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- May 11, 2013
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Asscher I'm copying your latest post to me here for reply.
My alcoholic abusive father died when I was 12, Mom went to work (previously owned their own business, mostly worked out of the house) 6 days a week, one full time and two part time jobs. I got a job at 12, seventh grade, working 15-20 hours a week all through junior and high school, so I could buy my own food and clothes since my Mother did everything she could to not go upside down on our house.
My alcoholic/abusive/drug addict mom tried to kill me when I was 13. When I use the word abusive let me just say that it was way worse than that, my mother was ANGRY, ADDICTED, ALCOHOLIC and couldn't stand me. When I was 14 I babysat, 15 babysat, 16 worked in a grocery store 5 days a week, 3 after school, it was better than being at home. My father was an alcoholic who zoned out, was away all the time drinking. In high school I was working 18 hours a week during school and 16 hours on weekends.. in those days grocery stores closed at 6:00 pm. I bought my own clothes or my sister and I shared because she could sew, although I was heavier and taller than her, she always let me squeeze in. Miss her. My mother set the house on fire, she tried to commit suicide 2X in front of us, she was toughest on me and my brother behind me.
I wanted to be a teacher, steady paycheck, jobs around here are supposedly "good" and "safe". I went local, driving my 1992 Maxima that I paid for in cash I saved. I had some scholarships, my first year I didn't pay much because my Mother ended up going to federal prison for a year when I was 15/16 for fraud committed while in business with my father when he was alive. FAFSA saved me that year. After my Mom got back, my senior year in high school, she ended up pregnant with twins pretty quickly. She got married, which ****ed me over since she went from basically no income to now include her husband's. I was already one year in at my school, and not about to go somewhere else.
I wanted to me a physician, an anything to get out of that hell hole.. theme song: we gotta get outta this place. I never had a car till I was 25, my mother at that time started sobering up and my brothers were getting into HUGE problems, my Dad lost his job and went on a BENDER! for 4 days, he lost his job due to stealing money from his job, they did not arrest him, made him pay it back.. the union came on board and negotiated a deal that if my father could stay sober for 3 months they would rehire him.. he did, they did and he worked for 11 more years in his blue collar job as an exemplary employee.. my mother actually sobered up because she knew my father was going off the alcoholic deep edge, which he did to.. Without student aide from the CUNY system, a work/study program from the FEDS I don't know where I would be today, TRUTH. Your mother should have hung with my mom in the 70s.. BUT my mom did sober up and really tried hard to make amends BUT sometimes that doesn't take away any of the PTSD that I was diagnosed with over the years. My mother was spoiled, lazy, spoiled, she expected a queenly life and she married a blue collar guy who only wanted to go out and dance to swing and dress up.. there was no escape for the Greatest generation.
I worked full time in retail, and attended school full time, and babysat on the weekends, and help raised my twin brothers. I had to take a few classes over because of life and working all of those hours. In all I ended up about 60k in debt from undergrad. I graduated in 2007, the first year that school districts cut positions like crazy, no one I graduated with from a school renowned for their education program secured a teaching position for the next year. I was lucky to get a 19k per year paraprofessional position.
I worked full time in secretarial/business/ambulance car rider/messenger etc. I helped raise my two Irish twin brothers born 13 months apart - quite another story of how that affected my life. I ended up with 25K in debt and as I said, my ex had over 80K (all in todays dollars). Never interested in teaching (my sister taught).
So then I went to grad school, CUNY to save as much as possible, while working full time as a para, while working part time at Macy's. In 2009 when I finished grad school officially 80k in debt (6 years, 2 degrees) I was lucky enough to get a teaching position in Brooklyn. I spent the next 6 years earning less than 3k a month while my student loans and half of the rent alone was over half of my take home pay. This is the shit I talk about. They didn't have "income sensitive" repayment when I finished, we just had to pay, and pay, and pay. And with teachers with Masters degrees earning 3k per month, how the hell is anyone supposed to save to buy anything? This is why, when possible, we live at home, even teachers can't afford other options.
