Better.
My mother lived a life of misery caused by her decisions and mental illness.
My father lived a great life, but so have I.
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.
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.
i guess we can say we also don’t have to inhale cigarette smoke at every restaurant and on every plane trip, as well as leaded gasoline fumes, like they did
but still, yea. most people i know are basically fucked money-wise compared to our parents
Well my mum was a chain smoker, so she would disagree.
And I had to go throught all you say as long as she was near. No chance she would admit that was an issue.
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.
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
Yeah, I think pretty much everyone in China is gonna have it better nowadays. No 红卫兵 to harass you, 开放改革 allows more movement. Freedom to emigrate.
People used to have to do farming, then it opened up to the world and cities have jobs.
My mom would not ever stop mentioning it. “Stop being so picky with food, when I was your age I had to help your grandma with the farming, we barely had anything to eat” 🫠 (Paraphrased from Cantonese)
She also said something like “你们已经很幸福了” … something something “要懂得珍惜/感谢我们”
Always trying to make me feel guilty.
I think when I see those “good old days” memes that westerners make, I’m always like 🤔
My parents didn’t get degrees and they managed to get an apartment in Guangzhou somehow…
Oh you know how people say 90% home ownership in China? I think those accounted for rural houses… which is kinda worthless since you can’t find jobs, so they go to cities then its the same thing, you need to rent an apartment. Most people do.
After we emigrated, my parents managed to save up money for a house in Philadelphia, PA. NYC was way too expensive so its impossible, rent was going up, so we had to move…
But the ramifications is that I get bullied a lot more often in Philly schools due to less Asians so more racism… lots of emotional damage…
“你已经很幸福了，很多人偷渡来的没身份，你能得到公民身份” is used to shut me up if I ever try to voice dissent at home
I mean I do appreciate how much better I have it, but my mental health is still horrible. Emotions just boxed up and suppressed all these years.
Switzerland, meh.
I have a better job with low hours for more money but still have to be cautious about costs. They have several houses with a garden that I can only dream about.
They have a retirement plan that I can only dream about and an happy life while I’m ok-ish but depressive.
But I have 10Gbs fiber optic internet and a NAS+Seedbox so there’s that.
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.
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 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.
Lmao. I basically got locked-in my whole childhood.
Born in 2002, in Guangzhou, China.
I remember my apartment, my parents instaled these these locks that can lock from the outside via turning a key a certain way. So if my parents need to be away and grandma wasn’t available to watch us, they’d just lock in me and my older brother at home… And I remember my brother playing with fire once… 👀
Then when we arrived in NYC, my mom just enrolled me in some after school program that ran to 6PM… basically parents used it as free babysitting (run by a non-profit Chinese-American organization)
And yea the fear of CPS was a big thing, that why the afterschool thing so I don’t end up in a situation where a under-12-year-old (me) is frequently home alone without an adult (cuz older brother is still under 18), cuz somehow that triggers CPS or something? idk about the laws
I remember my mom telling my older brother to pick me up if I get dismissed at like 3o clock for some reason or like half days… so I’d be told to say home for the most of my time outside of school hours…
So basically most of time time were either spent at home or in school or worse, the fucking afterschool programs…
Now I have separation anxiety and still live with family of origin lol.
I mean I was allowed to walk home when I was in 6th grade, but too late, I spend all my life up to that point just being at home, never getting a routine of exploring outside, I basically just hid my room and spend the entire time on the internet.
So I didn’t get much chance to be outside.
Like 90% of the time I’ve been outside, excluding school, was with parents by my side…
Hence, I am now self aware of where my Separation Anxiety issues came from and why I got so clingy to mom for my entire childhood.
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.
Depends on your interpretation of better. My parents definitely led a more comfortable life filled with more happiness. At my age, they had already been able to settle down and establish themselves professionally. Meanwhile I’m struggling to find a job, may never be able to buy a flat and have been mentally ill since I was 13.
Morally though I am fully convinced I lead a much better life than them. I live more sustainable and climate-friendly. I am politically active trying to change the world for the better and fighting discrimination. In the work I do I try to help young people along in their journey, while my mother as part of her job has been keeping homeless people homeless.
I would not want to have led my parents’ lives. Even though they are far better off than I will ever be in many regards, I am proud playing a tiny part in changing the world for the better where they were at least complicit in the world staying that way.
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.
When my parents were my age they had three kids and a house. Meanwhile I’m here with three houses and one kid.
My parents have passed, but I’d like to have more close family. We had a hard time making that first kid, and we’re not getting any younger.
(Scandinavia)
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.
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 at the end of my 20s and is an assistant professor; a very busy job, but nevertheless stable, which is an excellent perk in this economy. 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.
