Silent Generation

It’s not my imagination

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments

Another commonly held belief seems to be that older generations are somehow tougher than younger ones. That life was harder for them and people have gotten progressively more comfortable.

I beg to differ.

Although the tremendous sacrifices and bravery of the so-called “Greatest Generation” can never be overestimated (they literally risked everything to defeat the Nazis), I would argue that non-marginalized groups in the following generation (my parents cohort) have had it pretty good. Many went from lower class (aka poor) to highly comfortable and secure in a single lifetime. And although we benefited from our parents’ prosperity, the following generation (mine) has had it harder in many ways. And our kids are going to have it even harder.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but there are reasons the birthrate is historically low in 2025. We all know millennials who are choosing not to have children (or GenXers & Boomers who are sad that they will never be grandparents).

I asked ChatGPT to compare the lives of someone born in the mid 1930s, mid 1960s, and mid 1990s.

Facts:

1. Income & Jobs

Born mid-1930s (entered workforce ~1950s): Median household income in 1955: ~$5,000 (≈ $58,000 in today’s dollars). A single income (often the father’s) could support a family, home, and college savings. Job security was higher; pensions were common. Born mid-1960s (entered workforce ~1980s): Median household income in 1985: ~$23,600 (≈ $66,000 today). Both parents often worked, but wages grew more slowly compared to the cost of living. 401(k)s replaced pensions, shifting retirement risk to individuals. Born mid-1990s (entered workforce ~2015–2020): Median household income in 2019: ~$68,700. In real terms, wages for young workers have stagnated since the 1970s, while housing, education, and healthcare rose sharply. Gig economy and contract jobs more common, less stability/benefits.

2. Cost of College (Public University, In-State Tuition)

1930s cohort (college in 1950s): $200/year tuition ($2,400 today). College was affordable even with part-time work; no significant debt. 1960s cohort (college in 1980s): $1,500/year tuition ($4,000–$5,000 today). Still affordable with summer jobs; modest debt possible. 1990s cohort (college in 2010s): ~$10,000/year tuition (public); $35,000–$50,000/year (private). Widespread reliance on loans; average borrower debt: $30,000+.

3. Healthcare Costs

1930s cohort: Out-of-pocket affordable; many employers covered full family insurance. Doctor visits and hospital stays far cheaper relative to income. 1960s cohort: Insurance became tied to employment. Costs rose, but still manageable. Deductibles/co-pays introduced. 1990s cohort: Healthcare costs skyrocketed (family premiums ~$24,000/year by 2025, often split with employer). Medical debt is a leading cause of bankruptcy.

4. Cost of Raising a Child (to age 18, middle-class family), not including college

1930s cohort (raising kids in 1960s): ~$25,000 total (≈ $240,000 today). 1960s cohort (raising kids in 1990s): ~$150,000 (≈ $280,000 today). 1990s cohort (raising kids in 2020s): ~$310,000. Housing, childcare, healthcare, and college costs exploded. Childcare alone can rival college tuition.

5. Retirement

1930s cohort: Retired with pensions, Social Security, mortgage-free home. Comfortable retirement was realistic for average workers. 1960s cohort: Retirement savings depended on 401(k)s and IRAs; investment risk shifted to individuals. Some still had pensions, but they were fading. 1990s cohort: Retirement is much more uncertain. Pensions rare; Social Security’s future questioned. Rising housing and healthcare costs make saving harder. Many expect to work past 65.

A final note: When my friend Carla was dying in 2022 at age 57 from brain cancer, she commented that at least she wasn’t going to have to worry about paying bills anymore. She felt that one upside of an early death would be a release from financial concerns. Carla had an advanced degree in nursing and worked (very hard) as a hospice medical director. She was married with two adult children that she’d been able to send to college.

And I’m sure she walked to school in the snow plenty of times.

My parents got the best of America

~ MaryG ~ 17 Comments

My parents are part of the so-called Silent Generation. They were born in the 30s, in the decade before the baby boom started. My father is about five years older than my mother so he remembers being a kid during World War 2. He was born to poor Italian immigrants, but thanks to the GI Bill, after serving four pre-Vietnam years in the Air Force, he got to go to college for free. He wisely studied engineering and his life went straight up from there. My mother was born to lower middle class second-generation immigrants of mixed European descent and her parents were able to afford to send her to UMass on their modest incomes. She graduated debt-free and stopped working as a teacher the minute she started “showing” with me and never really had to work after that.

They were able to buy a new house (actually two), raise two daughters, send them to college (in my sister’s case, numerous colleges), travel the world, and enjoy a decades-long comfortable retirement, including 6+ weeks in sunny Florida each winter. Now, as they enter the final season of their lives, they are in remarkably good health and have various good options. They could sell their two-story home (which they purchased for about 30K in the 60s and is now worth 1M+) and move into one of several different high-end assisted living facilities nearby, or move into their one-floor condo, or adapt their two-story house as needed and just stay there. They have many different options.

