“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:
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7/12/2010
Letters - The Dream Job, Out of Reach
via nytimes.com
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