The trap of feeling like a failure at 35 with no home or family
An article blaming neoliberalism for not having a home or children at 35 clashes with the pragmatic response: spend less and share housing.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
No home, no kids at 35: personal failure or the system's fault?
At 35, with a job but no home and no children, the feeling of running late in life has become a generational mood. An article by Juanjo Villalba, illustrated with an image from the BBC series 'Fleabag', sums up the diagnosis: people in their thirties live trapped in a constant mourning of frustrated expectations, where being unable to move out, buy a home or start a family is internalized as an individual failure. The text lays the blame on neoliberalism and proposes the tenants' union as the solution. The rebuttal was not long in coming: the fault, it argues, also lies in how money is spent.
From rhetoric to budget: the arithmetic of independence
You don't need to join a union to achieve independence, one of the most pragmatic responses basically says. It's enough not to go on holiday three times a year more than 5,000 kilometres away and to find a monogamous partner who splits the bills. The formula sounds like a self-help manual, but it introduces a factor that the systemic-guilt narrative prefers to ignore: consumption decisions. Living together splits the rent in two, a simple calculation no diagnosis should rule out. That said, the same comment has its counterpoint: the fastest way to lose everything is to pair up, so monogamy is no panacea.
The freedom to choose your chains
At the opposite end, a reflection more philosophical than budgetary shifts the axis of blame towards freedom. Freedom does not work as an end in itself, but as a tool for choosing the chains you want to carry. Applied to the thirtysomething dilemma, it means neither family life nor eternal singledom are universal recipes. Excluding valid options in the search for happiness is the mistake, another response points out: there is no single way to live, and dogma is manufactured by whoever imposes their own. The practical conclusion, all in all, is disconcerting: the system gets blamed and the advice ends up being to get a flatmate.
At 35, with a job but no home and no children, the feeling of running late in life has become a generational mood. An article by Juanjo Villalba, illustrated with an image from the BBC series 'Fleabag', sums up the diagnosis: people in their thirties live trapped in a constant mourning of frustrated expectations, where being unable to move out, buy a home or start a family is internalized as an individual failure. The text lays the blame on neoliberalism and proposes the tenants' union as the solution. The rebuttal was not long in coming: the fault, it argues, also lies in how money is spent.
From rhetoric to budget: the arithmetic of independence
You don't need to join a union to achieve independence, one of the most pragmatic responses basically says. It's enough not to go on holiday three times a year more than 5,000 kilometres away and to find a monogamous partner who splits the bills. The formula sounds like a self-help manual, but it introduces a factor that the systemic-guilt narrative prefers to ignore: consumption decisions. Living together splits the rent in two, a simple calculation no diagnosis should rule out. That said, the same comment has its counterpoint: the fastest way to lose everything is to pair up, so monogamy is no panacea.
The freedom to choose your chains
At the opposite end, a reflection more philosophical than budgetary shifts the axis of blame towards freedom. Freedom does not work as an end in itself, but as a tool for choosing the chains you want to carry. Applied to the thirtysomething dilemma, it means neither family life nor eternal singledom are universal recipes. Excluding valid options in the search for happiness is the mistake, another response points out: there is no single way to live, and dogma is manufactured by whoever imposes their own. The practical conclusion, all in all, is disconcerting: the system gets blamed and the advice ends up being to get a flatmate.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (23 replies).
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