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It's a bit of a mixed bag
By this point my dad was divorced from his first wife, married to my mom (they're still together) who was pregnant with me. I'm still 7 years into my first and no signs of that going south. No kids on the way, but don't want them.
Couldn't afford them if I did though.
They owned a house, I kind of do (sort of a complicated situation of buying my mother in laws house, lots of handshakes and verbal agreements, but she's kind of dragging her feet on paperwork. Wouldn't be able to afford it without the family discount, so not a terrible trade off)
I didn't get drafted during 'nam, so I got that going for me. He never actually left the country though, he ended up stationed in Kentucky, so arguably he just got free room and board and a bit of free job training for a few years.
My mom never had to work a full time job after they got married, my wife and I both work full time and still never seem to be able to save much money.
I remember my dad once talking about how he almost bought a brand new Bronco II (he was somehow talked into a Ford Tempo instead, which was a huge mistake, that car was a piece of shit) when he was probably about my current age. The idea of buying a brand new car is absolutely wild to me. I've never been able to afford a car that was less than 10 years old.
Mentally and emotionally I think I'm doing as good or better than they are. I have more and better friends. I've managed to do, I think, some much cooler things than my dad has (my mom has some pretty cool stories from a couple times her family visited relatives in Poland and when they managed to get one of them to visit America, not an easy thing to arrange during the cold war, especially when the family in Poland was basically dirt-poor)
I have a dog, they didn't at this point in their lives.
My dad had a little bit of a fucked up home life growing up, but he turned out mostly alright, and my childhood was pretty stable, and I also turned out mostly alright.
It was really cool growing up with the internet before it enshitified. I'm glad I got to experience that.
By this point in their lives, the cold war was or nearly was over, the US came out on top, and it seemed like things were gonna be all sunshine and rainbows from there on out. By contrast... Well you've all seen the news for the last 2 decades or so.