Quote:
Originally Posted by RickeyD
As well as blind. Those born before 1950 have seen the American dream come to full fruition in their lifetime and have ridden the wave all the way to retirement concluding with a well funded defined benefit plan, enormous home equity, corporate & public funded medical benefits AND these very same people were able to sock away a tidy savings WITHOUT needing to have their spouse work outside the home so they could raise their children the proper way instead of having to pay strangers to do it for them. Save me the I grew up poor in the depression speech, heard it a thousand times. Try raising a young family with your spouse HAVING to work because you're spending more then half of your monthly income on a high interest mortgage and high taxes because real estate prices more then quadrupled within a 15 year span driven by the baby boomer housing rush. I feel very fortunate to have bought my first house when I was 25 years old. Today young families are lucky just to be able to afford a house and if they do its not until they are in their thirties or forties. Today young people can expect to change jobs more then 7 times, yesteryear's generation stayed on with just one. Today's employers offer no pension, low wages and marginal medical with the employee having to pay half the cost AND not covering the spouse. May I add these ARE college graduates burdened with enormous student loan debt. Those needing day care for their children are consuming 20% of their take home income doing so. This new generation has a very bleak retirement future indeed because they know they won't be able to.
If people WANT to tip, let them and don't put them down for wanting to. If they want to think of themselves as silent hero's, let them, it's their prerogative to do so.
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Rickey, with all due respect, where did you get your data that those born before 1950 had the American Dream and those after 1950 don't? My observation is somewhat different. I was born a decade before 1950. Many my age grew up without Father's because they didn't make it back home following the Big War.
Many fathers came back wounded, hardly able to work And there was no housing available. It was tough for many families. Many of the children from that generation were the first to graduate from college---some after they were married and had children.
Bottom line----every age group has it opportunities and it's stories. The silent generation, baby boomers, generation X, generation y or Millennium generations all have opportunities living in this great country of ours. But---it's not easy and you may have to sacrifice during some of those early years, work hard, save, and never give up and you can capture at least part of the American dream.
Our age group are far from blind, rather we still believe the American Dream still exists but you still must take advantage of the opportunities that come your way and you don't give up because everything isn't given to you on the silver platter.