american dream, deferred

I was raised in the 60s and 70s, in the suburbs of Long Island. I was born into the American Dream and envisioned a future where I would have the same as an adult. The American Dream back then was simple: a decent job, your own home, a nice car, a lovely little family consisting of a stay-at-home wife and two kids and a dog.

My father was a fireman and made a decent enough salary to buy a house in the neighborhood he grew up in. He had three kids (and we had a dog for several years) and my mom stayed at home and we lived the cliche suburban life. It seemed ideal to me. It still does, in a way.

This was the dream for everyone at some point. It was all we wanted. A simple life replete with baked casseroles and Saturday shopping trips and kids who seemed to come straight out of a Beverly Cleary book. There were dinner parties and card games and the family gathered around a handsome new tv watching The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday evenings.

Somewhere along the line, the idea of the American Dream shifted, warped, died, and got resurrected as something unrecognizable. The idea of home ownership became a pipe dream for most people as housing prices rose and wages barely moved. People started putting off having families. Women became part of the work force. Dreams were put on hold or discarded entirely.

And then somewhere along the line, the American Dream came back but it appeared as a gross opposite to what it started out as. Because this era’s American Dream is about the money. It’s about…