It may seem your parents had it "easy" but it wasn't.
The Internet can be deceiving as the voices you hear most often are those of extremism. I noted before that the one thing extremists despise more than the opposite extreme, is centrists. How can there be a Communist revolution or a Fascist takeover, if people actually sit down and worked out their differences? Centrists! Actually trying to solve the world's problems instead of just blowing everything up!
Can you believe it? Pfft!
But seriously, one set of voices you hear (and they are most likely promoted by or originated by or amplified by, foreign bot&troll farms) is that of young people (who claim to be, anyway) who whine about how "unfair" life is, and "how easy" their boomer parents had it. After all, Mom and Dad are now retired (or near retirement age) and have all this nice shit. Well, nice shit to a boomer, right? Can you believe they don't even own a gaming console? And they keep nagging me to "get a job" and "move out of the basement" and "stop stalking the neighbor girl!" Hey, how was I to know she was underage?
Mom and Dad had it so easy! All they had to do was go off to a job they hated for 45 years, scrimp and save to put me through college, and try to save a few dollars for retirement. Why can't I get the same deal, but right now? I mean, let's face it, working for the man is futile - you'll never get ahead that way! Why not just hand me money - the government and the boomers have enough of it - so I never have to work again? That would be sweet! And I'll take one of those surplus SUVs I keep reading about in the Internet - you know, the kind they build and then immediately crush, just go keep the economy going. I mean, why not? It's not like they are going to use it for something else, right?
Of course, there are variations on this theme. "When Mom and Dad went to college, tuition was only $10.50 a year and a Pepsi cost a nickel!" And there is a nugget of truth to that, too. Tuition, as I have noted over ten years and 5000 blog posts, has exceeded the inflation rate by a factor of 5-10 or more, for no apparent reason other than schools can get away with it. And they get away with it because more and more students are willing to sign their lives away for four years of partying.
Hmm... maybe if more students stopped going or carefully scrutinized costs, the problem might solve itself - much as inflation will abate when people stop whining about high prices and actually cut back on spending. When the number one complaint on the Internet is how your DoorDash hamburger arrived cold after spending $15 on a delivery fee and $5 on a tip - on a $8 cheeseburger - then the problem isn't high prices, it is people being foolish with their money.
"But you need a college degree to succeed! Surveys show that if you have a college degree, you make more money overall!" Well, if that is indeed true, what's your beef? Your college degree pays for itself over time. Mine did. I borrowed $32,800 in 1992 (about $70,000 in today's dollars) so I guess I went through the same deal (average student loan debt today is about the same, if you combine Federal and private loans). Oh, and interest rates were far higher in 1992! It more than paid itself back.
The "voices" you hear online (if they are not in fact just trolls) always toss around how they have a "hundred grand" in student loan debt or they use the total amortized cost (including interest) to show scary numbers. Yes, if you refinance your loan over 30 years (a bad idea) you will pay more in interest than in principal. The same is true for home mortgages.
Is life harder today for young people than in the past? It is hard to say, as you are comparing one era for another, and nothing is ever the same. Did you have to register for the draft? Well, we all do, I guess, when we turn 18. But were you ever in fear of actually being drafted? I wasn't, but my older brother was - and being sent to Vietnam was a real risk. Did he get a better deal out of life than I did? I don't think so.
Of course, there were other aspects of your parents' era that differed from ours. If you were black back in 1950 or even 1960, well, it was a different world than today. Sure, racism still exists, but it is no longer codified into law. You can check into a Motel or go to a lunch counter and be served, legally, even if there are incidents of Karens who subtly discriminate. But back in the day, they could not serve you - and also call the Sheriff and have you arrested. You just had to hope the Sheriff wasn't a Grand Klegal in the Klan or your ass was toast.
Sadly, today, we seem to be regressing in this area - and often the same voices calling for "revolution" are also calling for fascism. The somehow assume that in a fascist regime that basement-dwelling 30-something incel gamers will be promoted to head of the Wafflehaus SS and they will be rich as Nazis and get all the girls to boot.
It ain't gonna happen. Oh, the fascist takeover, that could very well happen, if we let it. But if it did, it would mean misery for everyone involved. Just look at history.
Seems like a lot to throw away - a civilization and a democracy - just so you don't have to pay back student loans. And again, I doubt most people feel this way. While we hear a lot of pissing and moaning about how shitty it is to work at Starbucks and paying back the money you borrowed for an anthropology degree, those people are an outlier and represent a small minority of young people today. It is like the "homeless crises" - now in its fifth decade, since we closed the mental hospitals in the 1970s - it represents only a fraction of a percentile of the overall population. While it is tragic that a mentally ill person is living on the streets and doing drugs, the idea of beatifying insane people isn't going to solve the problem (but in fact, makes it worse).
I noted before how I talked to an older Engineer friend who went to Kent State in the late 1960's. I asked him what it was like - with the National Guard shooting students and all. He replied that as an Engineering student, he had no time for protesting and wasn't even aware of the incident until the next day in the papers. Turns out some of them weren't even students at the school. The vast majority of young people of that era were not protesting and instead just living their lives. Sure, there was a bit of revolutionary chic involved at the time - we all postured as hippies, but few were serious about it.
Similarly, today, you hear a lot of moaning and groaning amplified online about "how hard it is" to be young and how the previous generation had it so easy. But on the other hand, you meet, in person, far more young people who go to work every day, have a job, and a car, and even the beginnings of a retirement plan.
But that's the deal: Regardless of whether your parents had it "easier" (they didn't) you still have to succeed in the world you are born into. You can cry and moan all day long, like a 2-year-old crying "unfair! unfair!" it still won't change anything. But again, I doubt anyone really feels that way - these are just loud voices and trolls trying to create inter-generational chaos to the advantage of say, I don't know.... .Russia?
The funny thing is, while you see a lot of these sad sacks online, you rarely meet one in person. I meet a lot of young people (my friend's children) and some of them mimic these cries of generational unfairness. But when you ask them about their own lives, well, they are doing pretty plush. They have jobs - good-paying jobs - and a nice house in the suburbs and two SUVs in the driveway and 2.5 children. But some still lament how unfair it all is, as their parents have a nicer house and don't have to work anymore.
It's easy to say that life is unfair or "I'll never be able to afford to retire" when you are in your 20's. And despite all the postings on FIRE websites, the idea of "retiring at 40" and living in a van and making a living as an influencer is not necessarily a realistic idea.
Life begins at 25 - it did for me. Today, we are told that the human brain doesn't finish developing until that age. And that makes sense to me. Because 25 was the age I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and realize I had to work with what I had - and what I had wasn't so bad, if I buckled down and applied myself - and stopped blowing money on bullshit.
But that's the deal, ain't it? The same Sad Sacks who cry about how "easy" their parents had it, will say it is "off limits" to discuss their restaurant meal habits, their new tattoos, or how much they spend (and how much time they spend) on video games. People spend several hours a night watching television or playing video games. I spent several hours a night going to law school. And no, you can't have my money because "life was unfair!" to you.
The reality is, your biggest enemy isn't your Mom and Dad - or their generation. For anyone, anywhere, their biggest enemy is themselves. It wasn't your Mom and Dad that signed those student loans, and it wasn't them forcing you to live in their basement. It is easy to blame unseen vague others such as generations or corporations for our own ills.
But it solves nothing. Nothing.
