Few milestones in life mean as much to the American Dream as owning a home. And millennials have encountered the kind of trouble totally befitting their generation, which largely graduated into the teeth of the disastrous post-2008 job market. Just as they entered peak homebuying and household formation age, housing affordability is at 40-year lows, and mortgage rates are near 40-year highs.

The anxiety this generation feels about the prospect of never owning their own home affects their entire perception of their finances and the economy, says Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi.

“If they feel like they’re locked out of owning a home it colors their perceptions about everything else going on in their financial lives,” Zandi says.

Millennials have long been dogged by a brutal housing market. They faced not one, but two, cataclysmic economic events—the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020. Both of which left them reeling financially and struggling to afford a home. The Great Recession decimated the real estate market as the economy nearly collapsed under the weight of tenuous mortgage backed securities. While the pandemic brought with it a remote work boom that caused millions of citydwellers to flee to the suburbs, sending housing prices soaring.

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  • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    It’s a fundamental truth. Children feeling compelled to care for their parents is purely their choice.

    I never said it was a bad choice, but it is a choice.

    But if you do make that choice, it has consequences.

    The concept of children “owing” their parents their lives is anachronistic and ignores the fact the parent chose to have them.

    Any parent that feels their children owe taking care of the parent in their older age is an asshole, period. A parent that raised their child well should produce a child that wants to help their parent out of love, not a feeling of owed necessary.

    The former is family and love, the latter is narcissistic parents that think they “own” their child.

    BUT a child shouldn’t be killing themselves to take care of their parent. Any parent that actually loves their child would never ask their child to give up their own life to suit the parents comfort.

    A good parent will do whatever it takes to support their child, and if that means leaving their old life behind to move (with their child) somewhere more affordable so the child can actually afford to take care of them, that shouldn’t even be a tough question for the parent to answer, it should be an instant “yes, if you are sure you want to do that I’ll support your decision”

    Parents that compel their children to live outside their means just because they won’t move with them somewhere in their means because they dont want to leave their old home behind are shitty parents, period

    Parents should never be prioritizing their own comfort at the cost of their children’s success in life. If you do that, you were never fit to have a child.

    • theprogressivist @lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The concept of children “owing” their parents their lives is anachronistic and ignores the fact the parent chose to have them.

      We get it. Your parents were shit to you, so the concept of loving and being loved is foreign and unheard to you. People choose to care for their parents because they love them, ya dink.