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Monday Mini: Millennial Midlife Crisis · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephan
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: never told your prediction if iHeart radio and welcome to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: another Monday Mini or what I'm gonna call Samantha's crisis
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: or maybe not. Okay, do you like that? Ah? Yeah, yeah,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna leave you hanging it though so recently, Annie,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: you know this because you were around. I just I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: need to go get my eyes checked because I need contacts.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And we've had a lot of conversations about the fact
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: that if the apocalypse happens, I'm screwed because I can't see,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Like I really probably have one of the worst like stigmatisms.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I've been told repeatedly by my eye doctors like yoh yeah, yeah,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's kind of bad, or you really have it.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't need faces when you tell me
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: what's wrong with my eyes, but whatever, Because when I
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: don't have contacts or glasses on, everything is a bright
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: blur um. It's petrifying. I can't believe I didn't have
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: glasses until I was fourteen, Like it was like that
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: think it took that long for me to get them
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: orging fifteen because my eyes are atrocious when it comes
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to all the things that I need to do to
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: be able to see, and because of the level of
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: my stigmatism, my contacts I'll go out of whack, so
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: it's a whole thing. So it was interesting. So I
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: went for this eye appointment and it was my first
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: woman doctor like woman um optometrists, which it is rare
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: because I think I've had the past ten times it's
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: all been all been men and usually are typically older man.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I did have one young Asian dude. Well this time
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I had one young Asian woman and I was like, oh, hey,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: how are you have all these things? So I got
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: my eyes checked, went for the exam. She stops to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the point she's like, m either there's something wrong with
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: this test or your eyesight has got so badly. I've
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: never seen this kind of jump except for only in children.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And she's like and it's as She's like, it's not
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not gonna say it never happened, but
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: this is very rare. We need to do a couple
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: of things. So my what should have been like forty
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: five minute tests went into being like two hours long
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: because I had to get my eyes dilated, which is horrible,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: horrible because I was like, I'm blind, I can't see anything,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: or I can see too much. I don't know. And
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: it turned out that it was a thing because she
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: was saying that I must be watched looking at the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: screen so much that it's really affected my eyes to
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the point that it was a huge It almost doubled
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the prescription of what I had. And when she did
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the original test, she was like, actually, your prescription is
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: lower than what they prescribed you previously, and that might
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: be part of your strain as well, but your screen
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: time you need to really monitor that because it really
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: is affecting your eyesight. Which I was like, oh, and
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I asked you what could it be because we were
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: all working from home. Is it getting worse? She's like no.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, to be at all, it might
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: be like nope, and then she went on to say,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: you know, with your age, it's probably time to talk
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: about readers, and I'm like, son of so I kind
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: of sat there, you know, I'm like, you know what,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I accept that I am in my early forties and
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: that this is a thing that I need. And yes,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I have noticed that when I'm focusing on something like
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a book or you know, looking something on my phone.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I am doing what my mother and father do, which
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: is to like try to focus the phone and then
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: out to see what I am looking at. So I
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: had a moment of an existential crisis between the whole
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: your eyesight is progressing like a child to you need readers.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I just had this moment, was like, oh God, I'm
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: getting older. My eyes were super puffy. So I feel
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: like I'm starting to look my age. And even though
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I should not feel any way about this, because there's
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: so many I still don't fill my age. So it's
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: not necessarily that I'm scared of growing older. It's more
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: so that I am trying to equate how I feel
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: to my age. So yeah, so to me, I can't
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: quite grasp the fact that I am my early forties
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: because I am nowhere near where my mother was in
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: her forties, right, And there's so many things that does
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: not see And we've talked about this. I think we
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: talked about this in the very first episode. I was
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: introducing myself and that trying to figure out if I'm
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: all of these things? Am I an adult? Am I feminist?
