I have been at an online conference over the last few days. We had a late Gen X quantitative Statistician talking about housing. Having a house helps improve people's lifes. Well, obvious is obvious.
But he came out with "Housing is a human right" and it ground my gears. Mrs K. and I have worked bloody hard (and I recall the economic downturn in the early to mid 1980s when suddenly all the jobs students did over summer stopped). We are moving, with the aim of having a semi rural compound for the family. This will take almost all the assets we both have acquired over a life of work.
I went silent, as dissent is dangerous. I am still motivated to make a compound, for housing will exist for my family. It is an ongoing challenge.
What I know is my kid daughter, slightly older than Mrs K, has never held a decent job and never been able to leverage -- because reasons around who she has been with.
'But he came out with "Housing is a human right" and it ground my gears.'
Ask him if he would support politics for universal basic girlfriends. It's the slippery slope of universal basic income and housing. Let him believe you're a friend of his, before you lead him into that question.
There are no human rights that require someone else to pay or do the work to accomplish it. Unfortunately, the education system now hates merit, and love collectivism.
Agreed. At best any sentiment for 'housing is a human right' would simply abolish the regulations, taxes and fees that make it more difficult than it should.
My first week of work after college, I got free advice from my friend's Boomer mother that I needed to start saving 10% for my retirement right away because "Social Security would not be there for my generation". I suggested there was a lot of time before I retired, since people were living longer and drawing more that they put in, we could vote to fix it. She laughed and said the older generations would never allow that to happen. Because I experienced the old culture, and knew Silents and Greatest, I didn't believe we wouldn't come together to do the right thing in all that time. 2 years later, when I changed jobs, I had to listened to a Boomer mother of 2 boys brag that she believed her generation would have had it the best of any generation in history. She believed and wished this with glee, as it wasn't a foregone conclusion at this point. I thought she was an outlier. It has stuck with me all these years that she was a mother who literally wished subsequent generations would do worse than their parents, vs the cultural expectation at the time that each generation would do better. It was stunning to me that she was jealous of younger generations and wanted the zenith to be herself and her generation vs her own kids. Now we have the internet and social media. It's easy to get population level anecdotal data. In quantity you might use in undesigned statistics. Then you realize you weren't experiencing an outlier or an abnormality, or that you weren't just unlucky with your Boomer parents. These trends can be spotted much faster now. I believe that is why the younger generations see and understand things so much younger and faster than we ever did.
Regarding boomers.. if you follow the fourth turning as a framework, then we should all be watching out for Gen Alpha. They’re the next boomer generation, and I’m just glad I won’t be around for them.
“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.” -Sun Tzu from “The Art of War”
To all that haven’t read the chapter of the text this quote comes from, it’s one of the best demonstrative examples of how clear communication works. I teach all of my new managers, one on one, this chapter within the first month of their hire. Understanding this text, being able to apply it to work/life, and executing the ideas can definitely increase your status in the hierarchy.
As someone who has grown up in a home with a mother who punished for anything and everything she deemed wrong, whether you had control or most often not, I can confirm that this is the case. You can get over the need to lie. You have to first recognize the fear response you feel when someone asks you a question. Once you do, you have to stop and ask if it’s justified or not (99.9% not). Repeat until the process is automatic. It can take years, in my case more than 6, but it can be done.
If you ask a question already knowing you will challenge whatever the answer is, you will be disappointed regardless of the response. So feeling like a victim because of the response seems extreme. That said, his response will not stop it from happening again.
"It’s almost like he is trying to outsmart me/find my angle and I just want a straight answer." Someone is trying to outsmart someone here, not sure if it is him. But he does need to recognize this and nip it in the bud. If not, the relationship small talk becomes a series of loaded questions.
Re-reading it, she says "It seems I cannot get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the most innocuous question. He is a delta with some gamma tendencies and I am a very straightforward person."
But she was not looking for a 'yes' or a 'no' because he told her 'yes' and she would not take 'Yes' for an answer.
This is just a wife playing games, unless this is literally the first time she's ever put a comforter in the dryer. When she's playing games feel free to answer appropriately given the nature of the question.
After reading others’ stories about abusive upbringings, generational sins, and selfish Boomer parents essentially leaving their kids to die, it dawned on me how really good I had it growing up. Compared to some Gen X and Millennials, I got a very light burden growing up.
My parents are Gen X. They divorced when I was an infant so I never had any firsthand understanding of a “normal” family situation, and we had plenty of problems trying to navigate that. But despite their flaws they both still did their best to raise me with all the love, care, and support they could offer.
