feedback for "Trouble at Home"

1. I always think of 'The Ice Storm'; beautiful, post-modernist, architecturally brilliant houses with brittle, self-absorbed parents and numb kids. Ah, the 70's. No wonder Restoration Hardware was all the rage - we are trying to recreate our grandparent's houses, not our parents'.

   posted by : NoHo Mom on 12/22/2008 at 11:24 AM Flag For Abuse

2. This is really interesting. I'm at the tail end of generation X. My husband and I make six-figures combined and we have one small child. We life in an affordable city, but still rent an apartment. We save what we can -- about 25 percent of our income -- although in this market we still have nothing to show for it. We have very few nice things -- one nice car, two iphones, a nice camera, that's about it. But except our car payment, we have no debt. I always wonder who all these other people are that can afford so many nice things. And then you realize they really can't afford them either.

   posted by : JAR32 on 12/22/2008 at 11:38 AM Flag For Abuse

3. There was a DIRTY trick played on borrowers and we are seeing the results.
   
   For the last (40?) years, banks have been conservative lenders. Think about how banks were portrayed in movies & other popular culture.
   
   A borrower had to PROVE they could repay the loan. The banks were mostly skeptical and wanted lots of assurance that the borrower was good for it -Why? Because the bank was keeping the loan and was responsible for their own profit or loss.
   
   The rules were fundamentally changed but NO ONE told consumers - it was a dirty dirty trick to allow banks to sell mortgages (removing their concern for longterm health of the mortgage they are making) without notifying anyone that NO LONGER could banks be trusted to be concerned about you as an investment. OUTRAGEOUS.

   posted by : charmschool on 12/22/2008 at 12:20 PM Flag For Abuse

4. Word.

   posted by : momma comma on 12/22/2008 at 12:31 PM Flag For Abuse

5. What will be written of the generation we are raising now? Will they shed their parents' hell-bent consumerism trying to recreate their grandparent's house and retreat to truly sparse and low-impact living? Will they just ratchet up the "buy buy buy" culture to the next, absurd, notch (think Wall*E)? It's a wonderful thought exercise to have.

   posted by : westerly on 12/22/2008 at 1:36 PM Flag For Abuse

6. What an illuminating and frank analysis of the housing mess, written with the trademark flair, energy, humor and flashes of blinding insight that make SGT a distinctive writer. While I don't disagree that Gen X got hooked, I do mourn the subduing of that extravagant optimism and irreverent "Think Big" limitlessness that fueled the boom and its excesses. I hate to see the fearless birds having to clip their wings. But we were all living on air in the end. Thank you for the smart dissection of a phenomenon and for such engaging writing.

   posted by : Brooklyn Bird on 12/22/2008 at 1:47 PM Flag For Abuse

7. No, no and no. Absolutely not. My latch-key, single mom upbringing taught me to never get myself in trouble financially. That I, as a woman, would always have to take care of myself, and I'd better have some backup. We didn't have a fancy house, and I never thought we "deserved" one, and although yes, I'm trying to build one for my new family, it's on the cheap.
   
   If anything, I think living through the 'greed is good' 80's beat into me that you can't mortgage your future for your present, because you'll always get in trouble in the end. And that new, exciting technology will look pretty silly when you see it in a movie 20 years later. And that I should never wear shoulder pads.
   
   I wonder what the East Coast/West Coast difference in 80's and 90's 'lessons' would be...?

   posted by : Joanie on 12/22/2008 at 2:08 PM Flag For Abuse

8. NO FREAKING WAY! I blame the baby boomers if we blame anyone. I live in Florida, one of the states with the highest foreclosure rates and MOST of these houses are second or third homes of the older sect from up north.
   
   If anything, the exposure to pop culture depicting family life and nesting shows us that the idea of self as emphasis in relation to our family and memories over identities based on materialism is the way to be.

   posted by : shellbury on 12/22/2008 at 2:27 PM Flag For Abuse

9. Maybe because my husband and my parents were NOT divorced and moms stayed home with us when we were little, we got the good foundations that made us the responsible, debt-free (manageable mortgage excepted) people that we are.
   
   Together, we made six figures before having a baby, and we SAVED for 5-7 years to put 20% down on a house and have enough extra money to live off just my husbands salary while I stay home a few years with the little one. We've been to Europe a few times during all this, have two paid for cars (one 1995, the other 2006) good computers, I belong to a gym, etc. We make sacrifices on some things (hubby buys most of his clothes from the thrift store, we don't eat meat, we don't pay for cable, we don't go to very pricey restaurants or pay for child care and we are putting off all cosmetic remodeling/care of the house til I am back in full time job). I earn about 1/2 my old salary working part time from home now, which still puts us at about six figures pre-tax.
   
