Judging from inflation-adjusted "net worth at same age" graphs, I'd say it's mostly about whether your parents were boomers (though not all of them would be in that position either, obviously, and of course some Xers have been very successful).
Mine are boomers. I've had assistance from them equivalent to probably $100,000 since turning 18 (I'm approaching 40). I have three siblings and I bet the total they've helped us all out amounts to something over $500,000 (some have received/needed a lot more help than me)
No down payment help for me. But they did buy me a house to live in for a couple years, once. (they broke even or made a little money on that one, but still, you'd have to reckon the value as at least what it'd have cost me to rent the same thing). And paid for my (very cheap) college tuition. Among lots of other things like a being gifted a hand-me-down car when I left the house.
My dad owned a couple barely-successful blue-collar small businesses when he was young, after growing up literally in a barn because their house was a cobbled-together four-room farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and didn't have enough space for all six of the kids, then had a blue-collar industrial job for 2ish decades and retired after making it into the lower tier of middle management for another decade or so. They briefly tried renting a house they bought and fixed up, but hated it and by the end had basically just paid to have a sub-minimum-wage job and a lot of stress, so that didn't help much (this is before house prices went insane, so the appreciation from owning that over the couple years they had it was minimal—I think it was the early 90s, and not a hot market).
That's all. Not a doctor or anything. My mom didn't work past about age 30, and worked in a low-level federal job before that. My dad even had a divorce in his background (a couple of my siblings are from that marriage).
It really, really was different for the boomers. I come from "privilege" but all they did to get me/us there was just live a totally mundane, middling life, and didn't colossally fuck up.
[EDIT] Oh, and their educations are "high school diploma" (dad) and "junior college secretarial certificate" (mom)
It was really, really, really different for that generation.
Mine are boomers. I've had assistance from them equivalent to probably $100,000 since turning 18 (I'm approaching 40). I have three siblings and I bet the total they've helped us all out amounts to something over $500,000 (some have received/needed a lot more help than me)
No down payment help for me. But they did buy me a house to live in for a couple years, once. (they broke even or made a little money on that one, but still, you'd have to reckon the value as at least what it'd have cost me to rent the same thing). And paid for my (very cheap) college tuition. Among lots of other things like a being gifted a hand-me-down car when I left the house.
My dad owned a couple barely-successful blue-collar small businesses when he was young, after growing up literally in a barn because their house was a cobbled-together four-room farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and didn't have enough space for all six of the kids, then had a blue-collar industrial job for 2ish decades and retired after making it into the lower tier of middle management for another decade or so. They briefly tried renting a house they bought and fixed up, but hated it and by the end had basically just paid to have a sub-minimum-wage job and a lot of stress, so that didn't help much (this is before house prices went insane, so the appreciation from owning that over the couple years they had it was minimal—I think it was the early 90s, and not a hot market).
That's all. Not a doctor or anything. My mom didn't work past about age 30, and worked in a low-level federal job before that. My dad even had a divorce in his background (a couple of my siblings are from that marriage).
It really, really was different for the boomers. I come from "privilege" but all they did to get me/us there was just live a totally mundane, middling life, and didn't colossally fuck up.
[EDIT] Oh, and their educations are "high school diploma" (dad) and "junior college secretarial certificate" (mom)
It was really, really, really different for that generation.