It’s not your father’s country anymore…

Posted on | February 27, 2009 | No Comments

So Jack Cafferty over at cnn.com has a interesting commentary on the state of the country and how it’s changed over time.  He talks about what was the American dream was back in the early 60s.

I have kicked around longer than most people: I’m 66 years old. I remember well the ’50s and early ’60s, which were times of unbridled enthusiasm, prosperity and opportunity.

The American dream was a job, a house, a car. A modest, affordable house and a car that was most likely a Chevrolet, Ford or Plymouth.

It’s so true, my parent’s are modest people who are racing towards their 60th birthdays this year.  My mom, a college educated a school teacher with her master’s degree and my dad a Vietnam veteran Chinook helicopter pilot who has worked in retail since I’ve been alive.  They bought a modest house, no more than 1300 square feet with three bedrooms, three kids, and a dog.  My brother and I shared a room, my sister lived the life in her room.  My mom drove a Ford Fairmont station wagon I think and my dad drove a ‘67 Ford Mustang.

When my parents finally moved in 1991 we moved to a 2900 square foot “mansion” with two floors!  We each got our own room and it seemed huge.  I know it was a large step for my parents, knowing my mom I’m sure she was terrified of the mortgage.  They paid something like $118,000 for the house and at one point in the Phoenix real estate boom it was worth $450,000.  Now contrast that with myself and my wife.  We both work, she works in IT support and I am a software engineer.  We live in a house that we paid $458,000 for I think and it’s likely worth $450,000 now.  I drive a BMW X5 and she has a Lexus RX330.  Now they’re used cars, we dont’ buy new.  Her’s is paid off, mine is not.  We work because we need to pay the bills but I’d like to think one parent could stay home when we have kids.  My mom did and I think it was a huge blessing.  We make a good living, better than our parents.  We live within our means, we save, we contribute to 401ks, IRAs, employee stock plans, and use debt wisely but we’re different from out parents.

Now I don’t share Mr. Cafferty’s doom and gloom preditictions but I do think we need to get better control of our personal finances.   I think this generation is more driven to create something, to break the mold of our parent’s, and to change the world much like our parents did.  We start businesses, we don’t have home phones, we do text, we use this FaceSpace gizmo.  However, the American dream is alive and well, we just super sized along the way.  We need to get back to striving to be middle class.  To be comfortable in living within out means and not be driven by advertising to buy things we can’t afford just to keep up with the Joneses, or the Kardashian’s as MTV would want us to believe.

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