"My American Dream would consist of two cars + cars for children, a good sized house (4 bedrooms), cell phone/ internet, health insurance, the ability to contribute to college education, travel (international would be a plus), good retirement savings, a good credit score, a job with travel, along with a schedule that allows for flexibility.
I think it can happen, although it’d be a great plus if I could support my mom when she’s older…might just have to throw out some things.
Naive? Sure, but with some strategy I don’t see how it couldn’t be accomplished"
Not naïve, very possible! Even probable for a college educated, intelligent woman. However, it becomes far more possible if you wait until you established in your career before you marry. Also, if you marry someone similar to you in those respects (man or woman, whatever), and you two wait until you are financially established before you have children, you are most of the way there. Two good salaries, lack of substantial debt, and you can do it. This is a segment of the population that is very prosperous, and not because of family money.
Yes, to all of those things, @busdriver1! Those are definitely the plans I have in place. Based on my current academic and financial standing, my mom encouragingly and gently tells me to basically not eff it up from time to time.
@DrGoogle I’ll try not to, although my mom has been able to provide an excellent example on how to go about one.
My American dream, doesnt depend on overtime.
For most of the years that the girls were home, H worked swing shift, and only had one weekend off a month.
He left for work before they came home from school, and got home after their bedtime.
My American Dream includes enough free time to have a life.
I live in a state that was heavily automotive (Indiana) and those well paying factory jobs were plentiful in the '70’s and before. A nice family lifestyle on a high school education, and often with mom staying home.
Other than a very few metro areas, good jobs are gone. H works as a supervisor in a UAW plant (not auto). Average floor pay is $13/hr and they work every second at physically demanding jobs. No pension, bad insurance. Kids who want white collar, professional jobs will need to leave my area.
I enjoy working with the 25-35 age set. They do not tolerate the hours/working conditions we expected in my industry, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Too bad it didn’t happen 30 years ago so I could enjoy work/life balance.
On the flip side, jobs are generally less permanent, less reliable, and more mobile. Settling down and enjoying life is probably more difficult now than it was 30-50 years ago.
"You know what? I’m glad my generation is demanding more work/life balance. "
Yes, I love it when the people like me who create the jobs and bring in the business put in the hours to serve the clients and the young’ins go home at 5:01 pm. I love when I’m flying with a younger person to Asia or Brazil and I work the whole way through and they don’t.
I see it differently. Young people, and older people, are expected to almost always be at work via their cell phones and computers. Young people more so because they have entry level positions. Overtime pay? no. Time and half for overhead? No one except us older people even remembers that!
My daughters fiancee was pressured to work on memos and such when he was home with the flu. It’s time someone started rebelling.
I don’t know but my daughter own her own business and she works lots of hours, the only thing good is that she has flexible time. She can take vacation whenever she wants but when we go to sleep, she works owl hours. Maybe the difference is she doesn’t work for anybody except the clients.
Management is also “exempt,” so more are being given salaries instead of hourly wages and supposed to absorb the overtime or take comp time, if they can get it.
The only job I had eligible for overtime pay was selling clothes at a department store. And they never assigned us overtime work. All other jobs were salaried and not eligible.
I wish we could have put in more hours at home. I think our kids are fortunate in that regard. But it cuts both ways, for sure.
When we track computer time, what we see is increasingly large amounts of time being “spent” on non-work related internet access. Employees then vow to “make it up” or complete their work at home.
Of course, what the spouse gets told is that they are “required to do this work at home…”.
Subsequently, employees tend to forget why they are working at home and grump about not getting paid overtime.
I’ve lost track of the thousands of dollars we’ve spent because of that.