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Religious values that allowed beta men to have loyal wives are gone so what you have now are branch swingers that use provider males for resources before cheating on them and taking them to the cleaners while going to screw around with the bad boys. Marriage for "good men" is risky without a prenup as women are genetically wired to want bad men (or as they call it "fun") and they have a lot of legal power.
I'm 37, single, with around $500k laying around. Living the peaceful life... I've accepted my situation that the whole fairy tale life with a loyal wife and stable family isn't happening. I've come to embrace it.
Those values are not "gone". I know millennials home schooling their kids and living traditional lives. It takes a certain kind of guy to attract a good loyal woman. He is strong and steady and really WANTS that life.
What you have today is one bad relationship and people quit, just like they do with jobs. Most people do have bad relationships along the line somewhere. We are supposed to learn from them and become better people, not just quit.
To me the two main things that make it much harder to be 30 now than in my day (56 now) is student debt, and the cost of health care and health insurance. When I graduated college in my mid-30's, I had student debt that was about $150 a month and paid it off by 45. The new grads where I work (therapy) are in massive debt. The OT owes over $100,000, and the speech therapist $200,000. When I started working, my portion of my health insurance was $5.00 a pay, now at my company it's over $200 a pay, and salaries have not risen by much in those years (my per diem pay rate has been the same for about 10 years). Even my niece, who is a teacher, pays almost $1000 for her share of health insurance for her, her husband and 2 kids.
Aside from these big issues, you get nickel and dimed to death now. My fiancé and I went below $100 on one of our checking accounts for one day, and got hit with a $15 fee. My fiancé's phone broke, and the insurance he paid for for 3 years has a $350 deductible. All these ways corporate America chips away at people now, was not the case when I was 30.
Relationship are not any different now, people don't change that much. My brother's wife left him for another guy in something like 1980. My nieces and been married with no cheating on anyone's part for 15 and 20 years. Relationships depend on the people in them, nothing more. People cheated in 1950, too. It's actually better now for men. My fiancé has lifetime alimony from a divorce long ago (where she left him), but now in NJ at least it is no longer possible to be awarded lifetime alimony.
As a guy getting married by 30 would be pretty crazy to me. I don’t know any guys in my social circle who fit that bill. I’ll actually be the first of my friends to get married at 36. Granted one of my friends is only 29 but he’s like me and has zero interest in ever having kids, but also sees no point of getting married. I can’t really blame him.
What some people forget - and I do sympathize with them - is you are playing a different game and don’t realize it. People often think, “Well how can I afford this house on my income?” Maybe you can’t, not in a major city, not unless you really made it or have saved for a while. Do you think everyone coming to compete in the major markets comes unprepared and penniless? They don’t. There is massive accumulated wealth and if your parents didn’t have any or didn’t give you any, yeah, expect it to be a harder uphill battle for you in competitive fields than it is other people. They are different worlds. And everyone is in a bubble so they don’t see the other side often. Everyone I know had college paid for by their parents except my GF and I paid for hers. I didn’t know kids coming out into the work force with student loan debt. So if you’re at ground zero, starting out not only with no net worth but also in debt, you can thank your parents for setting you up for the toughest possible path. They may have been great people and all of that, but competition is fierce and other people are starting way ahead of you, so if you’re not far above average it’s not easy to overcome that poor start and take away opportunities from richer, better connected people. That’s the world, nobody said it would be fair.
The best way to make sure that doesn’t happen to your kids is don’t have any kids unless you can arm them for success. I don’t have any respect for parents who push their kids out the door at 18 and pay for nothing after, “sink or swim,” that’s not the world we live in. We live in a world of generational wealth and if you want to have kids, that’s as close as possible to giving them no chance at all.
I think getting married with the intent to have kids AFTER 40 seems riskier. If you don't plan on having kids, get married whenever. But if you do, the 30 yr cut off isn't crazy at all.
To me the two main things that make it much harder to be 30 now than in my day (56 now) is student debt, and the cost of health care and health insurance. When I graduated college in my mid-30's, I had student debt that was about $150 a month and paid it off by 45. The new grads where I work (therapy) are in massive debt. The OT owes over $100,000, and the speech therapist $200,000. When I started working, my portion of my health insurance was $5.00 a pay, now at my company it's over $200 a pay, and salaries have not risen by much in those years (my per diem pay rate has been the same for about 10 years). Even my niece, who is a teacher, pays almost $1000 for her share of health insurance for her, her husband and 2 kids.
