My Generation

We of the generations X and Y are in for a serious wake up call. We grew up with baby boomer parents who made a goddamn fortune in the '80s and continue to prosper today as they lead comfortable semi-retired or retired lifestyles. If they're not in the process of retirement, they are at a very high executive level and they love their jobs.

Our parents may not have been the best achievers in school, but most of them got college educations. Many of them did not go on to receive a post-graduate degree, but still became successful nonetheless. And post-grad degrees in Art History and Maya Angelou ain't gonna mean shit if you don't have a trust fund. Sorry. It's a requirement now to have an MBA in finance or a law degree from a prestigious institution. Otherwise, you're screwed. That includes you med students. You won't see a penny for another 10 years and when you do, you have to give three quarters of it away for malpractice insurance because some litigious asshole is gonna try to sue you for everything you've got.

We are the first generation that will not do better than our parents did. Repeat: We will not do better than our parents did. Pretty sad, right? We were given every opportunity to succeed. College funds were established as soon as we were conceived, tutors were provided, therapists for those of us who needed them were at our disposal and we lived in nice homes to boot. Where did we go wrong?

Note: I am not talking about i-bankers and defense attorneys and other extremely lucrative professions. They are few and far between and will most have nervous breakdowns due to unrealistic expectations by the age of 28. I am talking about the kids who went to above-average liberal arts institutions with high tuition that decided that they would jump straight into the workforce upon graduating. These are the people out there in the trenches everyday teaching snot-nosed little brats in our public schools, putting together Powerpoint presentations for the McCallister account, selling advertising space or whatever meaningless tasks you may be forced to carry out for $42,000 a year, not even ten 10% of an entry-level Wall Streeter's annual bonus.

Maybe in a few years, we'll make $45K, then $51K and then $60K by the time you're in your 30s. By comparison, your parents by that age had already purchased their first home and received a great deal of Lenox vases to put in it and have probably had you and your rotten older brother by the time they were your age. At 30, you are still struggling to pay rent for your crappy, cramped flat in Harlem or Brooklyn or (God forbid) Queens and most likely still in debt from that ill-fated attempt at an advanced degree in Comparative Literature, which after two years and $80,000 in loans later, you realized that you don't have a trust fund like that neighbor downstairs with the interestingly retro glasses who quotes Allen Ginsberg a lot.

No, you need to make a living because your parents are soaking up the sun in their waterfront villa in Florida, riding with the top down in their Mercedes SL 500 so they don't have to support your sorry ass. Their parents didn't support them after they graduated, why should they support you? And when their time is up, there ain't gonna be nothing left except for an aging Mercedes reliability nightmare and an outdated condo that you'll have to divvy up between your other three siblings that you don't even talk to anymore.

I just realized that I will never lead as nice a lifestyle as I had when I was six. That was 20 years ago and things were good in my family. My parents were not yet divorced and we lived in a beautiful 5,000 square foot house on a park-like 2.5 acre property that backed up to the bucolic woods of exurban Chester, New Jersey. We also had a cute Cape Cod in Long Beach Island that was right on the fucking ocean. My bedroom during the summers afforded me with an unobstructed view of the Atlantic Ocean. And guess what! I wasn't happy then either because the house next door to us was newer and bigger and had even better views. Here I was at six fucking years old complaining to my parents that the house next door had multiple decks and a garage while our house only had two decks and a driveway made of pebbles. My dad said one thing to me that I remember to this day: "Just remember, the people there are renting that house and we own this one." Fast forward 20 years and I don't own shit. I would lease my fucking shoes if I could because it would be cheaper. And I'm not exactly living the high life over here by saving money. I'm just happy to have a decent enough health plan to pay for my cancer treatments and my anti-depressants.*

As I type this, I am gazing at MS Joaquin Industries, #1 in the Sheetmetal Industry! The building has beautiful brick and very creative, albeit indecipherable, graffiti on its brown garage doors. I ate a lot more fucking oysters when I was prepubescent than I do now; that's for goddamn sure. I got to ride around in my dad's little Alfa Romeo Spider roadster which was promised to me when I was old enough to drive. I never got it.

And I suffer every fucking month for this industrial view in this shit-ass ghetto neighborhood. I have a seemingly decent job with a salary that would be adequate anywhere else in the country, but I still won't do better than my parents. Will you?


*I'm particularly bitter today.