It’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.