My mom homeschooled me after she remarried because she had worked in the public school system and understood the dangers of sending a squishy kid like I was into a brick-and-mortar jungle. She raised me in church and taught me values like patience, kindness, and empathy for others. She instilled in me a desire to learn and grow that I still have to this day.
My dad also remarried, and he taught me and my stepbrothers important values too. Hard work, honesty, and simply showing up to the game. He had some anger issues that he took out on us, but we’ve since healed from that because he recognized his wrongdoings and wanted to make things right. In a different universe he would’ve been a U.S. Marine… and I know he’s protected me from many threats I could never have handled on my own.
To hear that so many people didn’t have loving parents like mine is heartbreaking to hear. Perhaps I’m underexposed to the evils of the world (or what some would call “real life”) but it still astonishes me whenever I hear that someone’s parent or grandparent is quite literally throwing them to the streets and saying, “I don’t want you. You can lay down and die for all I care.” Such people deserve every ounce of judgment coming their way.
The correct answer is: "If you think its not dry enough check it yourself." I would bet that it was in fact bone dry but the wife tested its dryness by touching it with wet hands she just washed and didn't dry and then mistook it as wet because she made it wet. Women.
The hypothesis that gamma lying is the result of negative consequences to telling the truth is likely true in some cases, but doesn't match my experience. I have one gamma son and multiple high-rank sons. They were raised essentially the same. The gamma tendencies were clear from when he was a toddler. Telling the truth never met a negative response. Lying was punished whenever we caught it. The high-rank sons abhor lies.
I, too, am dubious, but I'm open to the possibility that it is one contributing vector. I lean pretty heavily toward Nature on this one, but I prefer to be cautious about assuming any explanation is necessarily correct. The hypothesis is at least worth consideration, even if it's mostly incorrect.
Probably similar to intelligence but the opposite. Your parents definitely can't raise your IQ but they most certainly can lower it. One might be born with the "gamma gene" but with a good upbringing it might stay dormant or partly at least.
You've observed the same thing as many others here. I have children older than many of you and my experience with raising them and now grandchildren is that you're born with the basic personality traits that you'll have your whole life.
Well put. This reminds us of previous discussion that says, do not ever try to offer an explanatory model for a set that observably fails to explain the entirety of the set.
> "Another commenter helped explain the source of Gamma dishonesty."
My wife and I discuss this concerning her brother. He's a major Gamma.
Their upbringing sounded similar to Light On The Shore's. My wife left the house ASAP, her brother learned to cope.
Some examples of what their dad would do. Christmas presents being pawned a month later because there was no money and 'they weren't using it as much anymore'. General financial issues like check fraud, opening accounts in the kid's names, encouraging the kids to overdraft their accounts to give to him. Off the wall reactions to minor things like a single broken egg.
In brother-in-law's environment, he couldn't be wrong or else he'd be verbally abused. So he will BS his way through any social encounter and never admit fault, ignorance, or defeat. It would end in shouting matches where both would just walk away angry. But at least he wouldn't be in trouble.
He refuses to show appreciation for anything likely because anything he enjoys will be used as leverage for why he should obey.
He still lives at home (at 29) and can't handle a job. He's maybe 400lbs and can't stand or sit or move or anything else for long (according to himself).
He has no interest in changing anything about himself (likely because it would mean admitting he'd been doing life wrong). To the point of him saying 'I don't want to lose weight because all that loose skin wouldn't look good.'
This sounds like a possible Omega, particularly given the sorry state he seems to be in.
The mentality behind the refusal to control his weight sounds like he sees it merely as substituting his current problem with a different one through a great deal of effort (the result is still unattractive). Does he try to sell that he's on some sort of trajectory for success or has he just accepted failure?
Being insufferable isn't outside Omega capacity, especially if he was raised by a Gamma. Improving an Omega is a matter of motivation. The problem is I expect he won't undertake improvements on his own account. IMO you either need someone with a decent relationship with him to exert influence or make his current situation uncomfortable.
From your description it sounds like he has an enabler; he will never improve if he has one.
This was eluded to yesterday in the post and comments as well... but it sure seems like the majority of those who punish people for admitting they are wrong are Gammas themselves. The non-Gamma response is to accept the admission and move on.
"If the commenter is correct, then in theory, it should be possible to reduce the habitual dishonesty of the Gamma by making it clear that not only will he not be punished, he will be rewarded for being truthful."