I could not think of grad school or law school or medical school, I had to get a job, I needed a car, I needed an out. (I also took a semester off and worked at a ski lodge way upstate, that was fun, I skied for free but man I worked my a$$ off for pennies).
If anything I'm one of the luckier ones, I fought through it, finished, and eventually will dig myself out. Many of my friends, not so lucky. Never managed to get a teaching job, degree is old now, no one will hire them, they work in retail for shit money or in restaurants. Or they have 120k in debt for a degree is psychology, which is worthless. I get it, it's their fault, blah blah blah. But why the hell let someone take out so much money? Why can anyone take out 120k in loans when they wouldn't even be able to get a car loan? And this debt can't even be discharged with bankruptcy. It's ruining people's lives. Why can someone start over after racking up 50k on credit cards but student debt is unforgivable?
Truth be told I don't know about many people in my time, most went to college, most became teachers, engineers, opened their own businesses. One became a reverend. All the guys knew at Fordham became lawyers, some went into the military. Many of my girlfriends did not get 4 year degrees.. some still struggle today, divorce, mortgages underwater, I am the only one of my original posse that isn't working. My big break was getting hired by IBM. Changed my life. People are responsible for themselves at 18, you know that.. why would you ever think that someone should or would say, don't take out that loan, we are all grownups, my mother said "Tekate, you made your bed, now sleep in it". As to discharging the college debts of millenials.. blame that on the republicans, they are the ones who threw that one in. People my age and slackers also over used the bankruptcy plan I think.
Things need to change. They need to. An entire generation is crippled by being pushed to go to college. To just keep taking out loans. My husband would have been much better off joining the sanitation department than going to college. His parents pushed him, forced him to go and then helped pay for nothing. He spent just as much as me to finish school, and makes half as much. Now we have a child and he needs to keep his job for the flexible schedule. We're stuck. It's the most educated generation with no where to go.
You see, the thing I would do IS join the sanitation department till I paid for effing loans off. I never EVER pushed my sons to go to college EVER. BUT when they were young I would say to them, See this place XY? this is where people live who don't go to college.. one day my husband was bringing #2 son home from a flag football game in SE Austin, XY was about 6 and he turned to my husband and said: "Daddy is there where people live who didn't go to college"? so I did influence them but I never told them once they had to go to college, we did say to them, XY * XY, if you want more choices in life, then you need to go to college, if you work at HEB without getting some kind of degree then your choice will be very limited in life, they heard that. My DIL, has no degree works at CVS at a pharmacy tech, has now been promoted to training techs and going to different CVS to observe and write reports and train to enhance the program for younger people coming on board.. she owes a lot of money in my mind for not getting her degree, but her parents didn't go to college and they didn't help her one iota, her dad is an electrician with a jones and her mom is an idiot.
The differences I see in your history and mine is, you seem to feel owed, you feel as though you were screwed. I never did, I never once looked back and did anything I could for money (within reason). As I said my break came in the computer revolution, I was hired as a secretary, retrained to be a coder, married an IBM the 2nd time.. If IBM said to me: would you take this training, I ALWAYS said YES. Your generation is not screwed, my nephew worked in banking in Manhattan after getting a business degree from Penn State, he hated it and opened his own furniture making business, he's still trying to break even. His wife has 2 kids from her first marriage and one with my nephew, it's a crazy life but they make, she is a lawyer downtown but she surely doesn't make tons, she get's great child support, she gave up a plus life to live her life, I admire her, it's a struggle. Dealing with exhusbands sucks sucks sucks.
here are some threads I read to better understand this millenial crisis.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...g-it-hard-transition-adulthood-report-n748676
https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrya...get-jobs-heres-why-and-what-to-do-about-it/2/
http://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/unlocking-millennials.aspx
I can say to you: move to Texas, while it's hot and sucks in so many ways, there are teaching jobs, there are jobs for psych majors in startups, from what I read many startups (millenial started) need the psych major to understand their employees and their future and current customers.. you can take a psych degree and turn it into a new career.
http://www.careerprofiles.info/psychology-bachelors-degree-career-options.html
My alcoholic abusive father died when I was 12, Mom went to work (previously owned their own business, mostly worked out of the house) 6 days a week, one full time and two part time jobs. I got a job at 12, seventh grade, working 15-20 hours a week all through junior and high school, so I could buy my own food and clothes since my Mother did everything she could to not go upside down on our house.
