Young people face scary world

At least in recent decades Americans have equated financial independence with adulthood. You aren’t really grown until you can support yourself. You are cautioned not to marry or have children, adult tasks, until you can support yourself. Some young people are told point-blank by their parents that after undergraduate school, and for some after high school, they are on their own. People who may give generously to their favorite charities frequently draw the line at continuing to fund adult children. “Oprah” shows are done on what to do about children lingering in the basement after their parents think they should be gone.

In “The Case for Early Marriage,” a much-talked about article by Mark Regnerus, a case was made for continued parental and other adult support so that early marriage is an option. This is one of the only admissions I have seen that many young people today simply cannot reach the financial independence their parents achieved no matter how frugal they might be. The increasing costs of medical care, housing and additional costs like Internet access, without which you can’t even apply for a job, coupled with depressed wages and the need for more years of expensive education have rendered financial independence for the young more a fantasy than a reality. It affects every segment of society.

I ran into a man who lives out of that top drawer of the American economy. A Harvard graduate with a master’s degree from Columbia, he has an income and investments that probably put him in at least the country’s wealthiest 5 percent, maybe higher. He has grown children, one of whom is in the arts and makes nothing. He said that none of his friends’ children are employed. The children he is talking about are the most privileged in this country. They went to the best schools. They are not slackers; their parents had the highest expectations for them and all the right connections to make it happen. It isn’t happening.

The top law schools can no longer find jobs for their graduates. Who could have imagined that people with a degree from Harvard Law School or Yale or Columbia would have to worry about unemployment, but that is exactly what has happened. And many of them have $200,000 in debt.  They thought they had a sure thing. They weren’t buying a lottery ticket; they were buying a career.

What happens to a generation that gets shut out of adulthood in a country that demands that everyone from welfare recipients to rich kids support themselves? I was amused when I was asked information about my sister when she was in the hospital. What was her occupation? I said she did not have a job. The person with the form asked me again about her occupation. There was a blank; it had to be filled. I protested that she did not have an occupation. This did no good. Everyone has to have an occupation. I finally said, “Well, about 30 years ago she worked as an editor for Gourmet Magazine.” When I was handed copies of her death certificate, they read “Occupation: Editor at Gourmet Magazine.” Even the dead must have jobs listed.

The Harvard graduate with the grown children had a solution: electrical engineering. You have to get a degree in electrical engineering. That’s the ticket. And I remember when it was Russian. Become fluent in Russian and you would always have a job. Then it was Japanese. My parents insisted that it was a teacher’s certificate. Then it was computer programmer. Then it was nursing. But if I have learned anything, it is that life has become financially more like a lottery than I ever dreamed it could. Just because you have a good job today doesn’t mean you won’t be laid off tomorrow. How can anyone take on adult responsibilities under these conditions? What does it mean to be an adult now? And what does it mean to be a parent of adult children? We are sailing through uncharted waters, and it is scary.

Patricia Hunt, of Staunton, is a Mary Baldwin College chaplain.