[HomeWithMyBabies]

Originally Posted by Soliloquy

Every single generation can point to their version of a short stick they were handed. I remember being in my early 20s and all of "us" were very bitter about the stick we were handed (Gen X). We're in our 40s now and we're learning to overcome that.

I would NOT want to have been my mother, coming of age in the late 1950s. Yes, her sofa lasted 40 years (and it cost a LOT more than a modern sofa, based on prices adjusted for inflation) but her life choices were drastically limited.

EVERY generation gets handed some clogged toilets and baskets of doo doo. If you can't see the baskets of doo doo that the older generations had, it's because they've found ways to dispose of them in a healthy way or they've integrated the stinkiness in to their outlook and way of life. Some people say, "this is what I've got, where will I go from here." Some people just sit and live in the stink.

Each generation has their hills to climb.

I completely agree. I'm gen x with boomer parents, and it gets really old hearing about how great they had it. My dad usually had at least two jobs. Our furniture, clothes and cars were handmedowns because my parents insisted we live within our means. I remember being a few months away from graduating college, and hearing from recent alums that they'd had to go back to their retail jobs because there was no work for them that justified their new degrees.

I still have mostly handmedown furniture, thrift store clothes, our only vehicle is fourteen years old and you can hear it coming a block away. I have food and a warm(ish) safe place to live so I figure globally I'm wealthy compared to most of the population. There's no use is getting mired down in comparisons with my neighbors or other generations who seem to have had it better.

My grandma's generation lived by "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." That's pretty extreme these days but not a bad philosophy where it can be pulled off.

I prefer the game of Life over Monopoly but for teaching these things there's nothing better than loaning your kid some money. With interest. Not necessarily enough to hurt but enough that they can see their money disappearing into the void simply for having borrowed. I run numbers showing the different interest rates too.