[Mb-civic] 'Strapped' for Adulthood By Jodie Janella Horn, PopMatters

Tue Jan 3 10:02:16 PST 2006

AlterNet
'Strapped' for Adulthood
By Jodie Janella Horn, PopMatters
Posted on January 3, 2006, Printed on January 3, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/30041/

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.