Self-fulfilling Prophecy

My mom was saying that many of the young single adults in my branch live with their parents. It's something that I have noticed, too. She pointed out that it wasn't a big deal to the parents because many of them had big, nice homes that were perfectly capable of holding one other person with little or no inconvenience, and, after all, it's a good time in a person's life to be frugal and save money by living with one's parents.

It is with that statement that I have noticed a trend in our community. My parents and I live in a predominantly religious area. A couple of years ago, there was a trend of purchasing large houses. A lot of the forty-, fifty-, and sixty-year-olds said that if there were hard times ahead, like the times predicted in the Bible, they could house their children and grandchildren. They also bought food storage, going heavily in debt to prepare for the hard times that would surely come.

Now the hard times have come, and, after burrowing in their big, fancy dens, clutching their food storage like a mother squirrel would hang on to her last acorn, their children finally need the help that they so predicted. They thank the Lord for having this opportunity to help their needy children and see this as a divine opportunity to edify and instruct them for a second time because all the lectures from high school years certainly weren't enough.

But here's a thought--perhaps the adult children of the Baby Boomers wouldn't need all this help if their parents weren't so set on the end of the world. It's as if they wanted it, and then they created it. Now they have their disaster, and it's good for them that they prepared for it. All that food storage is going to come in handy. Those big houses sure come in handy when your kid can't get a job because the nation is swimming in debt. But don't worry; it's Wall Street's fault. All those people in their fancy suits. Disgusting.