Last weekend, I was watching a movie late at night when I realized my sons weren't around to watch it with me. They are beginning to branch out with their own lives, and dad is being replaced by time with their friends and significant others.
I get it.
It's the normal cycle for the next generation to grow up and move out, to seek opportunity and thrive. We want them to have the opportunities we’ve had without experiencing some of the same difficulties.
Witnessing the behavior and actions of the current administration leaves me furious about what it portrays to the youth of America. The level of cruelty being openly championed is marketed as leadership, but the reality is that the youth of America will bear the brunt of what is wholesale disinvestment in the public commons.
This effort to legitimize hate and greed may have one silver lining.
As things get more expensive and good jobs get harder to find, we will likely enter a period of extended cohabitation with family and friends.
Talk to any young American, and you'll hear concern about jobs, opportunities, home buying, paying bills, and so on. I do not recall from my own time period this level of early adulting on how to make money and how to get ahead, let alone be independent with the American dream of owning one's own home “with a yard to mow and meats to grill”.
The notion that children should leave the nest as soon as they reach adulthood is deeply ingrained in Western culture. However, I've come to believe this expectation may be more of a modern anomaly than a timeless norm. There is a growing trend of young adults living with their parents well into their twenties and beyond. Most of the media presents it as a problem, but it's worth considering whether this is a return to a more natural and beneficial family dynamic.
In many cultures around the world, it remains common for extended families to live together under one roof. This arrangement offers numerous benefits, including sharing bills, mutual support, and something I see getting lost: the transmission of intergenerational wisdom. Even the wisdom of crowds, once common in neighborhoods, has been lost to bigger yards, more roads, and money put into nursing homes than actual homes.
In a way, societal and family cohesion has been sacrificed for the freedom of expensive choices.
Like a tree that bends with the wind, families can adapt to changing economic and social conditions by maintaining closer physical ties. One of the primary drivers of this shift is the dramatic change in economic conditions since the 1970s. In the post-World War II era, a single income was often sufficient to support a family and purchase a home. Today, even dual-income households frequently struggle to achieve the same level of financial security. My wife and I had careers where one of us was typically home when our kids were young. We paid a financial price for this, but the investment in family is earning solid returns.
This is only getting harder as the cost of housing has outpaced wage growth by a significant margin. In 1970, the median home price in the United States was about $17,000. Adjusted for inflation, that would be approximately $130,000 in today's dollars. However, the actual median home price in 2025 is almost three times the inflation-adjusted price from 1970. This means the next generation that wants their own home will have to continue being working partners while also paying more, since wages have not enjoyed the same level of change.
These are just two aspects of the broader economic challenges facing young adults today. The cost of higher education has also risen dramatically, saddling many with substantial student loan debt before they even enter the workforce. Healthcare costs have similarly exploded, with insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses consuming an ever-larger portion of income. Public policies such as Pell grants, low-interest loans, FHA and VA loans, and the Affordable Care Act have been helpful to many seeking health or education support, though these are being threatened with abolishment.
The combination of financial pressures and early debt make it increasingly risky for young adults to strike out on their own, as the margin for error is much smaller than it was for us.
In this context, having to live with mom and pops can be seen not as a failure to launch, but as a damn good financial strategy. It allows young adults to build savings, pay down debt, and gain a foothold in an increasingly competitive job market without the crushing burden of high housing costs. This arrangement can provide a crucial buffer against the economic volatility to come.
There are other benefits to this. In an age of increasing social isolation, living with family can provide a built-in support system and combat the loneliness epidemic and the predation on young men. Extended family living also aligns with a growing recognition of the importance of quality time over the quantity of possessions. Living together might encourage less buying of "stuff" since there's less room to put it, and a house full of family members engaged in talking and meaningful interactions may help shift more values from screens to faces.
While the administration gleefully cuts public services, the pinnacle of the fraud is that none of the actions will make it easier for American youth.
None of it.
We would be in a much better place if our public and political policies were singularly focused on supporting the next generation for success. Until we get there, living longer at home isn't the drag that many might think.
In the current climate of predatory economics, it may actually make more social and financial sense.
QUICK NO BS Hits
This group has been making headways in fighting against Musk and the deletion of your public services.
The whole abolish DEI movement, like everything else in this administration, is a great fraud. Take it from the conservative Wall Street Journal.
I wrote about Navalny in this issue a year ago. Here’s what happens to democratic leadership in Russia. If you are on the side of Nazis and dictators, wake the f*(& up before it’s too late. This is a house built on sand.
