'Strapped' for Adulthood

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http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/30041/

 

'Strapped' for Adulthood

 

By Jodie Janella Horn, PopMatters. Posted January 3, 2006.

 

 

A new book explores the societal and financial reasons that today's

twenty- and thirtysomethings are finding it nearly impossible to stay

afloat.

 

I didn't need Tamara Draut to tell me that I'm strapped, but I did

need her to tell my mom.

 

In the five years since I graduated from college, the same argument

has arisen again and again. I insist that it's much harder to make a

living now versus when she was my age in the mid-'70s. My mom

disagrees, and continues to wonder why I haven't taken her advice and

purchased a home. I inform her that a down payment on a condo in Los

Angeles, where I live and work, would be greater than the sum total of

all the money I've made this year. She again tells me the story of how

she and my father saved the money for their first down payment while

she was a drugstore clerk and he was an oft-unemployed electrical

engineer. I tell her those days are over, at least in California, and

she doesn't believe me. Repeat as necessary.

 

This ongoing fight with my mom had reached an all-time high recently

because my husband and I have begun to panic about our future. Unless,

somehow, we can genetically engineer offspring that needs neither food

nor diapers, our hopes of being able to afford a child are not great.

In addition to cash flow issues, my job does not provide paid

maternity leave, and our insurance doesn't cover much, let alone

pregnancy.

 

As a result of this stress, I have developed a recurring fantasy of

taking President Bush, grabbing him by the hair and slamming his face

on his desk repeatedly while screaming, " Family values? I'll show you

family values. I'm moving to Canada so I can afford to have a family. "

Hell hath no fury like a lioness without cubs.

 

Since my mother and I both find the prospect of my moving back home

nightmarish, I decided to end our " Standards of Living: Then and Now "

debate once and for all. I sent her Strapped: Why America's 20- and

30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead, and guess what? It worked! Yes, the

Strapped method of garnering parental support worked for me. I want to

do infomercials for the book now. " Do your baby boomer parents wonder

why all their success hasn't rubbed off on you? Do they ask you why

they bothered to send you to college when you're un- or underemployed?

Do they think you're paying more than half your paycheck in rent just

because you're decadent? Then this book is for you! "

 

Draut lays it out like a pro without indulging the whininess that so

often creeps into my voice when I try to convey my generation's

situation to my mother. The problems for us youngsters are as follows:

College is expensive and induces debt, paychecks aren't rising with

the cost of living, rent and home prices are prohibitively high,

starting a family is costly, and finally, We Are All In Debt (sing it

to the tune of Weezer's " We Are All on Drugs " if it'll make you feel

better).

 

Furthermore, young people have lost faith in politics and government

as a mechanism for enacting real change in our lives, and aren't

protesting or voting at the rates that our parents did. The problems

affecting the young are far greater for people coming from low-income

families. Even public and community colleges are vastly more expensive

than they were for my parents' generation, so many kids have to work

full- or part-time to float their tuition.

 

However, all that working gets in the way of studying, and many

students get caught in the trap: They need more money, so they work

more hours and take fewer classes, and eventually they no longer have

time for school. If students do finally finish school, most are

wracked with inhibiting student loan payments.

 

Couple that with an economy that is increasingly punishing to

individuals without college degrees, and you've got a problem. The

median income, adjusted to 2002 dollars, for a male with a high school

diploma has fallen from $42,630 in 1972 to $29,647 in 2002.

 

In addition to the student loan debt most of us acquire, we also have

credit card debt. Draut points out that conventional wisdom says that

young people " are wildly decadent about their spending, " but her

interviews with young people across the country uncovered that credit

card debt was usually acquired fixing cars and traveling home for

holidays and weddings. Additionally, credit cards bear the costs of

setting up an apartment and acquiring a professional wardrobe.

 

The use of credit cards might not be so damning to young people were

it not the untamed political lobbying cash cow that is the credit

industry. There is little federal regulation of the fees and interest

rates that credit cards can charge, making borrowing a complicated

game that leaves many people screwed when it comes time to purchase

their first home.

 

Perhaps the most pressing dilemma that Draut presents is that of the

high cost of starting a family. While federal law stipulates that new

parents can take up to three months off from their job, it does not

require that time to be paid. As a result, only 36 percent of women

and 33 percent of men take parental leave.

 

Now that the standard for families is two working parents, child care

is a pressing concern with no easy way out. As Draut says, " When the

cost of child care is prohibitively high, it may make sense on paper

for one parent -- usually it's the mother -- to stay home. "

 

At this point in my life, it makes sense for me to find a career that

allows me to also stay at home to raise children or that pays well

enough to afford quality child care, but these are lofty goals, and my

options are limited.

 

My mom actually took notes while reading. Her best notation? " Book

premise -- harder and more costly to become an adult. " Now that my

mother is in tune with the pressing issues facing young people trying

to become a full-fledged adult with a spouse, a home, a car, and a

job, there's no reason why the young people affected can't become more

aware and heed Draut's call to political arms.

 

Unless you want to a future of greater economic stratification and

tyranny of debt collectors, read the book, pass it around, and start

drafting some letters to politicians.