Skip to content now.

Evolution of the American Dream

Jul 25, 2010 / Workforce / Trackback

I swear not an hour has gone by all week­end with out a men­tion of the 2010 Metlife Study Of The Amer­i­can Dream. I wasn’t asked to par­tic­i­pate and I don’t know any of the 2,243 peo­ple who did. But, accord­ing to the study, two thirds of Gen­er­a­tion Y – more than any other cohort – said they define the Amer­i­can Dream as fam­ily and children.

Boomers and Silents feel the Amer­i­can Dream is a com­fort­able retire­ment accord­ing to the study. The Amer­i­can Dream Coali­tion says it’s a home with a yard and an auto­mo­bile. Prince­ton defines it as the wide­spread aspi­ra­tion of Amer­i­cans to live bet­ter than their par­ents did.

95% of Gen Y com­pared to 53% of Baby Boomers  feel they will achieve the Amer­i­can Dream in their life­time. It’s a mat­ter of hav­ing a fam­ily and chil­dren ver­sus a com­fort­able retire­ment as your objective…

In 1931, J.T. Adams (1878–1949), U.S. writer and his­to­rian, in “Epic of Amer­ica” wrote about the Amer­i­can Dream:

That dream of a land in which life should be bet­ter and richer and fuller for every­one, with oppor­tu­nity for each accord­ing to abil­ity or achieve­ment. It is a dif­fi­cult dream for the Euro­pean upper classes to inter­pret ade­quately, and too many of us our­selves have grown weary and mis­trust­ful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capa­ble, and be rec­og­nized by oth­ers for what they are, regard­less of the for­tu­itous cir­cum­stances of birth or position.

What does the Amer­i­can Dream mean to you and do you feel you will achieve it in your lifetime?


Tags: , , , , , , , , ,



  • Knorekfl

    Karla,

    Both my fiance and myself are from Gen Y. Her Amer­i­can dream is to have a nice home and a fam­ily con­tain­ing two chil­dren. That is great, but my dream would to have a career that allowed me to spend time this them and be able to sup­port them financially.

    I think the older gen­er­a­tion has defined the dream in its aggre­gate form, and as an end­point. I think Gen Y. has defined the dream as a work in progress, and where one is able to attain it more quickly due to edu­ca­tional attain­ment and technology.

    • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

      Knorekfl — That’s an inter­est­ing obser­va­tion. More inter­est­ing is that the Silent Generation’s dream hasn’t changed since their youth. I think the Amer­i­can Dream both you and your fiance envi­sion is clas­sic — and I wish you both every suc­cess in achiev­ing it!

  • Shen­nee Rutt

    Great Post Karla– To me, The Amer­i­can Dream is to be Happy, Healthy, and to LOVE what you do. Give more than receive, Vol­un­teer to help cham­pion Causes that mat­ter to you. Live Pas­sion­ately, Love deeply, and Be Authen­tic. The impor­tant thing is to go after what you want and sieze the moment!

    • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

      That’s a won­der­ful life for sure Shen­nee. But let me ask, is there any­thing dif­fer­ent in that than our Cana­dian neigh­bors, Aus­tralians or Bel­gians are dream­ing? What makes it the “Amer­i­can Dream”?

  • Pingback: » MS Project Online Training – Teaching You How to Compete in the Real World

  • Brenda

    Good post, Karla. My inter­pre­ta­tion of the Amer­i­can Dream is “what­ever one wants it to be.” No par­tic­u­lar set of cir­cum­stances, no order — just what­ever you want that dream to be. And any­one CAN achieve it. It seems the real trick is fig­ur­ing out what you want yours to be while you are still young, and the road to the dream is the self dis­ci­pline, matu­rity, patience and dil­li­gence to see it through. Achiev­ing the dream is golden no mat­ter what stage of your life it finally happens.

    • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

      You’re right B if I can’t live the per­fect life like Bar­bie then I might as well live my own and not worry about the Smiths. World dom­i­na­tion a la Karla.


ADVERTISEMENT