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: With all these things that doesn't seem to hit the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: nail on the head for me when it comes to
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: when I'm thinking and then having moments of like, okay,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: so I need to look at what readers look like.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And I was like, can I just buy them at
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the drug store because she was gonna write a whole prescription.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, that's her. Fine, you don't need that
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: high You're gonna be on the lowest. She's like, eventually
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: you will have to and so all those eventually, and
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I don't need these eventulis.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I did ask if I could get correct the surgery.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: She was like maybe. So that was That was a
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: fun conversation, but it did have me thinking, because you know,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: you start thinking about where you are in life, what
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: does this look like? Moving on? And I'm doing so
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: many new things. I'm really honing into trying to learn
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Korean to the point that it starting to sound familiar,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: but like trying to learn a language, and again, my
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: situation is completely different because I'm relearning. I guess you
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: could say, but it feels odd because I'm like, do
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I have the capability to learn as easily as I
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: did as a kid? You know, all these things because
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I learned English within six months, and I learned it
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to the point that I could understand and communicate with everyone,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: which is also why I lost my knowledge of Korean
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: because I was so I was submerged into English. So
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: all of these things, I'm like, oh my god, age,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: what has happened? Opening I feel like I am finally
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: coming to a point that I feel responsible because I
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: am actually being paid adult living money and I'm doing
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: adult things like buying a house. But that's the only
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: adult thing. I mean, when it comes down to it,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: is managing my credit, sure, and understanding the importance, trying
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: to figure out this retirement thing, Sure, trying to figure
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: out the taxes things. Okay, there's so many things that
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, these are adult things, but I still
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm so new at this. And then as
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting here questioning all of these things, of course,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: an article comes out about how millennials in midlife crisis
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and middle age has become a completely different thing than
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: what you once knew. So there was a Times article
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that came out titled Millennials are hitting a middle age
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't look like what we were promised. So
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: she's talking about a book that was written in two
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: thousand early two thousands. Who is predicting that by the
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: time we the millennials came into middle age and there
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: would be no more like midlife crisis situation because we
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: would become more rich and more stable, and we would
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: have growth and all of these things, and that the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: economic social status would be closer together, which is not true,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: which has been the opposite of all of that. And
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: there's been so many conversations about what does that look
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: like for us, and what does that mean for the
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: late millennials, which I am at So I'm right at
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the cusp, so I'm at the edge of woul I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: would be a millennial slash a gen xer. So it
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: kind of it's corner when you would say it. But
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, I've accepted the fact that I'm like, ah,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: technically i think I'm the elder millennial, which I still
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: hate that terms of thinking late millennial, and we are
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: coming to that point. And she had a lot of
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: interesting conversations, including maybe in not calling our sells the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: middle age anymore because it just doesn't feel appropriate in
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: that when my mother was going to quote middle age,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: she had four children, one who was already married, if
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: not two, So like it just fills off, right, They've
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: had and then my mom and dad had the job,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: but my mom actually was a stay at home mom,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: or my dad had the job. They had a house,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: they owned several properties. All of these things, they were
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: taking care of their grandparents. In different conversations, and that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: is not where I'm at. Unfortunately, none of my grandparents
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: who are alive today. So it does make me sad,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: but that's not a thing that we do. I moved
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: away from home, which was not what they did typically.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: So they are like, okay, let's let's call the middle
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: age something else. And these were some of the suggestions,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: and I really liked them. Peak survival mode. And I
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: think that's referencing which we will come back to, is
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: that the millennials have gone through every type of chaos
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I think there could have been, starting with like the
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight crash, and then September eleventh, the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Iraqi War. Then you're going into all the other things,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the pandemic, all of this. So like we've been through
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: some things. We have seen some things like the column buying, shooting,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: all of these things have really just I don't know
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: if it's grown or we were just now more aware
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: of it, but you know, we we we've again been
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: through some crisis. Then there's a late young adult because
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: one person who was quoted on here said, physically, yes,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I am middle age, but economically I'm in my twenties.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And I feel like that's a little on point because
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: we are not hitting the same salary bracket. Until three
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: years ago, which I would have been in my late thirties,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I was still making less than thirty eight thousand dollars
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: a year, and that was with a full time job,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: and that was with the fact that I still had
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a roommate again around at thirty six, so that just
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: it doesn't it didn't equate to that. And of course
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I was also single, so that's a whole different conversation.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: And then another another person put the early halfway you
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: know what, Okay, okay, that's that's good. That's good. But
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I think, like I found it interesting because yes, I
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: do not know can we title these things midlife crisis
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: technically because we don't have the same like suburban wife
