well, he’s got a promotion and 30% salary increase in his first 12 months there.
1 Like
Thank you for asking that. I thought the same thing!
That is interesting, and I suspect our families’ differences are due in part to our own history.
While my spouse and I weren’t as clear about what we wanted early in life, we did “lean in” and planned strategically, and have found that our efforts were not rewarded with much money or stability. Our efforts have been rewarded in some other categories, and we are happy with our lives. However, we do not really have jobs we’d be delighted to do for life and are faaaar from having maximized our income. We’d both be fine with leaving our jobs and doing something else. We used to be passionate and driven. The challenges of life, coupled with working like dogs and getting no raises for years, have beat that out of us. It’s just a job now, though we are good at our jobs and mostly like what we do.
I think this can vary a lot by industry. We are academics scientists, and our kids have said for years there’s no way they’re going to do PhDs. In some fields, the reward structure for working hard and excelling is kinda messed up.
3 Likes
Men and women who leave the workforce full-time to raise their children need a robust understanding of how pensions, 401k, social security, etc work. Nobody can turn 65 and wonder “who is paying my car lease this month”?
So yeah, I see these influencers in 30 years and it’s problematic without a plan. Regardless of gender.
6 Likes
Agree that people need to plan for futures, build up retirement assets and have a robust emergency fund. Of course there are different ways of getting there.
Something not discussed much about stopping out or scaling back to handle other (often family) obligations are the challenges when trying to enter/re-renter the full time, better-compensated workforce. I’ve seen this personally and know many who have been confronted by it (mostly moms/women).
Having minimal or no contributions to retirement and SS for years of reduced work causes a much smaller nest-egg and smaller retirement assets. It’s something to be aware of and plan for as well as possible.
2 Likes
My better half and I graduated same year and we got married 14 months later. We had a wedding to pay for and were up to our eyeballs in college loans. So we jumped in the rat race and tried to move up the ladder. We did fine but had to live like we were poor to get the loans paid off. There was also a ton of pressure at least in my mind to be successful so we could hit all the milestones.
I didn’t want that for my kids. We got them situated where they won’t have college loans to deal with for undergrad. That being said that is where our support mainly stops. I would never pay rent/living expenses for my adult child. You can live at home if you are on a path to being able to support yourself, but people who live in my house do chores and cook dinner.
5 Likes
I should also say that getting good advice is essential. We are giving our kids good advice on college and careers. Spouse and I did not get such good advice on our own careers.
Spouse’s dad gave some decent advice on financial planning, but did not pay for college, even though they’re rich. We are STILL paying student loans. Spouse went to the cheapest school without regard for fit, but did like it. Valedictorian and recruited athlete, pushed into a career goal of doctor, because that’s what everyone tells you to do when you’re smart and caring and religious. Doctor was NOT a good fit, so off to a PhD in chemistry. Then to teaching to make a difference, rather than the the big defense employers that chafed with personal morals. Spouse should have been an engineer, or looked more carefully at non-defense industry jobs, and anyone should have been able to see that.
I got absolutely no advice from my parents on college, careers, finances, anything. I paid for all my schooling myself (at cheap state flagship). Didn’t want to work with patients, so off to a PhD. Then to teaching because there are no other jobs in neuroscience, and we had a family to support by that point. Someone should have told me there are few jobs for a bachelor’s or even a PhD in the neuroscience field, and I should have become a pathologist or a radiologist, or an engineer.
So our kids are getting much better advice, and much less college debt, and maybe they should lean into their careers and really go for ambitious goals. Their experiences watching us have made them pessimistic, if realistic. I hope it doesn’t hold them back from what might make them happiest and most secure. It is nice to hear the perspectives of others, who have had things work out really nicely for them when they’ve followed good plans and advice.
This isn’t particularly relevant to this thread, but since you mentioned scientists…
My husband would say there’s something wrong when my business undergrad degree’d son comes out of school making more than physics post-docs.
The range in salaries for even similar jobs is kind of wonky these days.
