"Generation Screwed": Thank You Newsweek

I had just gotten home from teaching, walking through 105 degrees of humid, heavy air and reaching my apartment mailbox to find the latest Newsweek, the title of one of their feature articles spread across the top heading, "18-34? You are a Generation Screwed."

I hobbled to the stairs, laden with lunch totes and computer backpack, thinking only of ice cream.

When I reached my door, my cats accosted me with dissatisfied meows as I turned the lock. Throwing my things onto the couch, I turned to address the kibble-growls of my felines, keeping them at arms length with my left hand, scooping their meals with my right. I pour them water, then myself.

I sit, put my feet up, turn the fan up a notch--all with whole fruit coconut bar in hand. Instead of going through my mail and being reminded of the bills (why are they still sending me paper ones? I check "paper-free" every single month) and credit card offers (didn't this industry collapse? what part of grad. student don't they understand?), I turn on my television and roku for an episode of Downton Abbey. Why yes, I think I would like to turn, however fleetingly, to the 19-teens, when women were still talking about suffrage, the flapper era was imminent with the post Great War rising hemlines and headbands, and the working class was still talking about Marx.

The taste of frozen, creamy coconut never tasted so good.

 I wouldn't be reminded to read the Newsweek article for another few days. I circled around it. Wondering what it could tell me that I didn't already know. And I wondered if it was telling anyone else anything they didn't already know. Lowest earning power since the Great Depression. Ten years or war. Highest credit card debt ever. Highest student loan debt ever. First time ever that a college degree does nothing to give you leverage on the job market. Noted.

But I did read it, while waiting for my partner to find her sneakers before meeting our friends for dinner.

And here's the thing about being a proud member of the Screwed Generation: stability is going to look like nothing we've envisioned before. Now that, as I'm writing this, I'm experiencing a temporary bout of optimism, I realize that we have an opportunity to value, more than ever, the only thing we can count on having for the rest of our lives. Our bodies.

What does it mean that, instead of investing in property or business, we invest in our bodies? That we come to value experiences over things? That we dismantle a medical industrial complex that is interested in short-term fixes? That we tell our bosses (if we have them) that we won't bother with a workweek that doesn't accommodate exercise and growing our own food and long, luxurious meals with friends and family?

Thank you, Newsweek, for pointing out the obvious.

Bottoms up.