To the Editor:
“A
New Generation, an Elusive American Dream” (front page, July 7)
shines a light on the significant changes in the lives of educated,
well-off, hard-working people who by all standards should be succeeding
and are instead finding themselves struggling in wholly unfamiliar
territory.
Educated couples with good jobs provided loving homes to their children
and promised them that they could be president one day, only to find
that their efforts weren’t enough. They did everything right by their
children, only to watch them flail.
And as children of this generation, we were always told to chase our
dreams, that we could be anything we wanted to be, so why should we
settle for less? Why should we major in something practical at a
reasonably priced college instead of following our passions in
theoretical studies with bills in the six digits? Why should we take any
job when we’ve been groomed to believe that we can have the job of our
dreams?
Who erred—our parents for telling us we could have everything, or us
for believing them?
Heidi Kim
New York, July 8, 2010
To the Editor:
I was always one of those top-of-the-class kids whom everyone loved to
hate but who everyone also assumed was destined to succeed.
I finished graduate school in August 2007, briefly taught English abroad
and landed back in Washington about two years ago, looking for work. In
the last couple of years, I’ve worked hard to gain experience—in
administrative positions, as a tutor, as a freelance writer and so
forth. But I’ve never held a paying job in my field—international
human rights and welfare—and I would willingly have taken such a job
for $30,000 a year.
I know a lot of other incredible young people in situations like mine.
Many readers, in the comments
on your Web site, criticized Scott Nicholson for expecting too much in
his job search. But while there may be some millennials deserving of
such criticism, there are many more of us who ask, for the time being,
for little more than jobs that take our brains out for a jog at least a
few times a day and offer us a modicum of personal fulfillment.
We’ll hold off on wanting the manicured lawns and white picket fences
until later, if we’ll ever want them at all. For us, for now, the dream
is simply to keep our feet moving, step by step, along the basic pathway
to eventual success.
And yes, for many of us, that dream is proving elusive.
Arielle K. Eirienne
Washington, July 7, 2010
To the Editor:
Unfortunately, it sounds as if the “American dream” to which the article
refers is a new one based on privilege and entitlement.
I don’t think the dream is gone. I just think that well-meaning parents
who continue to pay their son’s cellphone bill and rent leave their son
with no incentive to realize and appreciate that a $40,000-a-year job
offer after two years of unemployment is what many Americans would call a
dream come true.
Vivian Todini
Brooklyn, July 7, 2010
To the Editor:
Instead of taking an entry-level job at $40,000 a year, Scott Nicholson
turned it down in search of something more corporate. As a 2007 honors
graduate of Skidmore College (on the eve of the recession), I entered
the work force as a foreclosure intervention counselor making barely
more than $26,000 a year—work that was far from ideal.
Over the course of the last three years I have changed my “career”
twice. In each case, the work at my “dead-end job” provided immense
résumé value and I got job offers within a few days. I have even used
the experience and connections I gained from my “dead-end job” to start
two businesses, grant-writing and publishing poetry pamphlets.
The tragedy has been that we, as a generation, were led to believe that
job security and high earnings would fall into our lap. I have had to
prove my own worth and dedication in this economic climate, and I wish
the absolute best for all my fellow recent graduates and my many friends
who still struggle to find their way.
Daniel Schrager
Holyoke, Mass., July 7, 2010
To the Editor:
As an executive recruiter in the financial services industry in New York
City, I would call the outlook for this new generation an American
nightmare. I see hundreds of résumés every week from young men and women
graduating from college, some with advanced degrees, and some with
terrific experience in the Peace Corps and other worthwhile volunteer
services, and they all face the same dilemma: no jobs.
As your article points out, there are many young people who have dropped
out of the search for a decent well-paying job, and some are severely
depressed and caught in a vise between parental reproach and peer
pressure from those who have landed good jobs.
When asked by young college graduates what to do, I suggest graduate
school, volunteer organizations or unpaid internships with companies in
industries in which they are interested. Anything these young people can
do to make themselves stand out from what has become an ever-increasing
legion of job seekers may be the key to success in finding a job and
restoring their sense of confidence and self-worth.
Henry A. Lowenstein
New York, July 7, 2010
To the Editor:
A friend once referred to “the lost generation” as she watched
uncomfortably while her daughter, a law school graduate, found herself
unemployed and, for a short period, back home. It is a distressing time
for the older generation as we watch the dreams of our young being
deferred and hope that they are not permanently destroyed.
I am a parent of two children in their 20s. I have witnessed a number of
their friends get stressed over remaining in jobs that were a bad fit
because of fear of the alternative. Others have decided that the anguish
of being in the wrong workplace is ultimately just not worth it. They
now are either in their childhood bedrooms, looking for something that
makes sense, or seeking the shelter of a further degree, hoping they
find a different economic environment down the road.
Next year, my daughter completes her graduate education. I hope that all
her hard work will result in a job that is both satisfying and pays the
bills [sic]. It is not too much to wish for, but with an “elusive American
dream” I recognize that it is something that she, like so many others,
could find just out of reach.
Robert S. Nussbaum
Fort Lee, N.J., July 7, 2010
Note from KBJ: It's really quite simple, though you wouldn't know it from these letters. Develop a skill that is in demand in today's marketplace. If you develop a skill that is not in demand, then (1) you are wasting your time and (2) you have nobody to blame but yourself.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 