The Class of 1983

[crabby_lioness]

My husband met an old friend from high school last week in the small Mississippi town where they'd grown up 32 years ago . They chatted about their classmates from the white, middle class private school they had attended. Slightly less than half of the men had graduated from college and gone on to get jobs in business, teaching, and civil engineering. Slightly more than half of the men had not gone on to graduate from college. They were all dead, mostly from drugs or suicide. 10% of all the men in their class had committed suicide in the last five years. His friend noted that more men had died from their class than had died so far from his parents' class -- and his parents had graduated at the height of the Vietnam War. While the women had done slightly better, there had been fewer children born to the members of their class than had been in their class. It was a sobering experience.

I think we might have a problem, folks.

Comments

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

That's a fascinating (if sobering) set of statistics. Have you any idea how well it compares to the Mississippian experience in general, or to that age group nationwide?

The suicide figure is particularly alarming. I've read that suicide is up, mostly amongst young and middle-aged men, but to see so much of it in one group, focused in one area, seems startling, especially for it all to have happened within the last five years.

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

It's lack of jobs, stagnant wages, and no veterans' support for the ones who entered the military because they couldn't find other jobs. It's hit the hardest in poor, rural areas. It's also led to a staggering drug problem, and the widespread disappearance of marriage among the younger working class, not to mention a lot of desperate people turning to the Tea Party. Nobody's really talking about it, though. What isn't discussed can't be addressed. What isn't addressed can't be fixed. :(