Burden of Debt Lingers for Decades

Kevin usually wears a smile, revealing teeth that are not quite straight. But he’s not overly concerned about them at the moment. Nor does Kevin let the distressing news of the world get him down or intrude upon his life. Most 4-year-olds don’t. Ah, the bliss of early childhood, when war and crime and a dire economy remain as blithely unknown as homework.
Along with an older sister and a younger brother, Kevin doesn’t want for toys. Growing up in a two-income family, his parents work hard to provide him the necessities of a happy youth. Despite recession, he has the remote-controlled car, water guns, and action figures that cheerfully fill his days now and will occupy his memories for years to come.
But there is a price to pay for all of this, as well as the clothing, food, healthcare, and other essentials of his upbringing—and that price is paid on credit. Because what parents want to deny their child toys?
A mountain of debt towers over Kevin’s family, dominating the landscape and taking up much of his parents’ view of the world. Even with father and mother bringing home paychecks, too many hands are taking too much of a small pie. They live paycheck to paycheck—a precarious existence for a five-mouth family (six, if you count the dog, which, of course, you must). But buying into the buy-now-pay-later world of credit in which Kevin’s family lives has transformed our culture into something close to indentured servitude, chaining Kevin’s parents to never-ending debt.
By the time Kevin and his siblings are ready for college in the 2020s, annual tuition, their father reckons, will be so beyond reason that Kevin won’t have any option but community college or student loans that will take decades to repay. Kevin certainly won’t be applying to a university of nearly the quality that his father attended.
Although his current area of study is the alphabet, perhaps Kevin’s parents should stick a copy of Newton’s Principia under one of his arms, a football under the other, and start him now on the road to scholarship.
Kevin’s parents have likely reached their apex financially. Neither is going to walk into a new job that radically boosts their fortunes. They’ll get small raises each year, perhaps a tiny windfall once or twice more in life, but creditors and governments forever remain one step ahead, taking away just enough so that Kevin’s parents never push the boulder over the crest of the hill.
Kevin’s father detaches himself from the daily battle against bills. “I don’t think about money. If I do, I’m doomed,” he states matter-of-factly, but with unmistakable weariness. All he can do for the next 20 years, until his children are grown, is work ceaselessly and hope to keep his head above the ever-rising cost of living that threatens to pour over his checkbook and swamp his family.
But credit-card debt is insidious and unrelenting. It is designed to pin consumers to the mat, struggling while down to pay off interest as they remain trapped beneath the weight of principal. And Kevin’s father, though wanting to provide his son with all of the components of a happy childhood, may, himself, be handing down this downward-spiraling culture—a way of life from which Kevin may never escape.
“Sometimes I do feel like Sisyphus,” Kevin’s father concedes—and he can be forgiven if he spells the mythological king’s name with three dollar signs in a moment of cynical emphasis.
“I know I’ll never get out from behind this rock; I just don’t want my kids spending their lives doing the same.”
With no reason to believe things will change for the better in Kevin’s lifetime, it’s a Sisyphean task, indeed, but even more so if Kevin’s parents are passing along the very example of financial hardship that has helped put them behind this boulder.
Alternatives exist for such families to ease their burden and provide a better future for their children than they can afford, such as Atlantic Cape Community College, which, for many of its students, serves as a conduit to more esteemed four-year schools, such as Rutgers and Temple universities.
Yet the best option Kevin’s parents can pursue is to curb spending on credit so that they might one day break this debilitating cycle of debt. Paying with cash, whenever possible, forces one to say no once in a while—and a sad face or a tantrum from Kevin now can mean a better life for him later.
The cost of living won’t ever get easier, but living by the instant gratification of the credit card is something over which Kevin’s parents still have control. It’s not saying no to a child—it’s saying yes to his future.
(ED. NOTE: The author writes from South Dennis.)