There's probably both nature and nurture at play here, but after witnessing a particular kid and a set of events this summer I'm heavily inclined toward nature:
The kid is about 6, overtired from a long couple of days of family events. Breaks a vase in his grandma's living room. She's upset, but first asks if he's okay. He immediately goes into defensive overdrive (his replies were in caps because he was literally shrieking).
"Is the vase broken?" "NO!" "I heard it break." "I DIDN"T DO IT!" "I know you did it, but I know it was an accident." "YOU MADE ME DO IT!" "You need to admit when you make a mistake, and apologize." IT"S YOUR FAULT!"
And so forth. He did eventually apologize, but in such a way that it was obvious he was acknowledging nothing. She maintained a calm but firm demeanor throughout, there was no threat of violence, nobody called him a name or did anything even remotely cruel, but there was also no coddling or acceptance of his outburst. It's possible that he's had different experiences with other authority figures, but there was nothing about this interaction that warranted his instant level of defensiveness and projection. Over the course of a few days, I saw him retreat to "It's your fault!" pretty much instantaneously whenever he was called out for bad behavior, which has heavily inclined me to put the balance on nature over nurture, at least in this instance.
I feel for his family, they have their work cut out for them. He's not a bad kid, but his emotional dysregulation is over the top.
It’s much more sinister than that. The kid will be punished for things they at times didn’t have any control over. Ex: not having homework done before bed even though they only got home 20 minutes before bedtime or not having done the dishes even though that is not part of their normal list of chores. It leads to any time a parent gets mad, they immediately become reactive to placate the parent. Lying is usually a go to fur a quick fix. Yes, I’m giving live examples.
Not at all diminishing the instances where parents are actually abusive, as I know happens all too often. Of course lying and defensiveness can be a learned behavior in response to adverse circumstances.
The particular case I mentioned, however, is of a child whose immediate and extended family is not at all abusive. His siblings, both within 2 years of age, do not act out defensively either. Just this one kid.
Some kids are, for lack of a better term, wimpier than others. Could be any combination of traits that cause it, but you are correct that some kids have it just in them.
Boomers believe their children exist solely to provide them Cruises to Infinity. In this context clownery such as replacement immigration makes sense. Even Africans need to chip in to provide the cruises.
Something like 40 % of earnings goes to support the Booming here. And yet the Boomers are the ones who complain about slavery and declare their superior morality to all.
I'm gen z, and was explaining to my grandma that the age of the bread winner man going out to work a 9-5 and providing more than enough for a family was gone. I really want to have the ability to say to my future wife that she doesn't have to work and that she can stay with the kids. The two working parent household is the reality and angers me that I have to inherit that reality.
Doing just fine with husband working in our late 20s. Build your own house, have your own business, learn to work with your hands, work in European neighborhoods, plenty of opportunity out there in 2024.
In america* Its possible, its just not fancy, and often not fun. Buying land on the outskirts with friends and everyone puts a camper on it is cheaper than rent almost anywhere. An econobox or motorcycle for commuting. Pool money to buy whole animals and farm share produce. Can substitute camper for buying a boomer Mansion and each family gets a room.
It's sad that you had to be the one to break the news to her.
I'm a millennial, and me and my bros are - largely - in no better situation than you. We just caught a glimpse of the Good Times TM growing up, and were never able to get there. Now most of us are realizing we never will (terms and conditions apply - to live is to strive)
I have been at an online conference over the last few days. We had a late Gen X quantitative Statistician talking about housing. Having a house helps improve people's lifes. Well, obvious is obvious.
But he came out with "Housing is a human right" and it ground my gears. Mrs K. and I have worked bloody hard (and I recall the economic downturn in the early to mid 1980s when suddenly all the jobs students did over summer stopped). We are moving, with the aim of having a semi rural compound for the family. This will take almost all the assets we both have acquired over a life of work.
I went silent, as dissent is dangerous. I am still motivated to make a compound, for housing will exist for my family. It is an ongoing challenge.
What I know is my kid daughter, slightly older than Mrs K, has never held a decent job and never been able to leverage -- because reasons around who she has been with.
'But he came out with "Housing is a human right" and it ground my gears.'
Ask him if he would support politics for universal basic girlfriends. It's the slippery slope of universal basic income and housing. Let him believe you're a friend of his, before you lead him into that question.
There are no human rights that require someone else to pay or do the work to accomplish it. Unfortunately, the education system now hates merit, and love collectivism.
Agreed. At best any sentiment for 'housing is a human right' would simply abolish the regulations, taxes and fees that make it more difficult than it should.