   I don't know what my point is other than that articles like this annoy the shit out of me. Stop crying, people, you made this mess yourself by thinking you were entitled to have more than you are. I know people who buys tons of crap for their little kids that the kids don't even care about. They don't make any distinction between want and need. People act like victims, like they've been SOLD on this or that, but man, you have to be WISER. Of course people will try to sell you shit...that's the American way. You have to rise above it!

   posted by : getreal on 12/22/2008 at 2:34 PM Flag For Abuse

10. to comment on charm schools' comments, you can't say that these borrowers were supposedly suckered into loans they couldn't afford. If they were not smart enough to figure out that their rates would be going up if they were taking out an ARM loan (that's adjustable rate mortgage), or that they qualified for a bigger loan by taking out an interest only loan but not worrying about the day when they would have to start paying the intersst, then maybe they shouldn't be able to own a home. It is a major responsibilty to own and maintain a home. People expected to put 0% down, pay the minimum then act totally surprised when their loan adjusted. when they were told it was going to if they had read their loan documents. Yes, there are unethical lenders and brokers out there, but you know what, there are some borrowers that were looking for a lot for nothing, and they got it.

    posted by : el bastardo on 12/23/2008 at 2:09 PM Flag For Abuse

11. It never occurred to me that Generation X might occupy a special role in the mortgage-credit crisis until I read Susan Gregory Thomas's provocative article. What she says has a startling ring of truth. Gregory correctly implies that "buying" houses with a 2% down payment may tell us something about the quality of education of this "most highy educated" group. The preceding generation may have fewer degrees, but it seems to rank higher in a useful ability to delay gratification and the brand of old-fashioned common sense that says you must save your money until you can afford to buy.
    Gregory's fine essay does remind us that the admirable tendency of young parents today to actively participate in the school community has its downside. (We are excluding those who are convinced their offspring's C paper is worthy of an A and are willing to march their complaints to the higher-ups.)One wonders how many youngsters are thrilled to have Mom always be the parent volunteer on the third grade's field trip to the museum. Over-scrutinized, instructed from every angle, with no place to hide, do the children of Generation X ever wish for a little privacy? Will they one day be as resentful of the unasked-for burden of being the designated Sun of their parental universe as are their mothers and fathers of being under-nurtured latchkey children?
    Only time will tell. For now there is Susan Gregory Thomas's fascinating article, jam-packed with thought-provoking ideas and research. She give us a lot to consider.

    posted by : Boomer Generation on 12/23/2008 at 3:51 PM Flag For Abuse

12. Sweeping generalizations about an entire generation are always dicey - some of the members of "The Greatest Generation" I've met are lazy, cowardly idiots. I understand the extrapolation from marketing trends that is at the base of this piece, and there are some interesting factoids there.
    
    But applying this armchair analysis to, say, a semirural truckdriver living in Texarkana who was born in the same years ...
    
    I think that Susan falls prey to one of the real pitfalls of anecdotal analysis. A lot of the well-educated people living in & around NYC probably fit nicely into these convenient boxes. They had dot-com jobs, use the words "seminal," "angel investor" and "post-ironic" in sentences, and extrapolating from their experiences (and hers), well, it just all seems so obvious, doesn't it?
    
    Meanwhile, back in the really complex world, the causes of the economic downturn are a lot harder to explain in a 2,000 word piece. The losses that are killing the economy have a lot more to do with the way that the toxic loans were bundled up into ridiculous derivatives than they do with lingering "Mommy was never around to fix me a sammich" angst. Out on the Left Coast, a lot of the people losing their houses are recent immigrants from Asia & Central America, people who didn't have the same sepia-tone Brady Bunch version of the 70s ... their reality looked a lot more like "The Killing Fields" and "Under Fire" the the privileged, cloistered world that Susan is describing. They didn't get into subprime mortgages for the reasons that Susan & her friends did.
    
    "Gen-X Nesting Mania" makes a nice headline, though. Looking forward to seeing it in PowerPoint presentations in the next couple years.

    posted by : Tom Joad on 12/23/2008 at 9:08 PM Flag For Abuse

13. Obama is not a Boomer or Xer. As many nationally influential voices have repeatedly noted, he is part of Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X. Google Generation Jones, and you'll find that many top commentators from many top publications and networks (New York Times, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) are using that term now, and are specifically referring to Obama, born in 1961, as part of Generation Jones.

    posted by : this time also on 12/24/2008 at 11:10 AM Flag For Abuse

14. It's not surprising that Susan Gregory Thomas' superb essay elicited a number of ridiculous responses by those who saw the truth in what she writes. Thomas encountered the same resistance to her marvelous "Buy, Baby, Buy" which encountered the same response even though it, in fact, put the blame on the toy producers, not the parents. No one like to hear they've screwed up. (some of the responses were by people who claimed that Thomas' portrait didn't apply to them. Well, fine (if they're right; does anyone really believe that Thomas meant *every* member of the generation.)
    
    A nice bonus is that, when it seemed that everything that could be said about the financial/housing crisis had been said, Thomas offers a new, most-insightful analysis.
    
    I hope Babble readers won't be put off by the inane responses. Thomas' piece is truly excellent and well worth reading. I hope that the essay presages a book on the topic.
    
