Quote:
Originally Posted by LivingAlmostLarge
Um, look at Monkey Mama, she lives close to her family? I live on the coast so I know what i'm saying! Most people I meet are NOT FROM HERE! I am not from here, most of our friends are not from Boston, NY, DC, Philly, Atlanta, etc. They are not from SF, LA, SD, Seattle, Portland. Most are from smaller towns.
And yes I am from a smaller town in Hawaii. Forgotten about that 50th state? Most people I know have left becaues of jobs. Also I have classmates and friends from Alaska, same reason.
I think you aren't follow the conversation about moving. MOST PEOPLE I've meet don't want to leave their families. Ask anyone from hawaii if they had the exact same job in the Mainland if they would go home????? YES! Can they????? NO!!!!!
Then ask people from China/India, same job, same pay? Yes they would. Merck is opening a chinese research facility with 3k job, over 20k chinese living in the US applied to move home....
I would say many people want to move home but can't. I don't think you're argument is working here.
Also look where the MAJORITY of the birth rate in the US. It's NOT in urban centers. People who are educated living in cities are NOT having kids.
Hence where are all these people coming from? Migrating from where? Another big city? No. They are coming from elsewhere. Look at where big families are located. Not in the major cities.
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I personally know tons of Americans born and raised either in big cities or around big cities who accepted jobs far away from their region and who could have easily limited their search to the area they were from. Many even comment that where they are is "close enough" to home so they can visit their parents once in a while, but far enough not to have their parents "bug them" too much. The "too close for comfort" mentality.
I am sorry, America is known all over the world for this obsession with the "independence of the nuclear family". In Europe the economy has not been better than the US for a very, very long time - and yet people absolutely REFUSED (until recently at least, and many still do) to accept jobs far away from their regions.
They prefer to stay with the parents until the right job comes up in the area. The fact that Americans do not see this as an option does not make them neither right nor wrong. It just places them in the situation we were talking about
: living in debt up to their eyeballs, thinking that they are "independent" when they are not, being dependent on a bank instead of the parental home, having no childcare options but the institutional/expenive type etc.
It is a choice for MANY of them - save the small towns. And even when we talk about small towns , there are still tons of them located in the vicinity of large or mid-sized cities. So I am not entirely buying this argument either.
Moreover, what do you make of the mentality of "going away for college" even when there are perfectly fine colleges close to gome - that is so typical for American youth but not for those in other industrialized nations?
My husband tells me about all his childhood friends all of whom insisted that they "go away" for colleges (while bypassing the local, close to home schools) so they can escape the parental eye and just start their "independece"!
All this is rooted in culture/mentality - it is not strictly a necessity!
Speaking of which, I would never agree to pay for my child's boarding expenses when he could live home until he/she finished school.