My first week of work after college, I got free advice from my friend's Boomer mother that I needed to start saving 10% for my retirement right away because "Social Security would not be there for my generation". I suggested there was a lot of time before I retired, since people were living longer and drawing more that they put in, we could vote to fix it. She laughed and said the older generations would never allow that to happen. Because I experienced the old culture, and knew Silents and Greatest, I didn't believe we wouldn't come together to do the right thing in all that time. 2 years later, when I changed jobs, I had to listened to a Boomer mother of 2 boys brag that she believed her generation would have had it the best of any generation in history. She believed and wished this with glee, as it wasn't a foregone conclusion at this point. I thought she was an outlier. It has stuck with me all these years that she was a mother who literally wished subsequent generations would do worse than their parents, vs the cultural expectation at the time that each generation would do better. It was stunning to me that she was jealous of younger generations and wanted the zenith to be herself and her generation vs her own kids. Now we have the internet and social media. It's easy to get population level anecdotal data. In quantity you might use in undesigned statistics. Then you realize you weren't experiencing an outlier or an abnormality, or that you weren't just unlucky with your Boomer parents. These trends can be spotted much faster now. I believe that is why the younger generations see and understand things so much younger and faster than we ever did.
First, they came for the coal, hydro, gas, and nuke plants, . . ..
Regarding boomers.. if you follow the fourth turning as a framework, then we should all be watching out for Gen Alpha. They’re the next boomer generation, and I’m just glad I won’t be around for them.
This comment takes the cake for "most retarded hot take" thus far. Dense boomer.
So the economy will be booming here soon and not collapsing? Oh and all the foreigners will leave too!
"They’re the next boomer generation, and I’m just glad I won’t be around for them."
Huh? They're going to deal with all the crap we failed to fix in our time.
They'll have issues, but being stupidly soft won't be one of them.
“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.” -Sun Tzu from “The Art of War”
To all that haven’t read the chapter of the text this quote comes from, it’s one of the best demonstrative examples of how clear communication works. I teach all of my new managers, one on one, this chapter within the first month of their hire. Understanding this text, being able to apply it to work/life, and executing the ideas can definitely increase your status in the hierarchy.
Do you execute disobedient employees?
Sun Tzu would.
This is the foundation of military discipline.
If one fails at listen in war, the consequence is death. The punishment follows the logic.
I see you just google without reading and understanding the principle.
He would. Unfortunately I’m not a general for warlords in BC China.
As someone who has grown up in a home with a mother who punished for anything and everything she deemed wrong, whether you had control or most often not, I can confirm that this is the case. You can get over the need to lie. You have to first recognize the fear response you feel when someone asks you a question. Once you do, you have to stop and ask if it’s justified or not (99.9% not). Repeat until the process is automatic. It can take years, in my case more than 6, but it can be done.
re Laundry:
If you ask a question already knowing you will challenge whatever the answer is, you will be disappointed regardless of the response. So feeling like a victim because of the response seems extreme. That said, his response will not stop it from happening again.
"It’s almost like he is trying to outsmart me/find my angle and I just want a straight answer." Someone is trying to outsmart someone here, not sure if it is him. But he does need to recognize this and nip it in the bud. If not, the relationship small talk becomes a series of loaded questions.
She really could have asked, "Is there anything worth drying on the line" if this is as routine as she says.
Re-reading it, she says "It seems I cannot get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the most innocuous question. He is a delta with some gamma tendencies and I am a very straightforward person."
But she was not looking for a 'yes' or a 'no' because he told her 'yes' and she would not take 'Yes' for an answer.
This is just a wife playing games, unless this is literally the first time she's ever put a comforter in the dryer. When she's playing games feel free to answer appropriately given the nature of the question.
After reading others’ stories about abusive upbringings, generational sins, and selfish Boomer parents essentially leaving their kids to die, it dawned on me how really good I had it growing up. Compared to some Gen X and Millennials, I got a very light burden growing up.
My parents are Gen X. They divorced when I was an infant so I never had any firsthand understanding of a “normal” family situation, and we had plenty of problems trying to navigate that. But despite their flaws they both still did their best to raise me with all the love, care, and support they could offer.
My mom homeschooled me after she remarried because she had worked in the public school system and understood the dangers of sending a squishy kid like I was into a brick-and-mortar jungle. She raised me in church and taught me values like patience, kindness, and empathy for others. She instilled in me a desire to learn and grow that I still have to this day.
