Same letter names, matching outfits, and enmeshment?

[Daisy0322]

I'm pretty sure that dressing alike is mainly because buying fabric in bulk is significantly cheaper. As for the alliteration with the names I always assumed it was a gimmick thing. I also think that the conformity in everyone is a product from developing the "49 charictoristics"

[fun2beme]

I have a large family and I could never do the matching outfit thing. Mainly because I couldn't afford all the clothes at once, but also because I couldn't bear to make the youngest in the line wear that same dress over and over through the hand-me-downs. We did have friends that bought them all matching jumpers once. It was fun to dress all alike a couple times, and then the novelty wore off and they wore them at different times just like anything else in their closet.

I did, however, try to coordinate a little, just because with a crowd that big it felt chaotic to have one person wearing, say, bright jewel tones, another pastels and another earth tones, etc. Just a little hard on the eyes, with all that going on.

LOL - my sister and I had a few matching outfits when we were younger and it's adorable to look back at the pics, though I did end up wearing the outfits twice due to hand-me-downs. My sister and neighbor her age once had a matching outfit and my mom has a pic of it. Then, two years later, their younger daughter (who was my age) and I are pictured togther in the same outfit.

One of my cousins named three of his four kinds with J names; the other one is an E. Not that's it really relevant to her name letter, but she is definitely the family outlier in looks and personality.

[fun2beme]

I agree that student debt is a huge issue, but people really do need to stop taking out loans they cannot afford for schools they probably do not need.

And when was it ever the case that new college grads were entitled to high paying jobs? In some professions, certainly. But most grads are going to have to start off at bottom rung somewhere and work their way up or use skills they've learned to trade up to a better position somewhere else. I graduated in terrible economic times, and started working for an insurance company for barely more than minimum wage. It was a tedious, non-fun job, but I was later able to use the skills I learned and couple them with my fast food manager experience (I had to work two jobs to afford an apartment with a roommate) and become a fairly high-paid manager at another firm.

When I hear stories of friends and colleagues who have 20 somethings and 30 somethings still at home, its usually because they haven't found something they "want" to do. Sorry, but life usually doesn't work that way. You have to get off your arse and make things happen, and sometimes that involves a lot of hard, unpleasant work in the early days.

As for "older persons" hanging on to all the great jobs, many companies routinely purge employees in their 50's and trade them for less expensive younger people. Illegal, but they have their ways. And a large percentage of employed people take their Social Security at 62 rather than at full retirement age of 66 or 67. So I don't really think that's a big issue.

AMEN! Especially to the schools you can't afford part. I know some people struggle to afford cheaper schools (which are still pricey) but it sets my teeth on edge when people go to prestigious schools for names' sake, versus something more affordbale, unless they have a specialized major. I have a friend who did that - looked down on me for going to a small, cow-town state college. Now, at 40, she barely makes enough to get by in a job remotely related to her field and is still paying student loans. Meanwhile, (not being obnoxious) I have a well-paying job - ironically, many of my coworkers went to more prestigious schools and get the same level of pay so I really don't think their pedigrees helped.

Of course, this same friend once told me that unlike me, she wouldn't waste her summers working in a fast-food place when she could get a job related to her major (yet she never managed to find such a summer job). Meanwhile, I look back on the 6 years I spend in high school and college, working at Wendy's, to be one of my most valuable learning lessons.

Maybe times changed, but when I was about to graduate, one of the things almost all of my friends looked forward to most was moving out on our own, even if it meant sharing a crappy apartment with several roommates. I also took a job I wasn't crazy about, figuring it was easier to get another job if I had some experience.

*off soapbox*