Worse (USA)

At the age I am now(34) my parents had 3 kids and and a house. My mother was able to support us all on her salary alone. Dad worked as well and we were able to do whatever we wanted until they got divorced.

I’m upto my nose in school debt, unemployed, and living at home with mother. So are my brothers though they work. One had a baby. The other is a recovering drug addict with severe mental problems. We’ve traumatized each other in brutal violent ways. That’s a life I never want to bring other people into. Kids are out of the question until I move out. I just hope I’m not 40 and too late for that. Or worse dead.

Better, but in a way that’s largely on them. They had more money, security, and opportunity, but they were a terrible match with a lot of mental issues and grew to hate each other. I have less, but I’ve been working on my mental health since I was younger and actively prioritized only marrying someone I was a good match for.

My life has been hard and painful, but I’ve played a difficult hand fairly well and my problems are rarely persistently internal

We’re Americans.

China. Much, much better, but it’s a bit unfair to compare someone who grew up in a typical modern society to someone who grew up in time of extreme poverty, subsistence farming, and famine…

Although, my parents did go to better universities & got better careers right off the bat due to a lack of educated ppl back in their days

('Murica) At my age (40s) my parents owned a home in the suburbs. I still live in that house with those same parents so that should tell you the bulk of it.

I feel very resentful that I never got to spread my wings and just be an independent adult away from my parents in the same way my brother and sister have. I think I get along well with my folks and there are financial benefits to living in someone else’s house, but I can’t escape the fact I am their son, and a certain amount of paternalism seeps into our interactions sometimes, despite the fact that I’m the same age my father was when I was 10. I mean things like demanding rather than asking that I attend some family gathering, or insisting I wear more formal clothes to said gathering, etc. It doesn’t come up often, and I think they’re aware of how it makes me feel and try not to do it, but it still hurts when it does.

When I bring this up to them (or many others for that matter) the reaction is usually “Oh but that’s an American thing, wanting to cut loose at 18. It’s common in many cultures for adult children to live with their parents.” But I’m an American with American parents, who grew up watching American media, and I’m surrounded by Americans, so I measure my success vs other Americans, and especially when I was a kid, an adult living with their parents was an object of ridicule.

Of the three of us, my brother is doing the best materially speaking. He owns a house. My sister I don’t think is living paycheck to paycheck, but she isn’t rolling in money either.

Worse. My parents own a huge house and have “last earned” pensions. I’m paying through the nose for rent and my pension will be miniscule. I currently earn enough to pay the rent, but I can’t afford to buy. So I’m guessing I’ll be living under a bridge when I retire.

Worse in that I don’t have a house and probably never will.

Better in that I know more about how to treat my physical and mental health than they ever knew about theirs.

Worse in that I don’t have as much money as they had at my age.

Better in that I don’t need to worry about leaving money to anyone.

Worse for sure.

At my age, they were already married with kids and had enough to build a dream house in a decent town. Both had stable jobs that were considered good despite neither having a college degree.

I’m in a decent job that pays me (on paper) more money than my parents used to make, but I had to get my master’s degree to get here, and I’m still trying to pay off 8 years of student debt (though I’m getting closer each paycheck).

Between that, rent, and the sheer cost of everything these days, my partner and I are nowhere close to the point where we could afford a house, and we definitely could not afford to have even one kid, let alone three.

We’re at least not living paycheck to paycheck, but there have been industry layoffs left and right that have me feeling like any day could be my turn. I’d love to have more of a safety net in that situation, but there’s not all that much left over for us to put towards savings or retirement. Meanwhile, my parents are retired now, while I’m fully expecting to work until I die.

Edit: Forgot to clarify that this is the US, if the existence of student debt wasn’t already a giveaway.

A lot better. Brazilian millennial.

My parents quit school to do manual work at ~10yo and barely got to learn how to read. I did work on my early teens too but very light stuff. By my mid 20s I already reached a very comfortable life.

[Brazil] More or less the same, but with better prospects.

My childhood was better and way more comfortable than both my parents, who clawed their way out of rural poverty and into a decently paying, high school level jobs as bank clerks (they met working at the bank), in which they stayed until retirement. The married and had children later than their peers (they hadn’t meet at my age), so they had good savings in store.