My dad also remarried, and he taught me and my stepbrothers important values too. Hard work, honesty, and simply showing up to the game. He had some anger issues that he took out on us, but we’ve since healed from that because he recognized his wrongdoings and wanted to make things right. In a different universe he would’ve been a U.S. Marine… and I know he’s protected me from many threats I could never have handled on my own.
To hear that so many people didn’t have loving parents like mine is heartbreaking to hear. Perhaps I’m underexposed to the evils of the world (or what some would call “real life”) but it still astonishes me whenever I hear that someone’s parent or grandparent is quite literally throwing them to the streets and saying, “I don’t want you. You can lay down and die for all I care.” Such people deserve every ounce of judgment coming their way.
The correct answer is: "If you think its not dry enough check it yourself." I would bet that it was in fact bone dry but the wife tested its dryness by touching it with wet hands she just washed and didn't dry and then mistook it as wet because she made it wet. Women.
Why would you make up facts from the original scenario?
Because women are liars and the dialogue is fake to make her husband look stupid, and its easy to figure out what actually happened.
If only Substack had a dislike option.
You lose the bet. He said it was 90 percent dry. She never checked it.
Read better.
Good advice! Personally, I like being proven wrong, because it means I learned something new today, and people are speaking freely around me...
The hypothesis that gamma lying is the result of negative consequences to telling the truth is likely true in some cases, but doesn't match my experience. I have one gamma son and multiple high-rank sons. They were raised essentially the same. The gamma tendencies were clear from when he was a toddler. Telling the truth never met a negative response. Lying was punished whenever we caught it. The high-rank sons abhor lies.
If you are inclined I would be interested to hear about some of the specific behaviors that your gamma son displayed from ages 3-6.
Some children require a harsher negative response. Spare the rod, spoil the child.
Out of curiosity, is the gamma the youngest of the brothers?
No. He's the oldest.
I wonder if sibling relationships can affect ranking.
I, too, am dubious, but I'm open to the possibility that it is one contributing vector. I lean pretty heavily toward Nature on this one, but I prefer to be cautious about assuming any explanation is necessarily correct. The hypothesis is at least worth consideration, even if it's mostly incorrect.
Probably similar to intelligence but the opposite. Your parents definitely can't raise your IQ but they most certainly can lower it. One might be born with the "gamma gene" but with a good upbringing it might stay dormant or partly at least.
You've observed the same thing as many others here. I have children older than many of you and my experience with raising them and now grandchildren is that you're born with the basic personality traits that you'll have your whole life.
Concur, same with my kids and grandchildren.
Well put. This reminds us of previous discussion that says, do not ever try to offer an explanatory model for a set that observably fails to explain the entirety of the set.
> "Another commenter helped explain the source of Gamma dishonesty."
My wife and I discuss this concerning her brother. He's a major Gamma.
Their upbringing sounded similar to Light On The Shore's. My wife left the house ASAP, her brother learned to cope.
Some examples of what their dad would do. Christmas presents being pawned a month later because there was no money and 'they weren't using it as much anymore'. General financial issues like check fraud, opening accounts in the kid's names, encouraging the kids to overdraft their accounts to give to him. Off the wall reactions to minor things like a single broken egg.
In brother-in-law's environment, he couldn't be wrong or else he'd be verbally abused. So he will BS his way through any social encounter and never admit fault, ignorance, or defeat. It would end in shouting matches where both would just walk away angry. But at least he wouldn't be in trouble.
He refuses to show appreciation for anything likely because anything he enjoys will be used as leverage for why he should obey.
He still lives at home (at 29) and can't handle a job. He's maybe 400lbs and can't stand or sit or move or anything else for long (according to himself).
He has no interest in changing anything about himself (likely because it would mean admitting he'd been doing life wrong). To the point of him saying 'I don't want to lose weight because all that loose skin wouldn't look good.'
This sounds like a possible Omega, particularly given the sorry state he seems to be in.
The mentality behind the refusal to control his weight sounds like he sees it merely as substituting his current problem with a different one through a great deal of effort (the result is still unattractive). Does he try to sell that he's on some sort of trajectory for success or has he just accepted failure?
I'd say Omega except he's insufferable to be around.
He keeps saying he's going to get healthier so he can work but he has no plan and hasn't changed anything about his day-to-day.
Being insufferable isn't outside Omega capacity, especially if he was raised by a Gamma. Improving an Omega is a matter of motivation. The problem is I expect he won't undertake improvements on his own account. IMO you either need someone with a decent relationship with him to exert influence or make his current situation uncomfortable.