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: trying to change her life around or middle aged dude
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: who decides to go with younger people to make himself
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: feel younger. We feel young. I think that's kind of
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: the complication here is I feel like I'm still a child,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: even though I may not look like it physically and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: or I may not actually move like it physically. So
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: biologically yes, mindset and no, does that make sense? It does.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I've shared the story on here and this is when
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know, four or five years ago, our wonderful
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: coworker Tamika, we were at an office event and she
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: called me an adult and I burst out laughing, like
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: on instincts, and yes, I am an adult. But it
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: just felt strange because I don't feel I don't know,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: because I live an apartment by myself, which is great,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: like I'm able to afford it, but I have like
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: a messy cosplay closet, like I just have. And it's
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: not to say you can't do that as an adult,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: but it feels like I haven't entered the stage of yeah,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: what my parents had, or like those goalposts that we
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: were taught you would have, and I'm not even really
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: close to a lot of them. Like that feels like I,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: like I joke about it, but some days and I'd
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: be in my eighties before I'm even and hopefully I
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: haven't slipped in the shower that it's a concerned I've
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: had that concerned. My shower very slippery, and I'm like, oh,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: we're all gonna die. But yeah, I agree with you,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Like that's the thing. It's like I've hit one mile
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: marker buying a home, and I felt like that was
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: pushed onto me because of the point of rent getting
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: so high and being unreasonable. But it's not necessarily because
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I wanted to or I desire to. Again, I we
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily want children, so that's not a thing for me.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I don't necessarily want marriage. I love where we're at.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I love my partner very much, and I feel like
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: we've gotten to a good point in our relationship and
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: we are really good at well, we've gotten better at communicating,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: you know, we've gotten really good at cohabitating. So I
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: feel like all of that is well. But that does
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: not mean I want to move in any direction outside
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of that. I still don't really necessarily see the point
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: outside of you know, legal reasons. So suddenly that's not
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the point. Then why are we doing this? Maybe it's
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: because again I'm a little childish and don't think I'm
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: ready for that either. Again, like that's in the back
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: of my head. In the article that I was talking
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: about with The New York Times, it says many people
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: said they couldn't be having a midlife crisis because there's
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: no bourgeois numbness to rebelligance. Rather than longing for adventure
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and release, they craved a sense of safety and calmness,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: which they felt up they had never known. And I
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: feel like that's true. Like I do want to travel,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: but I also don't want to leave my house because
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid of everything out there. There's this level of
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: like everything's going wrong in the world, so I just
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: want to be safe. And I think that's very true
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: my mom. I don't think my mom and dad never
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: went to room in crisis. If they did, I don't
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: think that has a time. So I don't know if
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: they would tell you that that existed for them either,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: because it does feel like that was more of a privileged,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: upper middle class way of life, like it wasn't for everyone.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: If you live to work, if you live to take
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: care of your children, that's all you could focus on,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: so that was not a thing. So I absolutely feel
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: like it's not necessarily like a very big wash of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: like this it was and it was so stable then
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: it wasn't. It was not necessarily that. But it does
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm aging differently. I don't necessarily mean physically,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: but mentally. I don't feel like I'm anywhere near what
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: my parents were obviously, or anywhere near what was the
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: expectation for me at this age. I don't hate it,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it's all about being just stable at this point. Yeah,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's a big disconnect, and there's
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: a lot we could talk about because when nineteen ninety
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: one is when you know, like cable news launched, and
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: then we're exposed to like everything around the world, and
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: then the Internet comes around, and then we're exposed to that,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and you you and I were kind of growing up
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: with that, and then yes, there's nine eleven and all
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: like the pandemic and all of these things. But also,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: like I was just reading a book the other day
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: about you know, if you take on like wage sagnation.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: We've been working. It's because a lot of times that
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: we'll read articles like they just don't want to work.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of us are working, but where
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: there's just been no like wage increase. There there's rise
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: and student debt, like every like renting is more expensive.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: There's been all of these things where we can't find
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the stability that we want. And I do think it's
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: interesting because for me, like I love traveling, I love
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: doing all these things, and now I'm just like I
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: just want to feel like I have a place, like
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I do want to still do that stuff, whereas like
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: my mom, I'm watching her who never got to do
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: that stuff because she had kids and talking about like,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd like to go do this. So I
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: do think there's like a disconnect both in generations but
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: also in what we were taught and told we should
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: have done by this middle age point and where we
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: feel we are mentally because of all of these things
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: that have happened in our lifetimes, right right, Yeah, I
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: just which feels so odd. No, it does, it does.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: But I think like there is sort of a and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: this is me speaking extipporaneously, so I could be wrong,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: but I feel like that for me, at least, there
