Like many millennials, I grew up comfortably middle class. The first generation of wealthy people. My childhood was filled with music lessons, sports, and even trips to Disney World. But now, as a parent myself, I am considering the depressing reality. I mean I can’t come close to this for my own children.
i can’t I can afford it To give them the childhood I had.
I tend to replay the highlight reel of my childhood, and even though I know full well that comparing is a joy stealer, it’s shitty that I end up comparing anyway. It’s becoming increasingly difficult and murky to say no to things that we didn’t have to think about before, like extracurricular activities, family trips, and the idea that going to college was a given. I want to be a fun mom. I’m not the mom who scans registration forms for hidden fees or says “maybe next year” when a summer camp registration email arrives.
Objectively, I know I look better wearing a flower crown than going crazy with coupon clipping.
Aside from the fact that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, millennial parents are also facing the unpleasant reality of being financially short-changed, even though they don’t worry about their kids’ screen time, magnesium intake, or target practice. We are held back by our own expectations and depressed by being the first generation to fall back in an expanding middle class. We are the Benjamin Buttons of the capitalist machine.
We can’t raise crotch goblins in the social media-free utopia we enjoyed, and we can’t afford to parent like our parents did. And I’m not just talking about drinking unlimited amounts of Sunny Delight or not knowing where we are for hours on end. Even school costume day brings into stark relief who is crushing it and who is being crushed by the cruel realities of late capitalism.
For this next part, you might want to use the little violin as your cue. Most of my kids’ stuff is second hand. I’d like to argue that this is because I’m financially savvy and deeply committed to sustainability, but it’s actually necessary. I don’t need a new one, but even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to afford it.
There are many statistics comparing what two full-time wages could buy in the 80s or 90s and today. Mathematics doesn’t lie (even if the memes fudge the numbers a bit). Life costs more now, but we want and expect more from it. I went to university three times. My children don’t even have passports. Not because I don’t want to expand their minds through travel and adventure, but because they cost $135 each. Before booking a flight or car rental, it is quite expensive.
For a brief moment, it was fashionable to be ashamed of our privilege (remember when Nepo babies liked to pretend they were just super talented and “lucky”?) We are now ashamed of what we don’t have.
There’s a great sketch by British comic Ahil Shah that satirizes the inability of young people to climb the same ladder as their parents. He says, “It’s not hard to see why so many young people feel as though older generations have pulled the ladder out from under them, set fire to the ladder, destroyed all ladder manuals, systematically underfunded all ladder elements, and retroactively denied the existence of ladders, claiming they were just ‘good jumpers’ back then.”
Despite the myth of walking barefoot uphill and back to school in the snow, many Boomer parents were able to give their Millennial children a comfortable middle-class education. This is something that parents of my generation can only dream about, aspire to, and feel like a bummer.
No, this isn’t because we’re lazy, financially ignorant, or because we’re hemorrhaging our paychecks on avocado toast. (I don’t even like avocado toast!) It’s not because we aren’t pursuing better side hustles. My own side hustle is more like paycheck panic than brave entrepreneurship.
It’s all bullshit.
Parents aren’t complaining about not being able to splurge for two weeks in Whistler for a family vacation or country club membership. They lament their inability to get mortgages. Or pay the rent. Or, even darker, to buy groceries.
I don’t really miss Disney trips that much, but the assumption behind them is, “If you work hard, your kids will get more than you.” That the ladder would still be there when our turn came. The line should always go up. I have learned painfully that this is not the case…and I hate that my children may feel it the most.
emma armstrong I am the author of “I” I thought vegans were dicks. “a A naturalist and verbose writer about the natural world, she once lived in the woods and taught people botany, how to make fire, and how to kill rabbits (we all have a past). Emma previously wrote: guardian, business insider, independent, metro.co.jp, Bushcraft and survival magazineetc.
