Article Published About Content of My Book

A few days ago, an article was published in USA Today, entitled “For Gen Z, Millennials, the American Dream Feels ‘Impossible’, written by Bailey Schulz and Kathleen Wong. It is an excellent article, and the points they made and the content parallel closely what my latest book is all about, “Sex, Drugs, Rock and War: The Boomer Generation”.

While my book focused upon telling the life stories of fourteen Baby Boomers, and exploring the conflict between generations, their article detailed the thoughts of nine different Gen Z and Gen Y’ers, ages 23 to 39, and explored their views of the major challenges they face relative to older generations.

The topics of my book and this article overlap quite a bit. Both explore the high cost of housing, child care and college educations, the burden of college loans, inflation, the poor state of the economy, the climate crisis, political divisiveness, being forced to live with parents after college, and the America dream, or lack thereof.

It is interesting to hear some of these nine discuss how they prioritize dining out and buying themselves ‘little purchases’, but that home ownership is out of reach. Some admitted that they wish they were more strict with their spending. Some discussed the average cost of a house in their city, with some cities as high as $1 million for the average home. Rental costs were discussed, with some apartments renting for close to $2,000 per month or more. Comments about the economy were best summed up by Ashley, who said ‘It just feels in the garbage’.

Another stated that because of shifting lifestyle trends, that things like a house with a yard and 2.5 kids aren’t the goal for everyone their age. There were several comments that saving for the future has become more difficult amid high inflation rates. Another commented about the shrinking middle class, with the winners at the top, and most of the others struggling financially. Another commented that she is not confident that she will reach her financial goals, and that greed and capitalist greed impacts the financial freedom that these generations seek.

My book explored this issue of capitalism and socialism in fairly great detail, with the fourteen Boomers that I wrote about having fairly strong opinions about both.

It is refreshing to me to hear these opinions from Gen Y and Z, which correlate fairly strongly with other articles I researched about the conflict between generations, and the key issues that Gen Y and Z feel are primary challenges in their lives relative to what older generations had to deal with when they were younger.

I encourage readers to dig into these issues via articles and studies being done, as well as reading my book, because these issues, as well as the conflicts between generations, are escalating and becoming much more heated. We all need to be well-informed about what is happening to the views and values of younger generations.

I discuss in my book my recommendations to calm the escalating anger and frustration between generations, and I also explore some of the faults as well as strengths of the Boomer generation which are discussed frequently by those in younger generations. Happy reading!