I’ve been saying for some time that school specializations have moved us away from what the goal of education should be; to create well-rounded citizens with a variety of skills. Every student should leave with a brain that knows how to see and hands that know how to create. One note on this. When I was in shop class in the 1980s, it was a mixture of work and controlled chaos. The experiences of my sons in their high school shop classes lead me to believe this has changed little. Old assumptions of student to teacher ratios and classes used as “easy A’s” need examining if we want to get more serious about our youth developing multiple skills.
I have for several years now kept an AMC A-List membership, though I have not attended as many showings simply because of a busy schedule. I view it as an investment in local public gathering places. Our community has one, maybe two “neighborhood” level theatres remaining. I have watched as, one by one, smaller theatres disappeared.
This is a nice, little read. I have so many memories from seeing movies at different locations. Friday nights at the theatre were a major gathering place for both family and friends. The right ambience adds to it, and though I think some of the theatre chains like AMC try to capture that feeling, there’s something to be said about the old theatres that were down on the corner, with the marquis and the lights. If I had independent wealth, I’d travel the country to see such remaining neighborhood theatres. It would be a great visual trip for me, likely to provoke all kinds of great writing material for future efforts.
We had a manager of a local theatre here for many years. Everyone knew Hal, and he understood that connection to the community. The movies being shown were in their second run, so the prices were always lower, and he purposely kept the price of hot dogs low for families. He’d been a movie buff his whole life and would, at times, hang obscure movie posters from films I’d never even heard of.
I can also remember the Kentucky theatre where I first saw Star Wars, and the local two-screen theatre I grew up with in the 80s, which someone built when people treated theatres like opera houses. It had the ornate carving, lights, and the velvet curtain that slid back when the film started.
In the age of digital and Netflix, keep an eye on movie theatres. As they go, so will go the sense of community.
I know it’s hard to get people to think about what some of these cuts mean, but here’s a leadership lesson to live by.
Never do something just because you can.
Ms. Harris belonged to a watchdog group that works to ensure correct and ethical conduct. Yes, sometimes these positions are government-appointed for the wrong reasons and not merit-based, but most are qualified and honest public servants.
Public service is not profit-based and needs to be beyond the whims of temporary dictators. While the current administration is drunk on power and axing people simply because they can, these cuts will hit local communities hard.
I believe that the predation on public services will continue until stopped. When it does end, elected Republicans are going to pay an enormous political price. One can only hope this will usher in better leadership and a better understanding that these public investments are our investments.
You can make a buck anywhere in the world. What makes America great is the social contract with its people.
I work to model my beliefs more than showing public ritual. Marketing of morals has made it all the easier to mimic them and not authentically practice them. During my life, the times I’ve seen excessive religious motifs on walls and desks tended to give me appreciable pause, for it typically would mask the acceptance of hypocritical living. Better to practice in action rather than the simple comfort of wearing a costume.
A student came by and offered to give me a blessing for Ash Wednesday. Having spent a year abroad in different places, the old saying of When in Rome is wise. Openness creates connection. Spirituality is not about choosing sides, ritual, or adornments. It’s all about the journey. It’s not about what I believe or you believe. The rituals are a path to connection. A search for community. That is all. And they certainly are not to be used as a cover for bad works.
Here’s where you see the spirit we all seek. You glimpse the authenticity. This is an older story on the great English football player Ian Wright. I watch it now and again to remind myself of goodness and the roles we play in life. Recognize and remember the many, many people who helped you along the way. Use this to reset yourself from the art of the current clown show. After you watch this short video, listen to more of the backstory here. You’ll be touched.
Remember to give a shout-out to someone who made a difference for you.
Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person - ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
I remember watching a President Obama debate, and one commentator afterward was David Brooks. I knew him well from his conservative pieces in the NYTimes, and I almost universally found myself on the opposite side of his opinion. Whether he has evolved or whether it’s me that has changed, I’ve come to accept what he has to say and write as an authentic voice from the conservative side.
This is a short, intriguing watch from just a few days ago, and it captures a lot of the Alice in Wonderland dizziness from what is being passed as conservatism by the current administration. He recognizes the hypocrisy and the danger from “a ruling elite” unmoored from Christian principles. There is deep common ground here regardless of where or if you went to college and what belief you practice. Give it a watch.
While many are being given a pass to treat others poorly, I remind you to do what you know is right. A common theme in life is happenstance and luck. You never know when your opportunity comes, maybe a fleeting moment, for you to do what you can do.
Do what you know is good.
Be a good human.