Gen X Mom Asks 'Where Did The American Dream Go?' As She Explains How Much Her Kids Have Struggled Since Graduating College
SpeedKingz | Shutterstock Jessica McCabe, a 51-year-old mom who is retired from the military and part of Generation X, recently posted a video in which she discussed the differences she’s noticed in how her kids are struggling to simply live in America compared to her life as an adult.
It’s no secret that there’s a massive divide in ideologies surrounding life in America. Many older generations believe that millennials, Gen Z, and younger generations are just lazy and “don’t want to work,” while the younger generations are capable of understanding just how difficult it really is to be in their own position. The fact is, the American dream is no longer possible as it once was, thanks to our current economy, and hard work and a college degree don't cut it anymore.
This Gen X mom asked, 'Where did the American Dream go?'
“I am so tired of feeling helpless as a parent. Yes, my kids are grown, adults. My oldest is 28, my youngest is 25,” McCabe shared at the start of her TikTok. The text overlaid at the beginning of the video read “Where did the American dream go?”
“I thought by teaching them what I learned, which is you work hard, you get a good job, you're gonna get the things in life that you need, right?” she asked. “Worked for me. Why wouldn't it work for them? Cause it doesn't.”
A key human experience and an important lesson in life is understanding that we are all a culmination of our own, individual, lived experiences. My life may not be the same as your life, and your life may not be the same as your parents’ lives
Thanks to the uniquely American experience, things like inflation and wage stagnation have contributed to these experiences becoming glaringly different based on the time period you grew up in. This Gen X mom is one of the few who seems to have bridged the gap in understanding this key concept.
“The world [has] changed, all right? And now I feel like I see them struggling, and before my generation comes at me: Yes, I understand struggling is a part of life. We all struggled. But there's a difference between struggling and drowning,” she went on.
She knows that previous generations had to struggle, but adults today are drowning. She described how she was able to easily provide for herself independently on a $10/hr pay table. “Now you have to be making 6 figure salary to get a decent, tiny little place to live.”
The current American lifestyle is unsustainable, and it’s affecting her too.
Nataliya Vaitkevich | Pexels
“I told my son, all you have to do is work hard, go to college, or join the military like I did,” she continued, and he did just that, minus the military part. After graduating college, he quickly received a job and started working, telling his mom that after a couple of months of saving money, he would move out and live on his own.
“It's been 10 months. He has saved almost every dime. Still can't afford to live,” she said, and this is the reality for so many Americans, including the one typing this.
A Pew Research Center study published in 2020 found that for the first time since the Great Depression, a majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents.
“In July, 52% of young adults resided with one or both of their parents, up from 47% in February, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of monthly Census Bureau data.” Around this time, the number was 26.6 million adults that live at home with their parents, and the number has surely increased since then.
Young people can't afford to live on their own anymore, even when they are working full-time.
fizkes | Shutterstock
Equally as concerning, a Pew Research Center study published in 2022 found that “Americans [are] more likely to say it’s a bad thing than a good thing that more young adults live with their parents.” We can only hope that they’re saying it’s a bad thing because that means our society is failing, as McCabe theorized.
“It's literally turning into the ultra-wealthy, and then everybody else is just poor,” she said. “Like that's what is happening,” and that was just her son. Her daughter worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, until she was able to afford a down payment on a home. Her mortgage payments? Double what McCabe has to pay.
It’s entirely unsustainable, and until something gives, the American dream continues to be a mirage of goals that can never be achieved.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and relationships.
