Debbie Rohr lives with her husband and twin teenage sons in a well-tended three-bedroom home in Salinas.
The ranch-style house has
a spacious kitchen that looks out on a yard filled with rosebushes.
It's a modest but comfortable house, the type that Rohr, 52, pictured
for herself at this stage of life.
She just never imagined that it would be her childhood home, a return to a bedroom where she once hung posters of Olivia Newton-John and curled up with her beloved Mrs. Beasley doll.
Driven by economic necessity — Rohr has been chronically unemployed and her husband lost his job last year — she moved her family back home with her 77-year-old mother.
At a time when the still sluggish economy has sent a flood of jobless young adults back home, older people are quietly moving in with their parents at twice the rate of their younger counterparts.
She just never imagined that it would be her childhood home, a return to a bedroom where she once hung posters of Olivia Newton-John and curled up with her beloved Mrs. Beasley doll.
Driven by economic necessity — Rohr has been chronically unemployed and her husband lost his job last year — she moved her family back home with her 77-year-old mother.
At a time when the still sluggish economy has sent a flood of jobless young adults back home, older people are quietly moving in with their parents at twice the rate of their younger counterparts.
More @ LA Times
Reminds me of Walton's Mountain back in the Depression - everyone looks at that show warmly and nostalgically, but it was also an economic imperative that kept many extended families in the same house.
ReplyDeleteYes, but I have been told by more than a few who farmed back then in the South, that the depression wasn't bad for them since they obtained virtually everything from the land before.
DeleteGood lesson there & timeless in application - not sure what the case was with the Waltons. It seemed like Pa was always looking for work somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI have seen a lot of layoffs at the hospital where I worked - many of those jobs won't come back - Soeotoro and Emmanuel's goal is to shut down as many hospitals as possible. Other industries are under siege, too, and they will reduce their workforce by whatever means necessary to survive. California is the bell-weather once again.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia is the bell-weather once again.
DeleteThe trend has been reversed for a few years I believe in that California is losing more people than it's gaining.
True, people who can get out are getting out. I really shouldn't talk - I live in Michigan, which was the only state that lost population in the 2010 census, and the area where I live contributed greatly to that exodus. My view of life on the planet is skewed accordingly. (
ReplyDeleteYou ought to moe on out/down whatever. :)
DeleteSay what? Do you mean get the heck out of Dodge? I agree, even if that isn't what you are saying. My son is scouting for me down south ;)
DeleteWhere does he live?
DeleteHe lives in Tallahassee, but I am wide open...which is always the problem. Better to have strong opinions when you need to make decisions.
DeleteAt least it's in the northern part. South Florida is only bearable in the winter. Dixie and I went to a wedding in Miami last year during February and the weather was nice, but the people weren't. Once it took us two hours to go 20 miles.
DeleteI experienced the living hell of Miami for one year - I lived 8 miles from Miami Children's Hospital and it took me 40 minutes to get to work - sounds like your experience was even worse. I would live no further south than the Panhandle - I like north Georgia, too.
DeleteI went to an old hotel on Jekyll Island in 1966 and thought that I would love to live there. It's probably been ruined by now though.
DeleteI don't think I have ever been to Jekyll Island- from what I read, it looks like they fixed it up and have a big convention center there now - 60% must be left in a "natural state." Wonder if the old hotel is still there.
DeleteI was looking for an old hotel both there and St. Simons, but didn't see anything that rang a bell. My friend Michel who was born in France and has been most everywhere in the world thinks that Savannah is the most beautiful of all.
DeleteMaybe this was it.
Deletehttp://www.jekyllclub.com/about-us/
That hotel looks like a really lovely place. Seattle is the only place I have ever lived that I thought was beautiful in a soul-wrenching way - the natural scenery is spectacular, not anything to do with what man built there.
DeleteYes and I took the ferry from there or near-bouts as I remember to Canada for a day trip. It was fun. Just realized that the hotel I mentioned isn't on the ocean, so I have now come to the conclusion, probably wrong again. :) that it may have been this one on St. Simons! :)
Deletehttp://www.kingandprince.com/history.aspx
I wonder if this phenomenon holds true in other high unemployment states - Looks like North Dakota is doing well. Maybe Debbie and her husband should head for Fargo ;)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
Oil boom there, but I guess you've heard. Debbie? Can't remember.
Deletehttp://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2014/03/north-dakota-tries-to-woo-workers-for.html
Yes, I did hear about the oil boom - Did you ever see the movie, Fargo? Pretty good, and wow, did they ever capture how brutal those winters are up there, y'kno'.
ReplyDeleteDebbie is the one in the article.
Thanks. I've read that couples are going up there to grin and bear the weather so as to get out of debt.
DeleteThe solution to all these problems is so simple - one of my favorite people, now dead & gone, had a lot to say about it and he was right on the money:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3147090/posts
Dern tootin'. :)
Delete