My alcoholic/abusive/drug addict mom tried to kill me when I was 13. When I use the word abusive let me just say that it was way worse than that, my mother was ANGRY, ADDICTED, ALCOHOLIC and couldn't stand me. When I was 14 I babysat, 15 babysat, 16 worked in a grocery store 5 days a week, 3 after school, it was better than being at home. My father was an alcoholic who zoned out, was away all the time drinking. In high school I was working 18 hours a week during school and 16 hours on weekends.. in those days grocery stores closed at 6:00 pm. I bought my own clothes or my sister and I shared because she could sew, although I was heavier and taller than her, she always let me squeeze in. Miss her. My mother set the house on fire, she tried to commit suicide 2X in front of us, she was toughest on me and my brother behind me.
I wanted to be a teacher, steady paycheck, jobs around here are supposedly "good" and "safe". I went local, driving my 1992 Maxima that I paid for in cash I saved. I had some scholarships, my first year I didn't pay much because my Mother ended up going to federal prison for a year when I was 15/16 for fraud committed while in business with my father when he was alive. FAFSA saved me that year. After my Mom got back, my senior year in high school, she ended up pregnant with twins pretty quickly. She got married, which ****ed me over since she went from basically no income to now include her husband's. I was already one year in at my school, and not about to go somewhere else.
I wanted to me a physician, an anything to get out of that hell hole.. theme song: we gotta get outta this place. I never had a car till I was 25, my mother at that time started sobering up and my brothers were getting into HUGE problems, my Dad lost his job and went on a BENDER! for 4 days, he lost his job due to stealing money from his job, they did not arrest him, made him pay it back.. the union came on board and negotiated a deal that if my father could stay sober for 3 months they would rehire him.. he did, they did and he worked for 11 more years in his blue collar job as an exemplary employee.. my mother actually sobered up because she knew my father was going off the alcoholic deep edge, which he did to.. Without student aide from the CUNY system, a work/study program from the FEDS I don't know where I would be today, TRUTH. Your mother should have hung with my mom in the 70s.. BUT my mom did sober up and really tried hard to make amends BUT sometimes that doesn't take away any of the PTSD that I was diagnosed with over the years. My mother was spoiled, lazy, spoiled, she expected a queenly life and she married a blue collar guy who only wanted to go out and dance to swing and dress up.. there was no escape for the Greatest generation.
I worked full time in retail, and attended school full time, and babysat on the weekends, and help raised my twin brothers. I had to take a few classes over because of life and working all of those hours. In all I ended up about 60k in debt from undergrad. I graduated in 2007, the first year that school districts cut positions like crazy, no one I graduated with from a school renowned for their education program secured a teaching position for the next year. I was lucky to get a 19k per year paraprofessional position.
I worked full time in secretarial/business/ambulance car rider/messenger etc. I helped raise my two Irish twin brothers born 13 months apart - quite another story of how that affected my life. I ended up with 25K in debt and as I said, my ex had over 80K (all in todays dollars). Never interested in teaching (my sister taught).
So then I went to grad school, CUNY to save as much as possible, while working full time as a para, while working part time at Macy's. In 2009 when I finished grad school officially 80k in debt (6 years, 2 degrees) I was lucky enough to get a teaching position in Brooklyn. I spent the next 6 years earning less than 3k a month while my student loans and half of the rent alone was over half of my take home pay. This is the shit I talk about. They didn't have "income sensitive" repayment when I finished, we just had to pay, and pay, and pay. And with teachers with Masters degrees earning 3k per month, how the hell is anyone supposed to save to buy anything? This is why, when possible, we live at home, even teachers can't afford other options.