3 Likes
Every generation could list it stresses and economic challenges. And everyone can poke holes in them. Mine didn’t worry about climate change much. We just sincerely expected to be nuked at any moment. Recently I literally look at the current home value of my first home, the one my oldest son was born in, and compared its affordability to him based on his earnings now versus my household earnings when we bought it, and it would be more affordable for him than it was for us at the time, inclusive of taxes and insurance. And he’s single whereas we had two incomes. He and I chatted about it and once you got into the weeds, his idea of not being able to afford a house had way more to do with not prioritizing the same trade offs we did at the time. He wouldn’t want to accept the same commute we did for example, or never eat out (let alone do take out), etc. It’s more about different lifestyle and spending priorities than less spending power.
2 Likes
None of my kid’s friends has a “lazy girl” job or whatever. We have one family friend whose sister is a “writer.” Our friend is a hairstylist and has her own salon and does very well and often works weekends and all that. They’re from a wealthy family. Her sister isn’t really lazy per se, but she is the typical rich girl who doesn’t have to work and does some writing and all of that and can be a bit self-centered according to her sister, but oh well.
I was a teacher for several years and I know work as an administrator at the school I taught at. My H worked for a news station. Both of us worked hard at our jobs, but I’d say we had pretty good work life balance. It helped with being a teacher/working at a school because I generally had the same time off that my kids did. H did work odd hours sometimes, but he always had two days off a week and we would take the kids to school some mornings and when he wasn’t at work he was present. He also worked from home 1 day a week too.
My niece worked as an accountant at a top 20 accounting firm. She got the job right out of college. She made a lot of money, but worked A LOT. She kept working like that when she got married and had kids. She only took 1 month maternity leave and she missed out on a lot of her kid’s infant and toddler years. She eventually found a new job, which pays a bit less (she still earns a great salary), but offers much better work life balance. She can take her kids to school and pick them up. She doesn’t have to answer her phone or check her email on her days off. She says she has so much more energy these days. And I have to say, she looks a lot healthier. Now, she can enjoy the big fancy house that she has. Sure, she made a ton of money, but she did miss out on family life.
5 Likes
I don’t think I got any career advice from my parents (who hadn’t gone to university), but they constantly told me I could do anything, so I felt it was perfectly reasonable to aim at being the best at what I did (especially as I was always the top student at school). I told them I had decided I was going to go to Cambridge for university at age 8 and they just said ok. And we were an intensely competitive family, so even in childhood games I was never allowed to just win.
I gave up on any ambitions in academia after my math PhD because I knew others were better. Industry wasn’t as intellectually competitive, and I never blinked at moving to a different country, setting up my own business, etc.
My kids react to that in slightly different ways, I think it’s only my older son who truly believes it when I tell him the same things my parents told me, and will potentially follow a similar path.
1 Like
Yup, it is surprising. My spouse did 2 postdocs, is a very successful tenured professor at a LAC, has major federal external grant funding, does work that routinely makes it into major news outlets, makes <$65K, and is worried about getting laid off in the next 10 years. Folks are usually surprised to learn that a STEM PhD is not necessarily a ticket to a great career. Almost no one tells you that when you’re going into your PhD. If even that doesn’t get you a well-paying stable job, it can be disillusioning, like how my kids feel. This is not unique to our experience, and lots of other folks in other careers have experienced the same. But I’ll let it rest since it’s off-topic for this thread. But I understand why kids and young adults don’t feel very inspired to grind hard at a career these days. Where does it get you? Sometimes not very far.
Oh, interesting. That’s kind of what my valedictorian spouse was told, and that’s part of what lead them to set sights on medical school. College and grad school quickly showed otherwise, and med school was clearly the wrong fit. Classic big fish in a small pond scenario, plus bad career advice. We don’t tell our kids they can do anything (quite the opposite), but we try to be realistic. I think maybe we are just a family of pessimists 
(I prefer to call myself a realist though!)