Aside from these big issues, you get nickel and dimed to death now. My fiancé and I went below $100 on one of our checking accounts for one day, and got hit with a $15 fee. My fiancé's phone broke, and the insurance he paid for for 3 years has a $350 deductible. All these ways corporate America chips away at people now, was not the case when I was 30.
Relationship are not any different now, people don't change that much. My brother's wife left him for another guy in something like 1980. My nieces and been married with no cheating on anyone's part for 15 and 20 years. Relationships depend on the people in them, nothing more. People cheated in 1950, too. It's actually better now for men. My fiancé has lifetime alimony from a divorce long ago (where she left him), but now in NJ at least it is no longer possible to be awarded lifetime alimony.
This is all true but these things affect everyone. Health insurance is even more expensive for older people and they are more likely to need it.
Health care is better now compared to the 70s or 80s. When I was a kid I needed an endoscopy and they tried to do it with no sedation. Dental work was crap and painful. Surgery was archaic compared to now.
College tuition is ridiculous but people should expect to plan well for their schooling and careers.
Customer service is much worse now than in my lifetime.
Men complain about the divorce laws but in many cases they are actually getting better for them.
I think getting married with the intent to have kids AFTER 40 seems riskier. If you don't plan on having kids, get married whenever. But if you do, the 30 yr cut off isn't crazy at all.
If you set that type of pressure, you better have fairly low standards or rush to find someone good enough in time, because that’s not easy to do with that type of time pressure. Thus why we see divorce rates are so high. You shouldn’t be marrying someone you only know for a few years or less. Committing to forever with an athlete after two good seasons when they’re younger would be crazy, why wouldn’t the same be true of relationships? Lol
IMO this just shows how much has changed since 1977. For example due to technological innovations, most good paying jobs today require more than a high school diploma while in the past a high school diploma was enough to get an okay job. As a result people today need to spend more time and resources on education than before, which means a 30 years old today is likely to enter the job market later than his or her parents while carrying more student debts.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ObserverJC
IMO this just shows how much has changed since 1977. For example due to technological innovations, most good paying jobs today require more than a high school diploma while in the past a high school diploma was enough to get an okay job. As a result people today need to spend more time and resources on education than before, which means a 30 years old today is likely to enter the job market later than his or her parents while carrying more student debts.
but... there are equal advances!
I was not able to go to college (for free) at age 15, (which my kids had that option, as do many thousands in USA and abroad). I was not even able to go to college until I bought a house for my parents, and got them raised...(another issue...)
Online access to information allows early learning / access to data for career choices
You can write / sell software at an early age (before driving...)
You can network worldwide with other innovators (I know several pre age 30 who have international companies)
You can hire others (in foreign countries) to do your tasks / responsibilities at FAR less cost that doing stuff yourself
Software can be implemented and youthful learners have a HUGE advantage to train others / apply knowledge as skilled users (The rest of us are too busy working!, little time to learn software / productivity enhancements)
Inventors can get stuff made overseas and 3D printed that earlier generations had to BUILD themselves.
Money is MUCH easier to get <5% (18% when I was needing it)
Crowdfunding / angel investors were unheard of 30 yrs ago.
So many MORE ways to fund college today (should you need to bother to go)
Parents and grandparents are so much more wealthy / providing funding to college students as compared to 40 yrs ago.
Many advantages today.. (But... I will concede that USA Higher EDU is quite the scam (WAY overpriced and under performed)).. Profs and schools, milking America of it's $$ and talent, as a way to fund their own cushy jobs. (BTW: I teach in higher U on occasion... sorry I didn't get to do that as a career!!! I would have been REALLY relaxed / comfortable / healthy!
I'm 32. I graduated college in 2010 at 24 in Tennessee. About $9,000 of student debt. At the time, almost no one was hiring locally, and I was too far away from major job centers to get any interest. It took four years to get my first "career track" job, and my first "staff level" job didn't come until I was 30. I made $15/hr or less most of those first four years. I don't care who you are or where you are - surviving on $12/hr-$15/hr isn't easy.
I had to move from Tennessee to two Midwestern states to even get that first viable job. That was expensive. With all that moving around, it's difficult to get involved in a serious romantic relationship, or heaven forbid, have a kid and jerk them around between different schools. I've had numerous relationships, but have never had a live-in romantic partner or been married.
They also had the "luxury" of not having to relocate to find employment. Homes were more affordable relative to income. At the time, property in our local area appreciated better - today, you're lucky to appreciate above inflation in this part of Tennessee.