From the GI Bill to plentiful and affordable new housing, quality public education (including college), Medicare, Social Security, and generous ongoing veterans benefits, America has been great to them.

Now, I’m not complaining (much) because I’ve been lucky too, but things were a bit different for us. My husband and most of my friends incurred tremendous debt to go to college and grad school in the 80s and 90s. We made sacrifices for me to stay at home for a couple of years when my kids were babies, including buying a dilapidated, antique house with a down payment I had to ask my father for in a humiliating conversation.

We worked hard to fix up that tiny old house with the severely slanting floors, lead paint, and leaking fieldstone basement. I got a job, my husband got a second job, and he also put in tons of sweat equity. We were able to roll his student loans into our mortgage. And then, when we decided to try to sell that house in 2004, we got lucky. I found buyers that overpaid significantly for our house. I met a woman on a playground (another young mom) who wanted to buy a house in our town and I told her that ours just happened to be on the market. We hit it off personally and that predisposed her to like my house more than she should have when she and her husband came to see it with a realtor. We ended up making nearly 150% on that house in just nine years. If we had waited three more years to sell it, the subprime mortgage crisis would’ve been underway and we never would’ve done so well. That one lucky sale set us to be able to get most of the things my parents got. We’ve achieved a similar lifestyle to theirs, but without the second home, extravagant travel, and 6+ weeks in Florida each winter.

After we moved to our bigger, newer house, we were super savers and got lucky with some corporate stock from one of my husband’s jobs and were able to give our two kids debt-free college educations. We know this is rare. This is not what most Americans can expect these days.

And as we face very uncertain times ahead, I can only hope that my kids, and their kids, will be able to get most of what we had. We will help them as much as we can, but we have our own retirement to worry about. Who the hell knows what will happen with Social Security and Medicare. We have to be prepared to pay for everything ourselves.

The contrast between what my immigrant grandparents arrived with and what my parents have been able to achieve in this country is staggering. Yes, my parents worked hard and stayed married (divorce is a real wealth killer), but they also happened to be born at a very good point in American history. I think it may turn out that they got the absolute best of America.

Four generations together for the first time yesterday

Related posts:

La Dolce Vita

The College Experience

Grandparents

My two grandmothers

Leaving on a jet plane

~ MaryG ~ 11 Comments
Daily writing prompt
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
View all responses

If we’re talking about my country (the U.S), I’m going on an airplane. The days when I may have fantasized about doing a Jack Kerouac/Hunter S. Thompson/Bob Dylan/Route 66 Great American Road Trip are over. It always sounded cool and like something you should do at least once in your life, but I never did it. I once drove from Massachusetts to Florida with a boyfriend. We had no particular plan. It was spring break and we just wanted to get warm, so we headed south. I think we made it to Daytona Beach before heading back.

Driving all the way to California from Massachusetts would’ve been a great adventure in my twenties, but I won’t be adding it to my bucket list now. I’m too old for that shit. And a bus would be even worse.

Actually, my mother took a bus from Massachusetts to California with two of her friends (one from high school and one from college) in 1960, between her junior and senior year of college. This was before women could get birth control or hold a credit card in their own name. They got jobs in Los Angeles and stayed for the whole summer, then took the bus back. They just wanted to see the country and have an adventure. I’ve always been impressed that my grandmother allowed her to plan that trip and that she had the guts to go.

Los Angeles in 1959 (photo by Railroad Jack on Flickr)
My mother in the 1950s

I suppose you could take a train across the United States, but nobody I know has done that, so perhaps it’s not that great of an experience.

Six years after my mother’s adventure, I was born. Two years after that, Peter, Paul and Mary wrote Leaving on a Jet Plane. I always loved that song.

Grandparents

~ MaryG ~ 3 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What were your parents doing at your age?
View all responses

When my parents were my age, they were new grandparents to my daughter. They only have two grandchildren and she was their first. They were thrilled to have a granddaughter and helped me out a lot. My mother would visit and babysit at least once a week. I was lucky that they lived within an hours drive.

Outside of being grandparents, they were big travelers. They went on many trips to countries around the world including China, Japan, Russia and all over Europe. I have some beautiful gifts from places they traveled to.

All families have issues (mine included), but I know I’ve been extremely privileged to have two responsible, caring parents who are still alive and well and married to each other! How many GenXers can say that? I know I got really lucky in the parent department.

They’ll be celebrating their 85th and 90th birthdays this summer, as well as their 62nd wedding anniversary.

Here we are on the beach in Florida five years ago. I’m looking forward to visiting them in Florida next week. It’ll be my first trip down to see them in their “snowbird” locale since the pandemic. I feel so lucky that I get another chance to make this trip.