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: is a I'm exposed to all of this stuff and
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I feel like I can't change anything about it, and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I can't change like in my situation, but in the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: world as well. I mean, you're talking about things like
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: climate change. I like, literally the other day I was thinking,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I'll be around to see that,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: which is terrified, but it's that's like what is in
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the back of our heads, and so I think that
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: there can be this mental retreat of I'm gonna watch
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Star Wars again. I've seen it a hundred times, but
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm going to do. And so it feels
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: like you're being quote childish or not an adult because
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: you can't handle these things point in reality, like being
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: faced with all of that stuff all of the time
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and feeling this lack of stability and not feeling like
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: you have like a great financial situation, and not feeling
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: like you can feel safe. And yeah, that's not to
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: say that our parents didn't struggle with those but we've
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: just been exposed to it forever, and so I get it.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Totally makes sense to me that, you know, we all
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: have a lot of us have these retreats that do
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: feel quote childish that we've been told or quote childish,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: when in reality, we're just trying to cope. Were just
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: trying to cope well, you know, and then that's how
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: an article they say, what used to stand out about
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: midlife is that people tended to have a sense of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: power over their own circumstances in midlife, the sense of
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: control is an important component of health and well being.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Even when previous generations had many life stressors, that feeling
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: of control balanced them out. But for millennials, unfortunately, that
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: is exactly what might be changing. We feel we have
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: lost any semblance of control. And again it might have
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: everything to do with the back and forth of generations,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: which seems that I know it used to be a thing,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: and I've thought it was a joke, but it feels
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: even heavier now, like whether or not it's gen Z
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: versus millennials, or millennials versus boomers, or boomers versus gen zers,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: with millennials being the hype people behind you know, all
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: these things, it feels like such a bigger divide in
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that in trying to see who can one up on
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: what is wrong? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I do
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: think I think that there is this kind of idea
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: among people, especially boomers who did kind of you know,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: went to school, especially like white, pretty privileged boomers who
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: went to school, got the job, worked hard, we're able
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to retire that, Well, why can't you do that? I
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: did that, right, But things have changed or haven't changed
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: in terms of like wages, So it's I think there
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: is kind of that, well I did it. I don't
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: understand why you're struggling so hard, because I like times
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: were hard for me, but I made it work. And
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: I do think that changing with people who you know,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: take the time to look into what's going on right now.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: But I do think that's a big part of this
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: conversation of sort of this, well it worked for me,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I don't understand. Yeah, yeah, and it is. That's a
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: good point in that because we have to talk about
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Social Security, that is the prime example on it is
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: depleted and we know this doesn't exist for us, but
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: we're still paying out ye knowing it's going to be depleted.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Same thing as the fact that the taxes and then
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: like the wages have not increased, but we're working so
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: much more because everything else has increased. The price of
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: living has increased, the cost of living has increased, the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: cost of interest and housing has increased. There's nothing that
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: exists today that was the same then, except for the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: wages part, and that is absurd. Even the quality, even
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the qualifications to get these jobs have changed without anyone
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: helping those people to get that kind of education, right
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: called different conversations the times are quolle, that's a really
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: great job, and just making sure that they talk to people.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And this is something that they wrote about it I
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: thought was really interesting. Is how does life filter you
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: right now? And I feel like they've said it perfectly.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And this is a forty year old woman saying, I
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: keep feeling like my life is about to get started,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: much like how I felt at twenty. Even though I'm forty,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: my life didn't start honestly to this new potential quote unquote,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: which I feel like it's going to go away at
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: any moment. Until I started this job, like being able
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to have this freedom to do this job, but then
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: being paid at least more so on the bracket of yes,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: this is what you deserve, because we're still not there,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: like the disparity in our pay. Don't get me wrong,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: We're not complaining, but there's disparity and pay in this
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: industry as well. Is it much better than what I
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: was getting? Yeah, But I feel like I'm coming into
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the point that I am actually able to live right
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: to some of the extent that I had hoped for,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and that's just paying able to pay bills and then
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: also being able to go out to eat with friends,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: which was not a thing. Another quote was this person saying,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I don't feel established in life. What I feel is
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a loss of potential. And I don't know if that's
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: just just millennials. I feel like boomers may say that too,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and gen xers may say that too, because they gen
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: xers whole different conversation. It felt like they had to
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: really really submit to the boomer generation of making their
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: parents proud. Does that make sense? Not that we don't
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: want to do that as millennials, but there was something too,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: like those who like went through their like menial jobs
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to put their because to college. That's the beginning of that,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I feel like, and that that I don't know that
