I could not, under any conditions, afforded to have raised kids today. It would have been beyond me….

You know, my grandson, Isaac, has gotten himself a job. He’s 15 now and, somehow, kids can work at 15 these days. It was 16 when I was his age and me and most of my friends were damned glad it was. I mean, all of us did some sort of work in those days because Dads were pretty stingy with the cash. But until you reached the official working age of 16, you could slack off a bit and your parents weren’t constantly on your case. And that was regarded as a good thing back in the old days. I was particularly lucky when I was a kid because my Dad really didn’t want any of us kids working during the school year – we could, but he didn’t insist on it for sure. He always told us he worked at his job and school was our job and that’s what we needed to focus on.

My grandson has gotten himself a job at Mickey D’s and back in my day that would have been a pretty namby, pamby job, and by that, I mean pretty darned easy. Nope, when I was a kid, I didn’t run a French fry machine or flip hamburgers – I ran things like a shovel and I was usually tossing some sort of manure or dirt around. My friends and I took a certain type of pride in who could work hardest or who had the shittier job….I really did a lot of hard, manual labouring jobs when I was young. It was to the point where I would do almost anything for money – except, as I tell people these days, sell my body….Anyway, we were all workers back in those days, but most of us didn’t need really very much money. Stuff was cheap and we just didn’t have huge expectations the way the kids do these days.

I mean, we didn’t have cell phones or computers or a lot of the things people, including young people, seem to think they desperately need these days. You know, somehow we managed without all that crap. I was explaining to a younger person the other day the way things worked in my hometown of Hanover when I was growing up. There were 8-10 furniture factories and Hanover was the Furniture Capital of Canada and most of the men in the community worked in one or another of the factories. Most wives did not work and stayed home to tend to the children. I know this sounds remarkably sexist, but it’s just the way it was. Anyway, my point is that on a single factory income, those guys were able to buy a house, buy a car, raise a family and usually take a couple of weeks vacation each year.

So, what in the sam hill has changed since back then. Today, even couples who have pretty great jobs and have a pretty good combined income are having trouble making ends meet and keeping up…..Well, folks, you’re not gonna believe me, but most of it has to do with the money you pay the government – and I know I sound like a broken record, but the middle class in Canada currently works ‘til about the middle of August just to pay the government. Most of us are paying about 55% in combined taxes….and that would be income tax, HST, tax on gas, natural gas or electricity…tax on pretty well everything….You know what your grandfather or father was paying in 1946-47, just after the war…..he was paying about 18% income tax and there were very few, if any, other taxes. And I’ll tell you that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or a conspiracy theorist to understand that that’s a whopper of an increase. 

The middle class is currently holding up this entire house of cards and getting very little help from anywhere or anyone else.

It’s true that corporate America is busy finding new and innovative ways to get our cash from us every day….think about the number of bills this generation is faced with and, again, compare that to what your grandfather or your father was faced with. I raised my kids 30-40 years ago, but if it was today and I had the same money, they’d definitely not have cell phones or streaming services and they’d be damned lucky if there was a single computer in the living room. I could not, under any conditions, afforded to have raised kids today. It would have been beyond me….

Anyway, wasn’t sure where that was going when I started, but I think it did eventually get there – wherever that is. Anyway, see you next week…over and out…..