entry two // baby boomers vs. millennials: how comparing myself to my parents drove me crazy
The pressures of “adulting” for me were driven more from trying to live my life in a world that no longer exist: the world of my parents.
I have spent my entire life trying to live up to the life of my parents. Why would I do that? Because my parents are freaking incredible. My mother is a professional dancer who danced for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in the 80’s. She’s also an incredibly actress, and directed a multitude of plays in the late 90’s and early 2000’s at Washington State University while rebuilding a dance program from the ground up. My father is an internationally known professional Jazz musician who toured with Whitney Houston, worked with Dennis Edwards, Anita Baker, LaToya Jackson, and so on. He owns his own independent record label, and is a thought provoking speaker and writer.
My parents deserve a boatload of recognition for the things they’ve done in their lives. Wanting to be like them shouldn’t be driving me absolutely insane, but it is. Why? Because the likelihood I’ll be able to do even half of what they did when they were my age is incredibly small.
My parents are 8 years apart. Their time in their twenties were different (the 70’s vs. the 80’s), but there are similarities in their experiences. At 24, my parents had their Bachelor’s degrees. They were single. They had the ability to travel, and did. They had the opportunity to develop their careers out of school. They had their struggles, but they weren’t carrying debt over $20,000 in their net worth. They had the ability to save their money if they wanted to.
In comparison to myself, I am married with a one-and-a-half year old and a newborn on the way. I have my bachelors degree, but it cost me $120,000, and left me with $32,000 in student debt. My husband and I don’t have the ability to save in an emergency fund. We’re living paycheck to paycheck. We can’t afford to travel. Even though I worked incredibly hard to stack my resume up, finding employment in my field after graduation was impossible because I didn’t have enough qualifications a.k.a. five years experience and a Master’s Degree.
What began driving me to a mental breakdown was that I realized I was at a point where I personally felt unprepared for adulthood because in comparison, I wasn’t doing better than my parents were at my age, I was worse off. I felt like a poor representation of how my parents raised me, because I thought they raised me to be able to handle adulthood. I was lucky enough to have been taught how to do taxes, learn about stocks and bonds, how to cook for oneself, how to drive, how to do laundry properly. You know, basic life skills that unfortunately, if your parents don’t know how to do it or don’t have the time to teach you, you aren’t gonna know. I thought I was going to go off into the world and be able to handle myself and my family. We’re barely staying afloat.
What triggered me even writing any of this was something my mother-in-law said that angered me. I had mentioned that I was working that night. It was a Sunday. My husband was off from work, but I was not. She proceeded to say in a very judgemental tone “Now, you work too much, weekends are for family time.” I’ve heard this sentiment from all of my family since becoming a working mom, but this particular time did not sit right with me.
Yes. I work a lot. I have to. Both my husband and I work in industries that unfortunately fluctuate in financial success depending on the time of year, so our income isn’t necessarily consistent. We do not have standard 9 to 5’s. We work primarily weekends and nights because that is where the money is for us. We also don’t make more than 40,000 separately, so we work multiple jobs — four in total — so we can scrape by. We don’t get two consecutive days off for church, dinners, and movie nights. We get the lucky “we’re both scheduled off this week” or the planned in advanced date night if we can afford it.
What didn’t sit right with me was the fact that I know this sentiment from her wasn’t coming from a bad place, it was coming from what would be a place of wisdom for her. I love my mother-in-law to death, but both she and my mother can say things that to me are very insensitive and inconsiderate of my husband and I’s circumstances. For them, what they say is solely based off of their experience. For my mother-in-law, weekends were for family time. How she and my mother raised my husband and I fell in that same pattern. What changed was time.
Gender roles and expectations have changed over time. I constantly hear how I am supposed to be as a mother and a wife. How I am somehow supposed to be able to balance cooking, cleaning, taking care of my children that are not in daycare because we cannot afford it, and taking care of myself. This is often all out of the context that I also am working multiple jobs to support my family. I often get scrutinized and judged when I don’t fit that mold because I “work too much.” I am also not overly maternal. I do not want to continue having more children. Children are expensive, and we cannot afford them. That doesn’t mean I don’t love my children, I’m just not the kind of mother women were expected to be when my parents were growing up. I am the kind of woman who expects her husband to help with raising our children together. To clean our apartment together. To cook together. I work nights, which means that after I watch our child and deal with the pain of carrying another child in my body, I go to work while my husband comes home during the week and takes care of our son until he falls asleep. On the weekends, you can find my husband at work with me because he also picked up a second job at my place of employment to help ensure we’re paying our bills on time.
Yes, I am tired all the time. Yes, I sleep when I can. No, there is nothing wrong with me or my marriage, it just does not look like yours nor will it ever look like how yours did and that. is. okay.
The value of the dollar over time has dropped significantly due to inflation. $100 in 1989 was the equivalent to $202.61. To put things in perspective, the value of a paycheck of $1000 thirty years ago could cover our rent, utilities, both my husband and I’s car notes, car insurance, and a credit card payment, today. We have to work four jobs as a household in comparison to the one each of our parents had when we were children.
Time ushered in the 2008 economic crash, the Recession, and the housing and student debt crisis. Rent is more expensive, higher education is more expensive, and wages have stagnated. Time has allowed the rich to become richer and the poor to stay poor, with very little ability to get out of that cycle. It has allowed the system that holds people in places of poverty and unhappiness to get stuck there. I watched my parents lose their home to foreclosure due to Bank of America refusing to sell their home after they had three offers come and go. I watched my parents financial struggle after their divorce. All of this coincided with the Recession, and it was traumatizing. It forced me to want to think about security more than trends. To be cautious with how I spent my money and where it went. The decisions I made with my money and my life circle heavily around my circumstances and coming of age as a result of what happened to my parents. One would think I — along with my peers — would be better off. Yet it feels like we are all just barely staying afloat.
The time my parents and in-laws lived in is a completely different world in comparison to today, and I had to realize this. Comparing myself to them, their opportunities, and experiences, would have continued to drive me crazy if I hadn’t realized that their experience is closer to being unattainable. I had to kill my pride and humble myself with what has been given to me.
I know now that buying a home right now is not attainable, nor will it be for a while. I know that if I plan on staying in the industry that I am in, I’m going to be uncomfortable financially for some time, but I’ll be happy with the work I do. I know that as a working woman and as a person in general, I am not going to be able to please everyone. By accepting that I am not my parents and the world they lived in is not my world, it has helped me at least get a grasp on my sanity. We may be poor and struggling financially, but we’re finding our happiness in simplicity the best way that we can. We are not living our lives in a “when I finally make it” mentality. The fact that we’re alive everyday is making it for us. If there is food on the table, we’re making it. If gas is in the car, we’re making it.
I know I probably won’t be able live up to the legacy of my parents. I am okay with that. I am my own human being, and even though I am nowhere near where I thought I would be according to my “five-year plan,” I have a loving husband and child that adore me. That is more than most people have at all.