I could not think of grad school or law school or medical school, I had to get a job, I needed a car, I needed an out. (I also took a semester off and worked at a ski lodge way upstate, that was fun, I skied for free but man I worked my a$$ off for pennies).
If anything I'm one of the luckier ones, I fought through it, finished, and eventually will dig myself out. Many of my friends, not so lucky. Never managed to get a teaching job, degree is old now, no one will hire them, they work in retail for shit money or in restaurants. Or they have 120k in debt for a degree is psychology, which is worthless. I get it, it's their fault, blah blah blah. But why the hell let someone take out so much money? Why can anyone take out 120k in loans when they wouldn't even be able to get a car loan? And this debt can't even be discharged with bankruptcy. It's ruining people's lives. Why can someone start over after racking up 50k on credit cards but student debt is unforgivable?
Truth be told I don't know about many people in my time, most went to college, most became teachers, engineers, opened their own businesses. One became a reverend. All the guys knew at Fordham became lawyers, some went into the military. Many of my girlfriends did not get 4 year degrees.. some still struggle today, divorce, mortgages underwater, I am the only one of my original posse that isn't working. My big break was getting hired by IBM. Changed my life. People are responsible for themselves at 18, you know that.. why would you ever think that someone should or would say, don't take out that loan, we are all grownups, my mother said "Tekate, you made your bed, now sleep in it". As to discharging the college debts of millenials.. blame that on the republicans, they are the ones who threw that one in. People my age and slackers also over used the bankruptcy plan I think.
Things need to change. They need to. An entire generation is crippled by being pushed to go to college. To just keep taking out loans. My husband would have been much better off joining the sanitation department than going to college. His parents pushed him, forced him to go and then helped pay for nothing. He spent just as much as me to finish school, and makes half as much. Now we have a child and he needs to keep his job for the flexible schedule. We're stuck. It's the most educated generation with no where to go.
You see, the thing I would do IS join the sanitation department till I paid for effing loans off. I never EVER pushed my sons to go to college EVER. BUT when they were young I would say to them, See this place XY? this is where people live who don't go to college.. one day my husband was bringing #2 son home from a flag football game in SE Austin, XY was about 6 and he turned to my husband and said: "Daddy is there where people live who didn't go to college"? so I did influence them but I never told them once they had to go to college, we did say to them, XY * XY, if you want more choices in life, then you need to go to college, if you work at HEB without getting some kind of degree then your choice will be very limited in life, they heard that. My DIL, has no degree works at CVS at a pharmacy tech, has now been promoted to training techs and going to different CVS to observe and write reports and train to enhance the program for younger people coming on board.. she owes a lot of money in my mind for not getting her degree, but her parents didn't go to college and they didn't help her one iota, her dad is an electrician with a jones and her mom is an idiot.
The differences I see in your history and mine is, you seem to feel owed, you feel as though you were screwed. I never did, I never once looked back and did anything I could for money (within reason). As I said my break came in the computer revolution, I was hired as a secretary, retrained to be a coder, married an IBM the 2nd time.. If IBM said to me: would you take this training, I ALWAYS said YES. Your generation is not screwed, my nephew worked in banking in Manhattan after getting a business degree from Penn State, he hated it and opened his own furniture making business, he's still trying to break even. His wife has 2 kids from her first marriage and one with my nephew, it's a crazy life but they make, she is a lawyer downtown but she surely doesn't make tons, she get's great child support, she gave up a plus life to live her life, I admire her, it's a struggle. Dealing with exhusbands sucks sucks sucks.
here are some threads I read to better understand this millenial crisis.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...g-it-hard-transition-adulthood-report-n748676
https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrya...get-jobs-heres-why-and-what-to-do-about-it/2/
http://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/unlocking-millennials.aspx
I can say to you: move to Texas, while it's hot and sucks in so many ways, there are teaching jobs, there are jobs for psych majors in startups, from what I read many startups (millenial started) need the psych major to understand their employees and their future and current customers.. you can take a psych degree and turn it into a new career.
http://www.careerprofiles.info/psychology-bachelors-degree-career-options.html
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