From your description it sounds like he has an enabler; he will never improve if he has one.
This was eluded to yesterday in the post and comments as well... but it sure seems like the majority of those who punish people for admitting they are wrong are Gammas themselves. The non-Gamma response is to accept the admission and move on.
Gammas beget Gammas.
"Is the blanket dry"
•Define dry... Or you get the answer that you get.
I no longer play the vaguely specific question game. Not with my wife, not with anyone.
"If the commenter is correct, then in theory, it should be possible to reduce the habitual dishonesty of the Gamma by making it clear that not only will he not be punished, he will be rewarded for being truthful."
There's probably both nature and nurture at play here, but after witnessing a particular kid and a set of events this summer I'm heavily inclined toward nature:
The kid is about 6, overtired from a long couple of days of family events. Breaks a vase in his grandma's living room. She's upset, but first asks if he's okay. He immediately goes into defensive overdrive (his replies were in caps because he was literally shrieking).
"Is the vase broken?" "NO!" "I heard it break." "I DIDN"T DO IT!" "I know you did it, but I know it was an accident." "YOU MADE ME DO IT!" "You need to admit when you make a mistake, and apologize." IT"S YOUR FAULT!"
And so forth. He did eventually apologize, but in such a way that it was obvious he was acknowledging nothing. She maintained a calm but firm demeanor throughout, there was no threat of violence, nobody called him a name or did anything even remotely cruel, but there was also no coddling or acceptance of his outburst. It's possible that he's had different experiences with other authority figures, but there was nothing about this interaction that warranted his instant level of defensiveness and projection. Over the course of a few days, I saw him retreat to "It's your fault!" pretty much instantaneously whenever he was called out for bad behavior, which has heavily inclined me to put the balance on nature over nurture, at least in this instance.
I feel for his family, they have their work cut out for them. He's not a bad kid, but his emotional dysregulation is over the top.
It’s much more sinister than that. The kid will be punished for things they at times didn’t have any control over. Ex: not having homework done before bed even though they only got home 20 minutes before bedtime or not having done the dishes even though that is not part of their normal list of chores. It leads to any time a parent gets mad, they immediately become reactive to placate the parent. Lying is usually a go to fur a quick fix. Yes, I’m giving live examples.
Not at all diminishing the instances where parents are actually abusive, as I know happens all too often. Of course lying and defensiveness can be a learned behavior in response to adverse circumstances.
The particular case I mentioned, however, is of a child whose immediate and extended family is not at all abusive. His siblings, both within 2 years of age, do not act out defensively either. Just this one kid.
Some kids are, for lack of a better term, wimpier than others. Could be any combination of traits that cause it, but you are correct that some kids have it just in them.
Boomers believe their children exist solely to provide them Cruises to Infinity. In this context clownery such as replacement immigration makes sense. Even Africans need to chip in to provide the cruises.
Something like 40 % of earnings goes to support the Booming here. And yet the Boomers are the ones who complain about slavery and declare their superior morality to all.
Let the Day of the Pillow come.
This guy gets it. Europeans need to chip in for African's planned parenthood.
My declining mom is a perfect example of that. My Silent Dad put the farm into a non revocable trust, or all that would be gone
I'm gen z, and was explaining to my grandma that the age of the bread winner man going out to work a 9-5 and providing more than enough for a family was gone. I really want to have the ability to say to my future wife that she doesn't have to work and that she can stay with the kids. The two working parent household is the reality and angers me that I have to inherit that reality.
You can work, she can too, save, have kids using that savings.
You start later, it sucks. It is possible.
Get married early.
Doing just fine with husband working in our late 20s. Build your own house, have your own business, learn to work with your hands, work in European neighborhoods, plenty of opportunity out there in 2024.
My husband has a white-collar job and we live in Indiana. As a one-income household we live modestly but comfortably.
My son just got married. They're broke as a joke, but she stays home, and they're learning to make do. Be poor.
In america* Its possible, its just not fancy, and often not fun. Buying land on the outskirts with friends and everyone puts a camper on it is cheaper than rent almost anywhere. An econobox or motorcycle for commuting. Pool money to buy whole animals and farm share produce. Can substitute camper for buying a boomer Mansion and each family gets a room.
It's sad that you had to be the one to break the news to her.
I'm a millennial, and me and my bros are - largely - in no better situation than you. We just caught a glimpse of the Good Times TM growing up, and were never able to get there. Now most of us are realizing we never will (terms and conditions apply - to live is to strive)
Good luck, bro.