Now we’re Baby Losers?
May 12th, 2008 by Treena ShapiroIt’s an old story.
The children of Baby Boomers couldn’t help but think that if they followed the same formula as their parents they could have it all.
A college degree was supposed to equal a rewarding career, a house, family vacations and all the other things we took for granted when we were growing up.
Instead we’re finding that becoming young urban professionals doesn’t mean we get to put bright yellow “baby on board” stickers on the backs of our Volvos or BMWs. If we have babies on board, our luxury car payments are going to preschools, enrichment programs and all sorts of other activities to occupy our kids so we can work enough hours to make the payments on our budget cars.
Our parents were yuppies, but according to an article in Sunday’s edition of “The Observer,” the Europeans have coined us the “Baby Losers.”
I never expected to be rich. I was aware that when I chose to major in English, I might be picking passion over prosperity, but the decision didn’t doom me to poverty, as I’d been warned it might.
I have a college degree, two children and (hopefully) some marketable job skills. It’s not a bad place to be, but it’s certainly different from the future I imagined when my parents were my age – and my prospects aren’t likely to improve if I stay in Hawaii.
Then again, the Observer article indicates that it’s not a Hawaii, or even an American phenomenon. It quotes European “losers” who followed a different path and ended up in the same place as many of my peers.
From The Observer:
Freelance architect Emilio Tinoco Vertiz, 32, earns just €1,000 a month. ‘Who needs architects when no one wants to build houses?’ he said. In Spain people such as Emilio are known from their pay as the ‘mileuristas’ (thousand euro-ers). In France they are the ‘babylosers’ - a term coined by sociologist Louis Chauvel to contrast them with ‘babyboomers’. According to Chauvel, 41, a sociologist at the National Foundation for Political Science, for the first time in recent history a generation of French citizens aged between 20 and 40 can expect a lower standard of living than the one before. ‘Mileuristas or babylosers: it’s the same story,’ he said. ‘They have an average of three years more education than their parents, a worse job and a lower standard of living.’
— “After the boomers, meet the children dubbed ‘baby losers’”
“Across Spain, France and Italy, young middle-class professionals with good degrees and diplomas are facing a lifetime on low salaries with unrewarding jobs, forever poorer than their parents. Investigation by Graham Keeley in Barcelona, Jason Burke in Paris and Tom Kington in Rome
It’s easy to get caught up in all the things that we thought we could have but don’t. We end up speculating about what we could do differently to get to that place we expected to be.
But sometimes it’s easier, and far less discouraging, to just look on the bright side. We might be working harder for less, but at least we’re changing the expectations for our children.
Tags: Baby Boomers, career, cost of living, expectations, Gen X, home ownership
May 12th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Treena,
10 days since last post. i really missed u.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:30 am
You shouyld never compare yourself with what your parents went through… Different generation, different philosophies.. Your parent’s were xpected to “make the grade”,do well,get the house , etc… the generation following should be looking at what’s out there for them and to make compensatons so the could live a comfortable life… Don’t need the Big house or the Beemer, as long as you are educated, have a job you like, can feed and clothed your family, have a roof over your head. The typical Nuckear family is lost because too many parents are more towards worldy possesions instead of family trogetherness.. that’s why there are a lot of latch kids with no parental supervision, which leads to unwanted pregnancy, drugs,lack of self disipline, and no sense of responsibilities..
May 12th, 2008 at 6:36 am
[…] jermtech wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptInstead we’re finding that becoming young urban professionals doesn’t mean we get to put bright yellow “baby on board” stickers on the backs of our Volvos or BMWs. If we have babies on board, our luxury car payments are going to … […]
May 12th, 2008 at 7:48 am
I prefer less frequent but more thoughtful posts. We don’t need more chatter and thoughtless words in the world.
The challenge of the previous generation was to increase the absolute supply of goods in the world — and they succeeded marvelously, as we now live in a world of great abundance, and not scarcity anymore. Now, the great challenge of this generation, is the distribution of that abundance over the entire population of the world, and not simply the continuing cry for already prosperous trade unions for “MORE,” which of course, is the great problem of the world, when people with adequate food, shelter and clothing, believe they deserve ALL.
That leaves very little, if nothing at all, for those who have much less or nothing at all. Yet many of these people pleading for their entitlements, call themselves “liberals,” and think they are highly “enlightened,” because they are smarter at getting more than their fair share and are always parading in the streets, demanding “MORE,” while some people have verry little, and are in fact, the victims of their real estate speculations and demands for higher wages that drive businesses under — except of course if they work for the government, in which they believe they are entitled to everything they can get.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Hhehehah, I, too, graduated in English. For me, I think I had marketable skills because most of my English classes were writing-based (argumentative, essay, etc.). And I took my senior thesis along to job interviews (I didn’t have to go to many) and that helped show what I can write.
I didn’t want to teach. I went corporate. And, heck, I dunno if it’s a big secret, but, corporate really appreciates writing skills and “analysis outside of the box” (of which we English maj’s get a lot of practice with regard to, say, decoding the epic poem).
Corporate appreciates writing. Then you, in turn, learn the corporate ropes and other disciplines that you avoided as an English major (
) and you understand. And you write that subject matter well, too. Good writing is a tool, so, when you learn something you apply them together like how Spock can mind-meld, you know? Makes you, to borrow a phrase from Dr. Michael Savage, Voltaire in Paris.