I went into a great public university and decided to follow an academic career (just finished my master’s). This means I already have way more educational opportunities than they ever did. On the other side, my finances are way less stable, going from stipend to stipend in temporary scholarships and research grants. This is aggravated by the fact I got a partner who relied on my income for years while she tried to overcome depression, finish her graduate course and get a job. Now she got all three, and for her, who came from real poverty, this already means she is way better than her parents (her father never finished elementary school and her mother got pregnant of her at 17 and abandoned high school).

Now I’m looking for a more stable job outside of academia, and I hope the as soon as I get it, with both our incomes, our financial lives will start getting better. It might take a while for us to have the means to have a child, but we expect to have less children than our parents (I’m the middle child of three, she is the oldest of four siblings), so this might be easier.

We also have 4 cats, which is a plus in any life.

Better.

Canada.

Better because my dad died before he was my age, and that threw my mom into a depression and harmed her for a long time. U.S.

Hard to say, but I think so? (USA)

I make a lot more money than they did, but am often very stressed because my job is relatively high-stakes.

I have a happier marriage, which is probably the most important factor, but have found it quite difficult to be a parent. Obviously nobody else feels this way 🤪 but for real, I think parent responsibilities have gotten totally out of hand - I used to roam the streets until dark at 10 years old, but now you get the cops called on you if your 12-year-old walks down the street unaccompanied.

My parents lived through the Vietnam War and Iraq/etc, but the world still feels significantly less stable than even during those times. I worry my children are going to grow up in an openly pedophilic, labor-obsessed dystopia (as if we aren’t already there) - the stress is astounding.

I never talked to my parent about this, but I imagine way better. My dad is one of the earlier master degree holder in China. He got his PhD much later; I believe around his 40s.

At my age, my dad is an entry level doctor and my mom an entry level nurse. They live in a room of 10 square meter assigned by the hospital they work in.

I am now a professor, a very busy job, but nevertheless stable. The pay is not bad (not as much as industry though) and the work is really fulfilling. The only unfortunate part is that I almost always need to work overtime. It is not uncommon for me to work from waking up to going to bed, if not working into midnight.

In Canada. Worse financially, but socially/mentally we’re better off. My parents have none of the tools I have to deal with shit on an emotional level, they instead just shove it in a box and try to forget about it. This is how they raised me, but thank fuck for the internet and people I met that know better.

Well, all of this ignores the destruction and probably death of the Earths environment which has such an overarching presence it had to be ignored to provide a meaningful answer.

*I suppose ones financial situation isn’t tied to which generation they are, but to how much emotional damage their parents inflicted (which is correlated to socio-economic status IIRC). IMO, if my parents weren’t so permanently fucked up I would’ve had the mental wherewithal to attend University at an earlier age so I likely would be graduated already. Would probably still be just as fucked tho.

My life, much better. My finances, not so much.

My father was a wealthy defense contractor, but an abusive sociopath. My mother was an alcoholic. My mother died and he threw me out before I finished high school. I graduated homeless. I am 57 now. I haven’t spoken to him since 1998 and I am not entirely sure if he’s still alive. But I do know the last time I had to do a background check on him for job-related stuff, he was still wealthy, remarried, and living in a multi million dollar condo with a huge yacht. I am not so wealthy, but I got a foothold during the beginning of the dotcom boom, and doing okay financially. At my age, my dad was remarried and still employed as a wealthy contractor. I think he retired in 1999.

Meanwhile, even though I am clinging onto a disintegrating upper middle class, I have escalated my career in unexpected and adventurous ways. I have had an exciting life, amazing friends, and held very weird jobs including science fiction author, president of a non-profit, bouncer for a roller derby team, emcee and cosplay judge, minor fandom celebrity, and written a comedy podcast. I have been married twice, widowed once, and had good marriages. I have a son now in his 30s. I have traveled, met celebrities, and survived harrowing health issues.

So, you know, I am not as “well off” as my parents at this age (I mean, my mom died in her 40s), but doing amazingly well outside of money compared to them. Sure, it would be nice to be wealthy, but I’d rather have the life I do now than his.