    S. J. Estes

    posted by : nighttrain on 12/24/2008 at 1:31 PM Flag For Abuse

15. Hats off to Susan for a fantastic memoir. I linked to it in my 12/26 post, "...Blue Plate Specials," which is a roundup of the best blog posts and news stories every week or so. This deserves so much more than my humble link can provide. I followed every word through and through even though at first, the title put me off. I was sure a Boomer had written it. Then, to make it to the end and be completely stunned by the admission and conclusion. Really great stuff. I agree - a precursor to a book. Also, the line, "utterly white light experience," is one of the most resonating lines I have ever read. It has been impossible for me, for the last 11 years, to adequately describe the birth of my first child until now. Thomas has given me the words I needed so many times. http://www.jenx67.com
    
    Oh, and regarding the comment above from "getreal" -- yes, I think her success can be attributed to a foundation that too few Gen Xers had. She should just be thankful. Comments like "stop crying" annoy ME. How can someone so blessed judge people when they haven't walked a proverbial mile in their shoes? People who are clueless about the legacy of divorce and other dominant experiences that culturally define the American Gen Xer, really should evaulate how much of their self-righteousness can be attributed to blessings beyond their control.

    posted by : jenx67 on 12/27/2008 at 8:45 PM Flag For Abuse

16. guess you missed the parts about sacrifice and prudence...
    
    I know I am blessed, but also know that I worked for everything I have...never had a sense of entitlement...you can't buy it w cash, you don't need it
    
    parents didn't divorce but dad was mean/abusive
    
    moved out and supported myself from 18 on, so, yeah, stop crying

    posted by : getrealagain on 12/29/2008 at 5:37 PM Flag For Abuse

17. I find the "psychological" reasons people always refer to as fascinating, but more importantly, insulting. Fascinating in a way that there are really people out there who pretend to not know why they do the things they do or make the decisions they do--decisions that they most definitely are capable of rationalizing in any direction they wish and to turn the other cheek when they are able to self-justifiably do so. I don't buy it, just as I also chose to not buy a larger double-the-size-of-the-home-I-have-now home. My parents are divorced, my mother had to work under the table to support her 3 children prior to remarrying because our biological father chose to not pay child support. She remarried a man who was paying child support to the degree that helping us obtain school clothes each year was a struggle and we were all crammed into a very small home, despite making a good living. My husband's family - well let's just sum it by saying he had 4 fathers, including an alcoholic, and they eventually lost their extremely large and fabulous home. No over-parenting by our baby-boomer parents. Yet when we chose to refinance 6 years ago, it was literally to save some money - we didn't take any cash back from the refinancing. We shortened our loan term by 10 years and yet saving us $120,000 in the long run. When we found out we were expecting another child, we looked at some of the wonderful new-construction homes everyone around us were buying....we talked it over. Was our own home really subpar enough to warrant shelling out another $80,000 for one more bedroom and another 800 square feet? No! Our ranch style home is better than any home I ever lived in growing up, and that still didn't make me feel entitled to more than I can afford. My children are my world, and I KNOW they need to explore their world a little more withOUT me dictating to them how they do it. The fact that so many people failed to predict purchasing a home above their means because so-and-so did, because they simply wanted it, or because the bank "dangled" it in front of them simply makes Americans look like complete idiots incapable of thinking for themselves, incapable of making logical or informed decisions on their own.

    posted by : Puhleeze on 1/4/2009 at 1:53 AM Flag For Abuse

18. Well said, Tom Joad.

    posted by : New York Media Elite on 1/8/2009 at 4:24 PM Flag For Abuse

19. Thanks for this article. I never thought about it before, but it is completely insane that we own a home with almost no money down, when at the time we bought the house my partner had 6,000 dollars in credit card debt. I also see how we are both hyper-parents compared to both of ours; I haven't even talked to my mother in 3 years, yet when it comes to my own daughter I have been a attachment parenting zealot. I think in the same way that the hippies of the 1960s rejected the perfection of their parents, I think generation X rejected the idea that they couldn't have and be everything. I think people who are my age, ten years younger then generation X are in some ways even worse off. The MTV lifestyle is what people my age try to have, even if they can't afford it without massive credit card debt or emptying their parents bank accounts.
    
    Coming from a less then middle class background it scares me that we make so much more money, but I still have to be concerned about the same things financially because of the money we do spend on non-sense.

    posted by : dhsredhead on 1/12/2009 at 5:04 PM Flag For Abuse

20. The real deal is that ALL the current living generations are responsible for the meltdown (along with at least one that is mostly gone). The role of Silents, Boomers, Gen-X and Millennials in the economic crisis is fairly equal (okay, maybe the Millennials get off the hook a bit because they are so young). It is the temperament of each of these generations that causes a crisis like we are in now. I have been blogging about this very subject recently at http://www.thegenxfiles.com

    posted by : dsohigian on 2/5/2009 at 5:46 PM Flag For Abuse

21. RE: getreal on 12/22/2008 @ 2:34 PM
    Hear, hear.
    
    This article would've been more effective if not for the snarky tone -- but then, snark (and consumer debt) are the big hallmarks of Gen X, right?
    
    I can always tell who amongst my circle is living above their means. They speak of "deserving" luxury items -- justifying their big appetites for big ticket items as if they were martyrs. Such a load of crap. Culturally we all need to learn the concept of delayed gratification if we are to manage this scenario.

    posted by : Malia Oates on 2/18/2009 at 12:44 AM Flag For Abuse