3 Likes
I just looked up our first house for giggles. We bought it in the year 2000 for $220,000. We were 28 years old with two babies living on a single income of $60,000 a year. It was tight, but doable. We were able to buy new cars, take vacations, etc… even with the exhorbitant interest rates at the time. That house is now worth $756,000 according to Zillow. There no way my kids could swing that.
1 Like
Our first house is now worth 2.5x what it was when we bought it in the '90’s. My son makes 4.5x what I did at his age. Plus we had an 8.5% interest rate. The monthly payment was 40% of gross income and the 10% down was most of my life savings. When I was in high school and early college, some of my jobs were minimum wage at $3.35/hour (I netted $1.99/hour) – it hadn’t risen in almost a decade. I graduated in a recession and it took 6 months post graduation to get a job, including not just jobs my degree would be relevant for by my applying for minimum wage retail jobs. I was 100% financially on my own in LA. All my furniture was hand-me-downs from relatives or friends, except my “dining table” which was a cheap fold up card table (still own it). Most of the discretionary things I wanted to prioritize savings for cost more then than the do now (think anything electronic), not even adjusted for inflation. We didn’t dine out out at all – made all our own meals from the cheapest groceries we could find, literally packed sack lunches to the office every day and ate at my desk. Splurged on brunch at Denny’s once a month as the only exception. Never went out for drinks, only entertainment was matinee movies, I drove around a 17 year old Datsun B210 compact that I sold eventually for $350. My one way commute for my first post college job was 50 minutes, and it generally only got worse later (it’s now 1.75 hours each way). Our only vacation a year, other than going to my parent’s house for Christmas (by 6 hour drive) was 1 night at a bargain hotel in Vegas (also by car).
I doubt there’s anything exceptional or unusual in any of these examples.
By comparison, my son seems to be living a great life. He and his roommates go out to dinner (at nice places) or drinks a couple nights a week, he takes decent vacations, buys himself nice furniture, and still manages to save and invest.
My EA makes >3x what I did as the head of two public-facing departments at a public company when I bought my first house. My analysis, 2 years out of undergrad, makes 4x what I did in that job.
I’m sure it would be just as easy to cherry pick examples with the opposite results. There are young people doing far better than we did then, and some who are not.
6 Likes
My experience is definitely more like yours. Our first house that we bought in ‘96 sold for 1.8x more in 2021 and that was a fantastic price for the seller! My kids make 5-6x what I did at their age.
Neither of them will be counting their change trying to have enough $$$ for their fancy meal out (aka cheap Chinese take out). And neither of them got their furniture from the sleazy motel when they were renovating. They are doing just fine
And both have benefits that are so so much more family friendly than anything I could have dreamed of. Even my workplace has got amazing benefits compared to when I had my kids there 25 years ago. I am sort of bitter about the latter actually. My coworker is getting ready to have his second 8 week paid leave for childbirth in 2 years. I had to actually birth mine and I got zero. A whopping 1 week with older S and 6 week with younger S maternity leave because we couldn’t afford any leave without pay.
4 Likes
Yep. My current company gives men or women 4 months paid leave for childbirth or adoption. I got 2 weeks for each of my kids and my wife got whopping 6 weeks after giving birth. In my early career, I never worked at a company that have any free food, free snacks or drinks, any company parties, not free company swag, or any cash bonuses. And that was inclusive of working at a public company. All the benefits are incredible now by comparison.
And lets not forget remote work, hybrid work, causal office dress, enforced rules against harassment, etc.
And then there’s overtime. With the exception of my high school stint at McDonalds, I have never received it, ever. Now any of my early jobs would be receiving it, because they actually enforce employment laws in ways they didn’t back then.
1 Like
Same 1970, 1,400 sq ft house: 2000- $220,000, 2023- $756,000
My husband’s income in 2000: $60,000, I stayed home
My 26 year old son’s income currently: about $90,000
My 23 year old daughter’s income currently: $68,000
They couldn’t qualify to buy that house together, let alone on one income. Maybe this is partly a Southern California thing? Not sure, but I know they’re facing a much different economic landscape than we were starting our family.
They don’t anticipate being able to buy real estate or start families any time soon.