'Strapped' for Adulthood

By Jodie Janella Horn, PopMatters. Posted January 3, 2006.

A new book explores the societal and financial reasons that today's twenty- and thirtysomethings are finding it nearly impossible to stay afloat.

I didn't need Tamara Draut to tell me that I'm strapped, but I did need her to tell my mom.

In the five years since I graduated from college, the same argument has arisen again and again. I insist that it's much harder to make a living now versus when she was my age in the mid-'70s. My mom disagrees, and continues to wonder why I haven't taken her advice and purchased a home. I inform her that a down payment on a condo in Los Angeles, where I live and work, would be greater than the sum total of all the money I've made this year. She again tells me the story of how she and my father saved the money for their first down payment while she was a drugstore clerk and he was an oft-unemployed electrical engineer. I tell her those days are over, at least in California, and she doesn't believe me. Repeat as necessary.