Our niece lived in our basement for years. First because she was in college and later because she was paying off or trying to pay off her massive student loans. Virginia Woolf famously said that what a woman needs to write is “a room of one’s own and 500 a year.” Both of these necessities are harder than ever to come by for the new generation of women, eager to launch their literary explorations yet mired in debt and stuck in family basements.
Generation Basement: that’s my nominee as a name for our own Lost Generation. I have heard them dubbed “Generation Cupcake,” “Generation Facebook” or “Generation Twilight,” according to author Libby Cudmore on my own blog.
Whatever we call them, many recent college graduates like my smart and talented niece, have found themselves becoming a new ‘indentured servant’ class. Of course, many less educated women are in much more dire straits. My novel GIRL HELD IN HOME was inspired by the real-life story of a young woman truly being “held” as an unpaid servant by a wealthy family who convinced her they controlled her visa. While college-educated women have more options, they too can find themselves trapped.
How can young women looking to explore a career in literature or any other profession make their way without reasonable hope of finding “500 a year” when their loans alone cost them $500-plus a month?
Recently on HER KIND, Raquel Goodison wrote movingly of her struggles– despite advanced degrees– to simply find an affordable apartment. Her plight reminded me of my niece, who holed up in our carpeted but cave-like basement throughout her college days and beyond, serving as a sitter and ‘big sister’ to our young son. We were happy to have her in our home. But we’ve been sad to see how she’s struggled for financial stability after working hard for her degree and graduating college.
As a Woody Allen character warns in the futuristic spoof Sleeper, maybe all the things our parents told us were good for us have turned out not to be: “milk, eggs, college.’
My husband and I remember our own ‘salad days’ when our young grad-student marriage was launched in a single room studio apartment we nicknamed “Sky Lab.” Living on the edge in New Haven, CT (a city without pity that we nicknamed “No Haven”), we at times had to sell boxes of our precious books to have money for groceries. Our travails were typical for students of our era, but there was light at the ends of our tunnels. Once we got our degrees, we got jobs and paychecks. We explored the country a bit, taking trips to Florida and San Francisco and beyond. We began the slow climb toward settling into a house of our own.
Not so for our niece. Lately, she and various family members have been relentlessly harassed by threatening calls from the loan organization as well as by emails explaining that we are not being “harassed” and defining “harassment” versus “due diligence.” True, students could have made wiser decisions instead of being sucked in by predatory loan groups, making it all sound as easy as signing on for another credit card.
My son wonders why his cousin should be allowed to sink in debt when Wall Street barons receive government bail-outs to cover their own bad decisions. A hopeful note for the future is that savvy teens like my radically-left son are growing up with a deep distrust for the big financial organizations that rule our country. My 13-year-old son has already attended “Make Wall Street Pay” and “Occupy” rallies as well as fundraisers for our state’s bold Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who has Wall Street’s number and, if elected, has a real chance of rewriting the rules for the next generation.
When our niece first moved into our basement, she tackled the overgrown bushes of our back yard with shears to give her basement windows more light. I remember admiring her work and seeing the enthusiastically chopped down branches piled outside her little windows, forming a pattern like a net. Luckily, our niece did have a ‘safety net’ to land in and a place to form her temporary nest. These days she, like so many, is caught in a wide net not of her own making.
Is it any wonder that rather than exploring the world in their twenties, Generation Basement tends to turn inward, “exploring” Facebook and the worldwide web as they seek escape from their webs of debt?
How can this Lost Generation make their own explorations and own marks when they can’t afford that elusive “room of one’s own”?
The difference also, between your niece’s and your generation, in addition to the failure of financial institutions, is that when you were about the same age as her you had already met your husband. Therefore, all the expenses of living independently, all the risk, was divided by two. Fast forward to now with the shrinking of wages and opportunity and imagine doing it alone.
Generation Basement, when we don’t have a partner to split the costs with, often ends up in a shittier situation than folks in long-term relationships. Your niece is lucky to have you to help her out! Sometimes the long-partnered don’t see that their relationship is a form of privilege–many members of my generation are alone in a way that other generations didn’t experience. That’s how we end up in the basement!
I’m curious if others have thoughts on this. Thanks for this piece.
Hi Krystal– Thanks for this thoughtful comment on my piece– you make an excellent point here. I was 22 when i got married and it is so true that in many ways including financially, it helps to have a committed partner. As you say, it splits the rent for starters. This is another whole aspect of the Basement generation, so many twenty-somethings facing these huge challenges and pressures alone. One model that can work to some extent is groups of young women bonding together and living together to help each other out. When she wasn’t living with us, my niece found living situations with groups of friends. So many are in this same boat! I don’t have any answers but I think at least folks are thinking and talking about all this more openly lately. Thanks again for adding your thoughts to the mix here on Her Kind– Elizabeth
In your extremely well written and thoughtful “generation Basement: Exploring a Room of One’s Own” you state, “These days she, like so many, is caught in a wide net not of her own making.” It didn’t have to happen but did because of the reckless Bush administration that deregulated Wall Street and started 2 unnecessary costly wars which landed today’s young people with little hope of finding a good job and a place of their own. It is no surprise that the current Republican candidates never mention former President Bush & Cheney who were responsible for the horrible economic situation Obama was confronted with. It took 8 years to get us in this mess and will take time for complete recovery, and hopefully these disenchanted young people will return our President so he has a chance to complete the task.
Hi Barbara– Well put! I totally agree with your bracing summary of the root causes of Generation Basement. So true that the ‘rug was pulled out’ from under this generation by a combo of reckless president and reckless Wall Street barons– none of them paying any price for their decisions, unlike these kids caught up in the college loan scam. Thanks for stopping by and for adding the big picture here– Cheers– Elizabeth
One of the root causes of Generation Basement’s plight is the weird, cargo cult allegiance we give to a College Degree.
In “How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps”, step 1 is to defund public universities. The author points out the fun fact that, less than 50 years ago, it was possible to get a college education more or less for free.
Once this “corporatization” has proceeded, step 5 is to drive students into lifelong indenture, just so they can have this shiny trinket, er diploma.
If only we revered “making stuff” as much as “thinking stuff”. Endless internet verbiage teaches us that “thinking stuff” is easy, especially with a quality bar of low to non-existent. Those who like “making stuff” actually have to deal with the world as it is. How’s that for critical thinking?
If I had to take someone with me to Mars, I’d find a plumber.
In contrast, how about someone who can inform me I’ve just committed a non sequitur with that Mars thing? A total waste of oxygen. Even if they were destined to make millions in, say, the student loan business.
“How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps”
http://junctrebellion.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/how-the-american-university-was-killed-in-five-easy-steps/
Greetings Litotes–
Great comment and great link too. And yes indeed, the real-life ‘link’ is made clear too, between this generation of indebted students and the declining value in every sense of their ‘shiny trinket, er, diploma.’ I agree entirely about valuing the Trades more and not making every high school grad feel like they somehow can’t succeed without a traditional college degree. I think Obama is trying to address this in his initiatives relating to community colleges as ‘job training centers.’ If one good thing comes of Generation Basement it might be a sea-change in college educations, re-evaluating it all in light of the changing job market. Meanwhile, as you say, all the former English majors can unfortumately use their gift for cab smooth-talking current students into loans. But let’s hope the current crop might be too street-smart to fall for that scam. Cheers– Elizabeth