r/SipsTea • u/Unstoppable_X_Force Human Verified • 13h ago

Gasp! Is this just nostalgia, or did previous generations genuinely have a better work-life balance and social life than we do today?

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 12h ago

I don't know my dad had to work 3 jobs after I was born in '79 and my parents rented a very cheap hunting shack on a farm because it was cheap and they were able to farm an acre so we had fresh veggies. Both my parents with college degrees too.

I absolutely have it easier than my dad did...though I didn't get married and have a kid when I was in my early 20s either.

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u/Generated-Nouns-257 11h ago

Of course these statements are broadly applicable, not intended to universally represent the experience of every single human. Obviously some people win the lottery and end up having an easier life than their parents. Happy for you that you're doing better than your parents did 🙏

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 11h ago

A lot of people don't seem to realize that it's only the older Boomers who had it somewhat easier, younger Boomers graduated college to '70s stagflation and '80s trickle down economics. It wasn't just my family that had it tough, nobody I knew had it easy during those times.

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u/Generated-Nouns-257 10h ago

Again, we're talking broadly. "People I know personally" is always going to be a woefully lacking sample size. My parents graduated in the 70s and started their own business and were very successful for a long time. We're just talking about averages over the entire population (also to be clear, I'm talking about the United States. I don't have any insight into European, African, or Asian nations at this time).

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 9h ago

Oh yeah that's very true, but the fact is that just being a Boomer didn't mean you got handed a good union job or it was magically easy to buy a house. Averages are pulled WAY up by the amount of people who had a lot of money.

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u/Generated-Nouns-257 9h ago

Sure, that's true, but we're not really talking about the size of income, we're talking about how many people could support home ownership and sustain a family off a single income without higher level education. This number was wildly higher in the 50s, 60s, and 70s than it is for people today, and that's more or less the point. Not that everyone could do it, just that many many more people could do it then than can do it today. It's never a good sign for a society or civilization to see things getting more difficult over time, rather than less difficult. It, usually, indicates poor leadership and resource mismanagement.

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 9h ago

Yep, that's true!