And I forgot the pumping room! I had to drag the extension cord through the bathroom and sit on a public toilet seat twice a day! Now they get their own office!!!
We still don’t have work from home, but you can shift your time around much better than before. And everyone gets two weeks more vacation per year.
And I have kept the 1995 memo that says we can’t use our sick time for family members. Only yourself.
I might have had 3 kids if I had those policies. I was so stressed having to be at work every day and couldn’t miss any time for anything. No flexibility at all
And it might be easier to not be bitter if the employees taking the time got more done and seemed to care more when they are here… but that’s not the policy makers faults I guess
Proposition 13 has created massive distortions in the CA housing market compared to the rest of the country, because those who bought their houses years ago aren’t forced (by high property taxes) to downsize when they retire. Lack of public transit for commuting screws things up further, compared to east coast cities where you can make the trade off of living in cheaper suburbs.
I look at my kid in DC and despite it being an expensive market, I think he’ll be able to buy a house or condo before the age of 28 if he wants to. He just may need to move out to Maryland or Virginia. His starting salary is about 2.5-3 times what mine was when I started work (in a pretty high paid job) in the 1990s and will probably maintain that ratio for the next few years.
We do live out in the suburbs. Until COVID, my husband commuted by car 2-3 hours a day round trip. The same house in the city would be 2 million. I hadn’t really thought about prop 13 inflating housing prices. I guess those same people that aren’t downsizing never pulled a construction permit because if you do, your taxes recalculate to the improved value. We’ve been in our current house nearly 20 years and our taxes are insane.
Hmmmm, my husband and I bought a home for $126,000 and now it’s worth around $300,000. Our first home.
My children live in palaces compared to the fixer upper they grew up in. They make more than we ever did, live in nicer homes, drive new cars and take great vacations.
Not feeling one bit sorry for them. They went to college, worked hard and have great jobs. And they actually have better work life balance than my husband ever did because they won’t put up with the my husband did at his corporate office.
Seems the opposite of lazy girl job but then they didn’t have rich parents. And we are definitely not supporting any of their stuff.
I live in another universe than some here. Most young women I know don’t get maternity leave (it’s treated the same as any other sick leave, and they don’t have sick day banks). My D had 3 months paid leave, but later on, her company (which she has since left) did away with a designated maternity leave. My S can afford a house payment, but he’s still saving to have an adequate down payment (and he doesn’t see it happening soon). My S and the children of my friends worry about retirement savings, although they do all seem to be putting at least some money away for retirement. Although I see a lot of the young people I know making different decisions on spending than I might, I don’t see them spending irresponsibly. I think they do feel like they should have more, because that’s what they see all around them … they are bombarded by advertising/social media in a way we never were.
My only consolation for s19 who will be pursuing a graduate degree in Physics is that at least his is frugal and has minimal wants. That and that he can always move in with his younger brother the Engineer
A PhD in physics or astronomy is great training for working in AI modeling. The main error to avoid is becoming an academic! I never use my (math) PhD but as a credential for impressing potential clients it is great.
No, if you pull a permit to improve your home, they recalculate your property taxes. We added a pool about 15 years ago, then did an addition in 2015. Our property tax recalculated both times.
On a positive note, we have 20 year school bonds that are about to expire and that will save us 3k a year.
I would have loved any “lazy” job when I was coming out of college. I didn’t want to work at all. Ever. But, as @gardenstategal posted upthread, those jobs didn’t exist then, let alone the technology to enable them so, instead, I leaned in hard (hey, it was the 80s) to make as much money as possible to achieve, not a day-to-day work-life balance, but a lifetime balance of working hard upfront so I could take it easy earlier later. I overlooked the early imbalance for an easy retirement. Though I achieved my goal, the downside was that I spent 35 years in a soul-sucking career, the exact opposite of what the article is describing—how not to be me.
When it came to teaching our son about work and life, he saw what we did, but I (especially) was quite clear with him that it was more important to do what he loved than to focus on money. You know, the old, “Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life” mantra. But I never said he could take it easy. I could also see that he was no slacker, and his genuine interests and abilities were likely to parlay into meaningful and potentially lucrative work, so perhaps I didn’t worry as much as some parents. Also, it didn’t hurt that both in high school and college, he was surrounded by driven high achievers who thrived on hard work, and the ethos in both those pools was “work hard, play hard, live hard.” He internalized that. He also understands deferred gratification and will work for less now in the Army in exchange for meaningful service, but he works long and hard at that service. There is no “easy” about it.
Our son is an outlier here with the military providing both job security and housing which tends to skew my view of what’s going on “out there.” CC helps to correct that. However, I don’t think I could ever be comfortable telling any young person today that working less to control and enjoy their time more in these early years is a sound strategy or without consequences. We’ll just have to wait to see what term the articles in 2043 come up with to describe this choice.
