A house, two cars, a healthy relationship ,a career, livable wage, 2.5 kids, a dog. ya know, the expectation many children were told in school.
Everything I hear on social media says this is a myth.
I have this, and to be honest, it’s exhausting to maintain.
I think that’s why you see social media push back about it being a myth.
The idea of “normal” that we pretend is true started after WW2. The US was highly unionized, highly industrialized, and most other countries were either former colonies that had been gutted economically, or were European powers that were decimated by the war.
We stepped into the manufacturing void, and suddenly one income was adequate to provide for a family. That’s not the case anymore. If your family happens to have resources now, you can maintain the semblance of that lifestyle, but you will probably need two incomes and will always be at risk of losing it.
We absolutely must, as a society, change our conception of “normal” and stop penalizing people for trying something new. Going back to some old ways may have benefit as well.
For example, multigenerational housing would solve a huge number of my problems. I want a kid, but I don’t want to pay a second mortgage for daycare. I can keep myself clothed and fed, but cleaning the house suffers. If you have more people under one roof, then you have opportunities for economies of scale that just don’t work when we all live in our own cloistered enclosures. There’s more resilience in that sort of system, and we need to be engaging with ideas like this to land gracefully as the world continues to fall apart.
My brother and I live together. A lot of people think it’s weird but it’s been great for both of us. I worked part time while going to college while he footed most of the bills. Now he’s a full time student and I’m paying for everything. We get all the household benefits of a married couple (shared chores, lower food bill, cheaper housing per person, etc) without the risks.
Success in early adulthood heavily depends on having familial support, especially from your parents. We don’t have that, but together we can still pool resources and do better than if we were alone.
Seems like a nice situation indeed.
This is not a question that anyone wants me to answer right now, when my wife (34) has just been transitioned to hospice with terminal cancer. We’ve been married for 3 years and she was diagnosed 4 months after we were married.
I wish the best for all of you.
25, no friends, never had a romantic relationship, barely ever go outside the door, living with my parents, still drudging through the last year of uni and still dealing with the aftereffects 1 year of lockdown had on my brain. But hey, at least i have lots of free time to stare at the ceiling.
That “ideal” life has changed and is no longer the norm. Trying to live up to some bullshit idea that we think society says we should live in a trap.
Don’t compare yourself or life to others or expect anybody’s approval. Everyone has their own journey and idea of happiness. Figure out what yours is and live it.
We’re supposed to have a plan‽
the venerable interrobang
Yeah… mid 30s, stable healthy friendships, been with my long term partner for ten years, we have a nice house and two dogs, my career is going great, we’re comfortable.
Mines taken a bit longer than planned but got married and bought a house with my wife. Then split up, got divorced, let her keep the house because it was near her family and nowhere near mine. Started again from scratch at 31rented for a few years and saved up on my own (covid lockdowns really helped me save). Bought a little home of my own at the end of 2021, quite small but big enough for me and it’s less than a 10 minute walk to woodland, my new low stress (but low paid) job, a gorgeous park, shops, gyms and the train station. It took a while and it wasn’t easy but this is the happiest I’ve ever been.
Yes and no. The original plan was to just get by and “serve my time” essentially. Then I met my now-wife and decided I should aim a little higher for her sake.
At no point did I ever have a “plan”, and I’ve been through many highs and lows (mostly lows, with respect to finances and mental health), and several completely different careers, but I’ve finally stumbled on something that pays well enough to fix the financial side of things.
The only advice I’ve got is to take it one day at a time, and try to make today just a little bit better than yesterday. Compound interest applies to life, the longer you make these tiny adjustments, the more they add up over the years.
47 here… I suppose im at the tail end of the people who still had a chance. We have a house that is half paid off but that needs a new roof, windows, and flooring that we cannot afford to take care of due to inflation screwing everything up. We have 2 cars but they are both 30+ years old and keeping them on the road is taking up most of what free time I have. When we got the mortgage it felt like we had finally ‘made it’ and that future pay increades would allow us to remodel and modernize our ‘fixer upper’ but the intervening 15 years has been an escalating shitshow that has us barely able to maintain what we have in its current state. It is starting to look tempting to liquidate the house and extraneous posessions and buy an old RV and become modern day nomads for our remaining years. The only thing really preventing this is that our 2 adult children are living with us still because there are no jobs that pay enough for them to move out on their own and we are not going to just dump them on the curb and say ‘figure it out’ like my parents did to me…
A house that’s paid for, wife, two kids, dog, zero consumer debt, very stable job, but I’m pretty much the most miserable person you’ll ever meet. It goes to show that you can have everything but still not be happy.
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I had zero plan beyond “live on my own, away from my parents, and try to sustain that.” The churches I went to as a kid emphasized getting married as soon as you’re old enough and having a ton of kids, so I did the opposite and was a feral stoner nerd/wook for a decade and a half. One day I was doing a hungover stumble from my apartment back to my car and saw a guy my own age playing with his small daughter at the playground. She’d fallen off the swing and he was hugging her until she stopped crying. I still can’t fully describe the feeling I had there, but I shrugged it off immediately as “that ship sailed. I’ll just dedicate myself to hobbies and non-serious relationships.”
Now I’m married, have a kid, and live in a house. Life’s weird.
I’m living with my cat in a rental apartment and that is absolutely according to plan.
I’m 33 and I’m getting there. I have a house, a lovely wife, two kids, one car (don’t need a second).
The career is finally coming along since 2 years ago. Which is something I’m particularly happy with. I was on the verge of depression because of my shitty job. I worked very hard to change careers and I’m very proud of that. The livable wage is livable, but that’s about it. The future looks financially birght though.
I have to say that I am very lucky with my parents. I’ve never had to hit absolute rock bottom, because my family was always there for me.
As for the house and the family, it is not something I consider “the life”. The house is shared with my parents and was build by my great gandfather. It’s a fantastic house, all things considered, but it’s also a birth privilige, so I can’t say It’s something to brag about. Before I moved back here, I had bougt a small one family home in a small border town with the wife and kids and before that a small appartment with only the wife. The family is just the way I like it. It is also not something I care to brag about or even share about. It just my family and I love them and that is enough.
So basically I’m all about the new and rising career change these days. I also don’t care much for how others live or what they think about my life. I just try to live my life the way I (and mine) like it best.
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