Is this a millennial hating website??
I haven’t read the whole article but the comments seem to think that is a poor way to live, taking a cut in pay while you are young in order to spend more time exploring the world. Surely you weren’t all born already crotchety elders?
You do know that 2000 years ago, the elders mocked the young. It’s not that original. And it says more about you than them. If you have so much more experience and thus wisdom, who aren’t you more understanding of people who don’t have as much of either?
Living at home with your parents is not horrible at all. It can make for closer families. Why spend money on an apartment when you can save that for travel, if you are employed or a full time student or both?
My dad, who traveled the world while very young as a life or death option, wanted youthful travel for his kids. At least my travels were voluntary and no one was trying to kill me. My son is now planning his dream semester abroad, working and saving and getting scholarships for it. Living with us instead of paying $1000 a month in an apartment is part of it.
This will be a life-changing experience for him. Do you all want your children behind the counter at fast food or fetching coffee for the corporate boss every day of their 20s? You do understand there isn’t a lot of understanding of other countries in the USA. I understood, and truly loved, this country better after living away from it.
Saving for retirement and hunkering down into a work-sleep-work environment can wait a little.
“Saving for retirement and hunkering down into a work-sleep-work environment can wait a little.”
One problem is he may have a hard time finding a job after age 50.
Two, we need him working to contribute to SS and Medicare that covers his parents.
Three, what is called sustainable agriculture isn’t going to feed everybody. Why didn’t he obtain a degree in agriculture while in college.
‘Saving for retirement and hunkering down into a work-sleep-work environment can wait a little.’
not when you’re 29 years old...
Well, I think you make some good observations, but I think you are missing a generational shift here that others are commenting on.
Certainly no one, or few, would begrudge people in the prime of their youth from traveling or experiencing life so long as they maintained a proper perspective. However, if you’ve ever spent some time perusing YouTube you would witness a whole class of Millenial types who do nothing but sail around the world or travel across the country with no home address whatsoever. In fact, a report I recently heard is that the RV industry is absolutely booming right now as Millenials are buying up all kinds of RVs for traveling around living a vagrant life.
Tied together, it would appear that this generation whats no commitment, no roots, and as little real responsibility as possible. This is why you see home ownership declining among this demographic. Amazingly, they prefer to rent, and pay rents that are equal to or higher than mortgages simply because a home is more permanent to them and they want to be able to pick up and go anytime without having to have a home sale tie them down.
So yeah, I encourage my kids to be as free as they can in their youth, but I also want them to understand responsibility as a human being and to those around them.
By the time I was 29. I got a degree. Spent five years in USN. Two in VN. Four years with Fortune 500. Lived in Japan Hong Kong and Manila. Never missed a month without a pay check since graduating. Supported wife and two kids. Who had better life experience? Lots more like me in my generation.
Fine work, and at least they were working. But, "Sales Clerk" is unlikely to be a permanent, career-enhancing job. So travel is fine for them, maybe they'll fall into something that they might make a living doing. At the very least, they'll have learned a lot and have some good memories to fall back upon.
Title of the article is a bit misleading. If someone was say, a newly minted doctor, and walked away from it for a year to tour Sub-Saharan Africa, that would be unusual. But kids drifting around? Not so much. I did a bit of it myself, and it's best done while young.
Yeah, pretty much.
The preceding generations who paid $50,000 for a new home, $800 a semester for college, $200 hospital bill to have a baby, $3500 for a new car, retired at sixty with a full pension, and all the while voted for every job killing regulation that this country is now burdened with wants to bag on Millennials, the very generation whose laps they dropped a giant s**t sandwich of debt, for being lazy and less concerned with material wealth.