As a father of three, I’ve spent a ton of time thinking about my children’s future. Like most parents, I want them to live a life with fewer obstacles than I went through. However, as the years pass by the more I realize that’s unlikely.
I became a father when I was 20 years old. When my now ex-girlfriend told me she was pregnant, the first thing I did was find an apartment for us to move into. I still lived with my parents at the time.
Fortunately, I was ambitious in the 2-3 years after graduating high school. Although I didn’t go to college like I initially planned, I did join the Army National Guard and had a well-paying full-time job with benefits. I even found a tiny third-floor 1-bedroom apartment in the worst city in Rhode Island, but hey – I was providing for my new family.
From there, we moved into a bigger two-bedroom apartment after I managed to double my salary in less than three years of becoming a cable guy. Pretty damn good if you ask me.
A few years later, my ex and I broke up and I met my wife in the National Guard. We moved into a bigger three-bedroom apartment for a while then got deployed to Iraq. While deployed, we didn’t have to pay taxes. Plus, I extended my enlistment for a fat tax-free bonus, so we managed to save up around $100,000. My wife wanted to come home to an actual home we owned, so my father did the groundwork for us while we were still deployed. We even did something rare at the time – we paid a 20% down-payment and avoided paying PMI. Wow.
We managed to find a nice four-bedroom house on the same street I grew up on. Coming home to a wonderful $241,000 home in 2005 was a better feeling than most people get to experience.
Unfortunately in 2008, the housing market tanked and the rest of the global economy soon followed. Those were tough times. By 2008, my wife and I had two children of our own and I regretted buying our house when we did. Especially when the value dropped to less than $150,000.
Hell, if we had waited three years we could have gotten a mini-mansion for the same amount of money. Still, despite many more hardships during that time until now (a house fire, me getting fired in 2013, living on one income while my wife finished college to become an x-ray tech, and much more), we persevered. We shopped at Savers when we had to and became ‘couponers’ and ‘preppers’ which many people did at the time.
Thanks to Dave Ramsey, we used the Snowball method and paid off all our debt (except for the mortgage). We refinanced our crappy variable interest rate mortgage twice, with the first one locking in a fixed interest rate and the second locking in an extremely low-interest rate. Our children never went hungry although we couldn’t afford to start a college savings fund for them.
Now it’s 2022 and I’m sitting here with a 100% VA disability rating thanks to PTSD and life is actually pretty great for us. But the problem isn’t with my future. It’s with my children’s future.
I believe they will never have the opportunities I had (not that I’d want them to join the military, go to war, or get PTSD).
My $241,000 house that went as low as $145,000 during the Great Recession is now valued at around $330,000. WTF?
Despite the Great Resignation from 2020-present, there aren’t many high-paying jobs.
My oldest son attended a college preparatory high school only to graduate in 2020 and fail out of his first semester at the local community college the following year. I don’t blame him, either. It was the height of the pandemic and all classes were remote. Plus, I don’t feel the so-called “college prep” school properly prepares kids for college. Or adulthood.
My wife and I managed to get him a great first car with all the bells and whistles for $4000 early last year. Since then, the cost of cars, even used cars, has skyrocketed. The price of a gallon of gas is damn near $4 (which is what it was at when my wife and I came home from Iraq in 2005). I won’t even bring up the unrealistic cost of car insurance in Rhode Island when you’re 20 years old…
He’s currently working at Target making $15 an hour which is pretty fantastic considering my first job paid $4.32 an hour. However, it’s not a full-time position nor does it offer decent health benefits (which is unfortunate because he’s got diabetes).
There’s not much hope he’ll return to college, either. Not that I blame him. Talk about a huge waste of money. Instead, he plans on working at Target until my wife and I manage to convince him to get a better job like a plumbing apprentice or entry-level IT job.
Luckily, he’s conservative when it comes to his personal finances. He’s got nearly $20,000 in savings which is much more than I ever had growing up. Yet, I can’t help but suspect he’ll never be able to afford the cost of moving out into a home of his own.
Did you know companies are buying up houses all across the country? Individuals no longer compete against each other in the housing market. The influx of LLCs and corporations swallowing up single-family homes is alarming. It’s no wonder most people get outbid when it comes time to make an offer on a house. Businesses can afford more than individuals. I predict a future where there are no homes available for people to buy, but only available to rent.
As for my younger two children, their future concerns me even more than my oldest son’s does. My younger son is in his second year of high school and my daughter (the youngest) will be a freshman next year. I bring up career choices and college degree programs often and neither seem confident on what they want to do. No surprise there, of course. That’s not any different from any previous generation.
What does bother me, however, is identifying what career paths are viable for their future. My youngest is considering becoming a pharmacist. What was once a well-paying career has become just another average job. No one opens a small pharmacy any longer. Heck, even the long-running pharmacy near my house closed down last year. The only real option is working for CVS or Walgreens across the country and trust me – they don’t pay well. It’s an industry that’s becoming commoditized.
My middle child has expressed interest in engineering, finance, and sales, but his interest isn’t exactly legitimate excitement. He’s going to the same college-prep high school my oldest did and I’m now concerned about how well he’ll perform at college, too.
Oddly, none of my children want anything to do with the Information Technology field, which is my career background. Maybe they heard me complain a few too many times or they simply observed how miserable of a career it can be. Yes, it pays well but man it sucks the soul right out of you. I don’t blame them for their lack of interest, but it’s my only area of expertise, so I feel like they’re missing out on the guidance I can provide.
So what are we supposed to tell our children? Forget college, get a menial gig job, live at home until you’re 40, save up your money until then, and maybe – just maybe – you’ll be able to rent a little home from a big corporation for way more than it’s worth and have nothing to show for it when (if) you retire?
Perhaps by then, the US will provide a universal basic income to everyone and they won’t have to worry about slaving away at a depressing job with no exciting future. However, in my experience (especially now that I don’t have to work and I’m only 40 years old), everyone needs a vocational purpose. I no longer have one and it’s depressing at times.
Maybe the new goal we parents should have for our children is for them to not become as depressed and anxious as we are.
Oh, and is it just me or does it seem like no young adults want to marry or have children any longer? Am I not going to enjoy grandchildren in the future?!