This ‘lazy-girl job’ topic reminds me a bit of the FI/RE (financial independence, retire early) movement when it started out. Young people deciding they don’t want to opt in to the usual path and prioritizing their values and time.
There are differences, of course, but I see the common thread.
The difference between FIRE and the “lazy” approach is that the goal of FIRE is to ensure future financial security, the very thing many here believe the other approach jeopardizes.
Oh def agree, FI/RE is more financially solid. I just see both groups (in their own ways) similar in terms of rejecting the traditional - ‘work really hard at the same job that you may not like for 40 years’ .
Yeah, this describes me too, though I was less purposeful about it. I’ve been working (almost) constantly since I was 12 (went from paper route to McDonalds to better jobs, including all through college which I partially self-financed) and definitely had an attitude of doing whatever it took, with no regard for limitations in terms of hours, stress or effort. It paid off and I now have the luxury of a level of financial security and the ability to balance my life that I didn’t imagine I would value when I was younger and which I had no frame of reference for in my working class upbringing. I look back now and don’t regret that path at all. The stress to me definitely seems worth the payoff. Perhaps because of our upbringing, my wife and I are both financial cautious and always worry about some big event (whether in the world, personal health, etc.) that requires large financial resources to weather.
From that POV, I would think trading early stress for less money and career advancement and security would lead to the potential for a whole lot more stress later in life, when one becomes with age more at risk for a life event and less equipped to pivot in terms of career or finances.
All that said, I don’t envy all the new options available to my kids and their generation now – I am happy for them that some things have improved. I also have no issue with people, including my kids, making other choices and choosing different paths and priorities. If they want less stress and less responsibility in exchange for less financial security or career advancement and are eyes wide open about the trade offs (both short and long term), good for them. Go for it.
What does concern me (a little) is some of those choosing this path don’t seem to have fully considered the trade offs objectively/realistically. And let’s not confuse different priorities and lifestyle choices for hardship. My doing great son once said the cliche thing about not being able to afford a house. He lives in a city. I then Zillowed some suburbs far closer to the city and his office than I bought and commuted from in my day (and still do) that he could definitely afford to put a downpayment for an pay the monthly cost and he quickly dismissed it as not counting because he wouldn’t want to live there. What he really meant was he couldn’t afford to buy a place where he wanted to live and with the lifestyle he wanted. And that’s nothing new.
A big difference from prior generations is that our kids are marrying later and having kids later. A generation ago, it was common to be thinking about settling down after college and you took that into account in career planning. Not so much nowadays, in fact I’ve seen some of my kids’ friends break up with their college BF/GF when they graduate so as not to be tied down.
I think this is a great point. I was just talking to my father about this. When he was 23, he was already married with two kids. He’s objective was to make the most money he could, regardless of hours, job satisfaction or work life balance. He didn’t even finish high school.
When my son turned down a high paying job because of the 3rd shift hours and true lack of interest in the work, my dad was in shock. Wouldn’t you always go for the most money?
But he after listening to my kids, he says he understands.
I do understand. But the compounded growth of money invested early, whether for retirement, some children that may be born sometime in the future, or whatever, is substantial, and forfeiting that is significant, whether young people realize it or not. A lot more money needs to be saved if you start your 401k at age 40 vs age 24
But the question is whether it’s possible to get back on the “fast track” when you decide to settle down, if you’ve spent the initial years after college in a “lazy job” (or as previous generations would have put it: “finding yourself”)? Do you want to have “social media influencer” (or for that matter ski lift attendant or bartender) on your resume when applying for a high powered job? It seems like the woman in the original WSJ article has put herself on the “mommy track” without doing the mommy part (though perhaps that is actually her intention if the BF is happy to support her?).
I have sympathy with the desire not to rush into a stressful career after college if finances permit. I consider my PhD to have been my “lazy job” (I mostly spent my time rowing crew and going climbing/caving/backpacking) and after that I was happy to do a real job, working 50-60 hours per week. But that’s never looked bad on my resume.
So if my kid wanted to take time to “find themself” I would probably encourage them to spend longer in college (or go back) for a graduate degree. The challenge is that is typically a much more expensive proposition than 30 years ago: for example I know lots of people my age who went to law school because they didn’t know what they wanted in life.
@ChoatieMom makes a good point in that many of us who are older tried to achieve that work life balance over a different timeframe.
And to be fair, there are plenty of people who went all in and did NOT reap the rewards through no fault of their own. If you were climbing the ladder at a company that had a rogue trader or some other scandal, you found yourself without a job and going through savings while your world got righted.
One of the things that’s hard about assessing any strategy like this is the uncertainty of the future and the differences in the world now from the one we experienced. I recall my father chastising me for considering a job change because of his belief in corporate loyalty. But in his lifetime, it was true that if you were loyal to your employer, they’re take care of you. Personally, I worry about how many people have inadequate resources for retirement, not just the “lazy girls”!
my husband did at his corporate office.