The American Dream: Owning your own homeBuying a house is a critical step in most adults' lives in the western capitalist world. Still, we've seen a lot of changes related to homeownership and when homeownership happens over the last century. The way things are now from a home-buying perspective is not how they've always been. In fact, the way things are today is very different than they've ever been in human history. Family life and real estate have changed after the Industrial RevolutionBefore the Industrial Revolution, the world was very different than it is no. People lived in small communities, traveled very little, and interacted with less than a few hundred people over the course of their entire lives. A man leaving his home go out on his own would rarely have seemed like a prudent decision - how would he and his family survive without kin? A woman leaving her home alone to go out and make something of herself in the world? This was a non-starter in a non-capitalist and agricultural world when kinship and ancient communal ties kept you safe, fed, and busy. In the 21st century, real estate traditions and family life evolved further: The rise of the boomerang childOver the last century, as the western world (especially the US) modernized, it became typical for young men and women to leave their parents' home when they turned 18 - this usually coincided with the start of a college education. Not everyone had the opportunity or the desire to leave home in this way, but many did, and this phenomenon increased over time. In the early 21st century, further shifts and refinements to this novel paradigm occurred. A combination of factors, including the following
In today's world, students leave at 18 for college, but typically either return home or need some extra support from their families even after they graduate. The idea of being able to leave home at 18 and have an economy that is able to provide enough income for you to do that in a separate housing unit is a bit wild - only economies that are growing substantially can support that sort of lifestyle. A more reasonable lifestyle is staying within the parental unit, at least in part, until you develop enough skills, income, and savings to be able to go out on your own and be a productive part of the global economy. A lot of people, however, never develop the needed skills or the required savings and income to go out on their own. This is something that has been increasing. You can now easily find people in their late 20s living at home and even people well into their 30s. In 1950, if a 35-year-old man was living at home without a family of his own (and he came from a typical middle-class family), it would be a pretty big negative for him. Maybe boomerang children aren't so bad? Towards a healthier perspective on modern real estate and modern family life.Many people talk about the second shift (the one from leaving at 18 for good to the more complex current situation), but not a lot of people talk about the first. You won't see articles in the financial news and financial media talking about how interesting it is that society has changed so much. Still, you'll read about boomerang children and college-education coffee makers all the time on popular financial websites.
We've got to do a better job of putting things into perspective and understand that just because things were a certain way for a bit of time (maybe a few decades), doesn't mean that's how they've always been or how they should be. Perhaps it makes more sense for families to be tighter knit from a financial perspective. Maybe it doesn't. Either way, assuming something without taking a broader perspective is both narrow-minded and will prevent you from making some interesting and potentially useful insights. Some of these insights might include the following:
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