How To Raise A Family When You’re A Broke Millennial
The economy is in bad shape right now. The middle class has vanished and with it any hopes of ever owning a house or working your way out of student debt you accrued from studying animation at Trinity College. More and more I’m seeing my generation’s chance to have kids and start a family pass them by because they can’t afford it, knowing that one day, long after their ovaries have dried up and their sperms are all dead from one too many nights of their Macbooks overheating on their laps while they passed out watching The Dead Zone, they’ll look back and wonder why they never took that great big chance. But listen, as someone who’s trying to “make it” in a big city with a child, I’m here to tell you that if you’re worried, just STOP:
Sacrifice. Starting a family takes sacrifice. You might have to end up working two or three jobs as rents continue to climb and you move further and further out of the city and the commutes take longer and longer. But when you finally get home at midnight and can’t open the door to the baby’s room to see their peaceful sleeping body because the cheap latex paint sticks to the door frame and makes a loud noise whenever you open it, just know that the little person asleep in that room that never sees you appreciates what you’re doing for them.
Toys. Toys can be a huge and, arguably, unnecessary expense. Don’t go to community-organized toy drives, that lets your child know that you’re poor and then they’ll go through life with low self esteem. Instead find a playground in one of the nicer neighborhoods. The parents and nannies there usually have a relaxed, egalitarian attitude and let the other kids play with their toys assuming no one will take them. Remember that they have money and can easily replace them.
Owning. The housing market will never recover and unless you want to live in some sun-bleached, barren suburban hellhole like Agoura Hills or some other prison of mediocrity, accept the fact that you have no ownership over anything in this life and your children and grandchildren will probably end up renting the cheap plot of land they bury your bruised, broken body in.
Parents. Chances are if you’re living in a big city you’ve moved away from your hometown, and with that, your family. Your parents understand and they know you’re trying to break your generations-long curse of poverty and hopelessness by taking a chance and gathering the little capital that’s left over in this country as it wheezes out a few more death rattles and late stage capitalism stops being an effective defibrillator. They know that you’re from a generation that was raised almost exclusively on television and celebrity, deluding you into thinking you’re a relevant voice to add to the ever-expanding universe of pop culture, the only manufacturing industry left in this country. And that those trips back home to see their grandchild are going to become more and more infrequent as the years go by and the children get older. They know that memories can just as easily be formed over 17-minute FaceTime calls as they can running around in the spacious backyards of your old rural hometown where the sun isn’t blocked by cheap high rises and it’s hard to tell where the property line ends and nature begins.
Remember to just STOP being a pussy about this and you can make it work.
