“So What Are Young People Supposed to Do?”…..
My parents came over for dinner on Sunday.
It was supposed to be a normal evening.
Mom brought her homemade pie. Dad complained about the traffic. We ate, laughed, and talked about everything from the weather to my cousin’s upcoming wedding.
Then, somehow, the conversation turned to my housing situation.
Dad asked, “So… any progress on buying a place?”
I hesitated.
“I got approved for a mortgage.”
Dad smiled immediately.
“That’s great! So you’re finally buying?”
“Technically,” I said.
He looked confused.
“What does technically mean?”
I pulled out my phone and showed him the house I’d been looking at.
Three bedrooms.
One bathroom.
A small backyard.
The basement wasn’t finished.
The roof needed replacing.
And it was listed for $465,000.
Dad stared at the screen.
“That’s almost half a million dollars.”
“I know.”
“For that?”
I nodded.
Then he asked the question that changed the entire conversation.
“How much would your payment be?”
“About $3,400 a month.”
Dad leaned back in his chair.
For a few seconds, nobody said anything.
Then he laughed—not because it was funny, but because he genuinely didn’t know what else to say.
“At 29,” he said, “your mom and I bought our first house for $128,000.”
“I know.”
“I was making $41,000 a year.”
“I know, Dad.”
He looked at me.
“You make more than that.”
“Much more.”
“So what’s the problem?”
I took a breath.
“The house costs more.”
Dad looked back at the phone.
Then at Mom.
Then back at me.
He slowly shook his head.
“When your mother and I bought our house, we thought the mortgage was expensive.”
Mom smiled.
“We complained about it for years.”
Dad laughed.
“Yeah. We thought we’d made a terrible financial decision.”
I smiled.
“How much was the payment?”
Dad thought for a moment.
“About $700.”
The smile disappeared from my face.
“Seven hundred?”
“Something like that.”
I looked down at the listing again.
$3,400.
A house that needed a roof.
A basement that wasn’t even finished.
And I was supposed to feel lucky because the bank had approved me.
Dad suddenly asked,
“So what are young people supposed to do?”
I shrugged.
“I honestly don’t know.”
That answer seemed to bother him.
Not because he was angry with me.
Because for the first time, he realized I wasn’t refusing to buy a house.
I simply couldn’t make the numbers work.
He asked how much I had saved.
I told him.
He asked how much my rent was.
I told him.
He asked about property taxes, insurance, repairs, closing costs and everything else.
We sat at the dining table for nearly an hour.
Dad pulled out a calculator.
For the first time, he wasn’t giving me advice.
He was doing the math.
And the more he calculated, the quieter he became.
Finally, he put the calculator down.
“You’d have almost nothing left every month.”
“Exactly.”
“What if the roof goes?”
“I’d have to put it on a credit card.”
“What if your car breaks?”
“I’d deal with it.”
“What if you lose your job?”
“I’d be in trouble.”
Dad stared at the table.
Mom reached across and touched his hand.
He didn’t say anything for a long time.
Then he whispered,
“That’s not what buying a home is supposed to feel like.”
I looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“When we bought our house, we were scared.”
He smiled faintly.
“But we were scared because we had just become homeowners.”
He looked at me.
“You’d be scared because you could lose everything.”
Nobody spoke.
A few minutes later, Dad asked me to show him the listing again.
I handed him my phone.
He studied the pictures.
“Three bedrooms?”
“Yep.”
“How old is it?”
“Thirty-eight years.”
“Roof?”
“Needs replacing.”
“Basement?”
“Unfinished.”
He nodded slowly.
Then he said something I never expected.
“Don’t buy it.”
I laughed.
“That’s your advice?”
“Yes.”
“But you were the one telling me I needed to stop renting.”
“I was wrong.”
I stared at him.
Dad continued.
“I thought the world you entered as an adult was the same world I entered.”
He looked embarrassed.
“I didn’t realize how different it was.”
Mom squeezed his hand.
Dad looked at me.
“When we were your age, one income could support a family and still leave enough to save.”
He paused.
“Today, two people can work full-time and still feel like they’re falling behind.”
That sentence stayed with me.
A few weeks later, Dad called me.
“I found something.”
He sent me a listing.
It wasn’t a house.
It was a small duplex.
It cost less than the house I’d been considering.
The upstairs unit needed some work, but the downstairs unit was already rented.
Dad had done the math.
“If you buy something like this,” he said, “the rental income could help cover part of the mortgage.”
I smiled.
“You’ve been researching real estate?”
“Apparently I’m a young person now.”
I laughed.
But Dad wasn’t finished.
“I also talked to your uncle.”
“Why?”
“He knows a contractor who can look at the roof.”
I stared at my phone.
“Dad…”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
He paused.
Then he said,
“I should’ve asked what it was like for you before telling you what you should do.”
That meant more to me than the money.
Because sometimes the biggest gap between generations isn’t the money.
It’s understanding.
My parents weren’t lucky.
They worked hard.
They sacrificed.
They saved.
But they also entered adulthood in a housing market where ordinary working people could realistically buy ordinary homes.
I was working hard too.
I was saving too.
I was doing everything I had been told to do.
And somehow, the finish line kept moving.
That night, Dad called again.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“If you can’t buy a house right now, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed.”
I didn’t answer.
He continued.
“Don’t let a price tag convince you that you’re behind in life.”
I felt my eyes sting.
Then he said,
“Your mother and I bought our first house at 29.”
He laughed softly.
“Maybe our mistake was thinking everyone after us would have the same chance.”
I smiled.
“And maybe our generation’s mistake is thinking we have to prove ourselves by buying a house.”
Dad was quiet.
Then he said,
“Maybe you’re right.”
We hung up.
I looked at the $465,000 house again.
For the first time, I didn’t feel ashamed that I couldn’t afford it.
I felt angry that so many working people had been taught to blame themselves for a problem much bigger than any one person.
Maybe homeownership shouldn’t be a trophy reserved for people who can stretch themselves to the breaking point.
Maybe a person working full-time should be able to afford a safe, modest home without risking their entire financial future.
And maybe the question my dad asked that night—
“So what are young people supposed to do?”
—isn’t a question young people should have to answer alone.
It’s a question every generation should be asking together.