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: would be us, but it does feel like that again,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: like I feel like I've lost I loved what I did,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: but there's so much more that which I could have done. Yeah, yeah,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I mean honestly, this is like we could have a
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: huge conversation about it, because we haven't even talked about
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: you know, there's also been medical advancement, so a lot
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: of millennials are paying for their parents. You're still alive,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: You're still alive, you know. Yeah, it's great, but it's
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: like again, like things haven't and then that's also a
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: time suck, Like it's just so much stuff that hasn't
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: shifted where it needs to. And some of it is
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of it is economics and having that ability
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: to have the midlife crisis, and a lot of it
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: is also just like technology changes ideology because I know
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: plenty of people who yet are like, you know, I
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: don't want the white picket fences and all the things
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: that my parents did. Point um. So it's a lot
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: of shifting things Oregon, things that should be shifting in
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: or not. So it's a big conversation for sure. Yeah,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and then this last quote was a little on the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: nose for me. Something happens in your mid thirties to
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: early forties when you don't have kids. It's sort of
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a lift off from the aging timeline. And I think
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that's so true. When I see friends with kids, which
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I love their kids, they're so cute and all of
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: those things, I do feel like we're in two different
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: age brackets. It's true that it does feel that way,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't It so like they had this level of maturity
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: that I don't understand. And I'm not necessarily envious, right,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: but to a sort of extent, I'm like, oh, that
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: is adorable and I love that. But yeah, it feels
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: like this is adulthood. Having kids is a true adulthood
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: that I'm not ready for that, right, And I mean,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's something we have been fed for
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: a long time, is that you gotta have kids, you
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: gotta provide for somebody. And but you're not helping me
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: with any programs or anything. So not really nothing, no
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: thank you. I mean it is it is if you.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: One thing I've learned is typically there is a way
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to make it work. You may be sacrificing something, but
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you can make it work. And it might not be pretty,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: whether it's time with your family, whether it's being able
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: to raise your children yourself, whether it's any of those things,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: having to stay in a mayor you don't want to
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: for those kids. And not that that's always happened, but
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: you know that people do make it work and they
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: do survive. My parents did survive having three kids plus
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: me later on, and having one job and trying to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: do all these things. They were able to do it. Again,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: circumstances were different from today. I could not imagine what
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: that would look like, as things have shifted so quickly
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: in economics and in finances in general. But they didn't
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: make it. And I think that's the conversation, like, you
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: can do this. You think you might not be able to.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: She shouldn't have to, but you can. And that's a
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: bigger in it self conversation. But also again, like I
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: was talking about my parents, they could not afford to
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: have a midlife crisis. And in the same report they
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: talk about the fact that, yeah, people wanted to pretend
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: in report like this was a common thing and when
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: actually only ten to twenty percent of the people ever
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: experienced a midlife crisis, even in the heightened time where
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: it was thought that it was always a thing. And
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I find that fascinating. But yeah, so I'm having a
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: moment of like coming back to like, Okay, I'm getting old,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: but I don't feel like I'm getting old. Where is
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: all the wisdom and all the graciousness of aging gracefully
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: to add to my aging physically I haven't found it
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: yet and everything is blurry, so I need to go
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: find my readers that I'm not I don't have yet.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: But I wonder if a lot of that was I
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: don't know. I wonder if a lot of that was
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: a myth that we kind of observed as kids, Like
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: our parents had it together at that age, that's what
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I'll be. But really they were like, oh gosh, yeah,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I mean I think my parents, Yeah, our parents would
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: my parents specifically would be like, we don't know how
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: we did it, but we did it and we had support.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Of course, they're very religious too, so they put in
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: faith in there. But like, yeah, it's it's an interesting
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: conversation your responsibilities, what was appropriate, what isn't your expectations?
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: And yeah, we've definitely changed those as millennials and hopefully
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: for the better, and the gen Zers are doing even
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: more so. So beautiful, you do your thing. But it's
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: it's it's a moment of like, oh god, yeah, this
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: is odd we are coming into I feel like we
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: are a whole separate generation that has really shifted things.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe not because I'm being very one sided in this,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: but it does. It feels like this big conversations like
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: it's not what it used to be and the shift
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: has really started here, right, Yes, and I do think
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: there's also the conversation of you know, not wanting it
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: as much, but also can't afford it anymore. So there's
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: a lot a lot going on. And I love that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: it was all triggered by your eye appointment, Damn doctor
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Lee and my leaders. I love inspiration comes from anywhere. Ye. Yes, well,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: thank you for sharing, Savantha. We would love to hear
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: from you listeners about this. I'm sure you have plenty
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: of thoughts. You can email us at steffieia mom Stuff
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: at mostuf podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I've Never Told You. Oh, also YouTube. Thanks as always too,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: our superproducer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and our contributor Joey. Yes,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: thank you so very much, thank you, thank you, thank you,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. Steph, I Never Told
• 28:02
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• 28:04
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