You graduated it into a recession which is tough. I know how it is because I graduated into the 1991 recession when I was young. I never did get a job after that undergraduate degree - just an internship. But I went to graduate school and then rode the wave of th dotcom growth era in the late 1990s as an IT engineer. But then that crashed too in 2001-2002. The job market crashed again in 2009-2010 which you experienced.
After going through three recessions in my adult years, I learned to diversity my background. It's like mixed martial arts - to defeat a recession you need multi-disciplinary skills with an unorthodox but effective learning style to counter the layoff patterns that arise from time-to-time.
I was not able to go to college (for free) at age 15, (which my kids had that option, as do many thousands in USA and abroad). I was not even able to go to college until I bought a house for my parents, and got them raised...(another issue...)
Online access to information allows early learning / access to data for career choices
You can write / sell software at an early age (before driving...)
You can network worldwide with other innovators (I know several pre age 30 who have international companies)
You can hire others (in foreign countries) to do your tasks / responsibilities at FAR less cost that doing stuff yourself
Software can be implemented and youthful learners have a HUGE advantage to train others / apply knowledge as skilled users (The rest of us are too busy working!, little time to learn software / productivity enhancements)
Inventors can get stuff made overseas and 3D printed that earlier generations had to BUILD themselves.
Money is MUCH easier to get <5% (18% when I was needing it)
Crowdfunding / angel investors were unheard of 30 yrs ago.
So many MORE ways to fund college today (should you need to bother to go)
Parents and grandparents are so much more wealthy / providing funding to college students as compared to 40 yrs ago.
Many advantages today.. (But... I will concede that USA Higher EDU is quite the scam (WAY overpriced and under performed)).. Profs and schools, milking America of it's $$ and talent, as a way to fund their own cushy jobs. (BTW: I teach in higher U on occasion... sorry I didn't get to do that as a career!!! I would have been REALLY relaxed / comfortable / healthy!
I would dispute several of these (most don't apply to the vast majority of people) but most especially this last. My grandmother was able to leave several hundred thousand dollars and a home to her 3 kids. But my mom is now on Medicaid, every cent of it spent on health issues as she aged, and then on assisted living when she could no longer remain at home. My brother and I both lived in one bedroom, second floor apartments and worked full time (where in days past, one job was enough to allow a wife to stay at home and have a home, so there was a means to take care of the elderly). My generation is the first in our family who will not get any inheritance at all.
40 years ago, college was much more affordable than it was then, but today I know only a handful of people who can pay for their kid's college.
Of course there are things that are better now, health care, information availability, etc., but when I see the young people at my job I can't believe how much they are up against, and I feel badly for them. The difference in a first job in therapy when I graduated 20 years ago and now is night and day in terms of so many things. I paid $5.00 a pay for my health insurance. My 20-something co-worker, the one $100,000 in student debt, told me yesterday her share is almost $250 a pay (so $500 a month). I got $1500 in continuing ed money from my employer, today it's been eliminated, even though it's a requirement for our profession. So we pay for it all ourselves. I just feel today people are getting squeezed in ways that just didn't happen when I was 30.
I was not able to go to college (for free) at age 15, (which my kids had that option, as do many thousands in USA and abroad). I was not even able to go to college until I bought a house for my parents, and got them raised...(another issue...)
Online access to information allows early learning / access to data for career choices
You can write / sell software at an early age (before driving...)
You can network worldwide with other innovators (I know several pre age 30 who have international companies)
You can hire others (in foreign countries) to do your tasks / responsibilities at FAR less cost that doing stuff yourself
Software can be implemented and youthful learners have a HUGE advantage to train others / apply knowledge as skilled users (The rest of us are too busy working!, little time to learn software / productivity enhancements)
Inventors can get stuff made overseas and 3D printed that earlier generations had to BUILD themselves.
Money is MUCH easier to get <5% (18% when I was needing it)
Crowdfunding / angel investors were unheard of 30 yrs ago.
So many MORE ways to fund college today (should you need to bother to go)
Parents and grandparents are so much more wealthy / providing funding to college students as compared to 40 yrs ago.
Many advantages today.. (But... I will concede that USA Higher EDU is quite the scam (WAY overpriced and under performed)).. Profs and schools, milking America of it's $$ and talent, as a way to fund their own cushy jobs. (BTW: I teach in higher U on occasion... sorry I didn't get to do that as a career!!! I would have been REALLY relaxed / comfortable / healthy!
It is true there are advances but they are not as great as advertised. Higher education is certainly more widespread now than before, but the availability also makes the same diploma worth less than it was before. Also online resources need proper understanding to use, so while people who have learned the tricks have more opportunities, those left behind are in a more disadvantageous situation.
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