Extra Credit NYT CH10, The Five-Bedroom, Six-Figure Rootless Life

This reading gives us the idea of the lives of relos, which are becoming more popular in recent years for people to achieve the demands from their jobs. It makes me question, are the Link’s family, which represented the relos, really living the American dream as suggested? Is the American dream simply “to have a house of your own, the biggest house you can afford, on the biggest lot you can afford, with a great school for your kids, a nice park to spend Saturday afternoon with your kids in, and deep in amenities that get into the trade-offs with traffic” (NYT 152)? Jim Link, the father of an upper-middle class family that earns a six figure salary owns a nice house with five bedrooms in a safe neighborhood, which cost them $313000 and took and 80 percent mortgage. His wife volunteers in several community activities. His daughters go to qualified schools in the area they live in and participated in the soccer team. Their life seemed envious just based on this information, but as I read on, the Link’s life did not seem to be the American dream to me.

Link’s family had to move from places to places based on Jim’s career. Where his employer wants him to work is the place where his family has to move. Jim’s daughters had to change schools every time, which has already seemed to be a routine every few years. They were upset from the news about moving again, which meant that they had to say goodbye to friends, and that they could no longer have soccer practice in the same team. It seemed as if their family had no purpose to live for, and their life was never settled. Jim made good money to sustain living for his family, but the demand of geographic mobility for his work is preventing his family from having any long term relationships with others. His daughters never stayed in the same schools for too long, and never even had the chance to name a place as their hometown, which was upsetting for them.

To me, before the Links family decided that they no longer wanted the moves, it seemed as though they were plainly living for money and that they neglected the purpose of making the money, which was to sustain a better life for the family. Money is important, but money should not be the reason one is living for. In the end, the Links have succeeded in realizing what was really the most important and decided to try settling for the sake of their family. Many people have become relos in America in order to remain in their upper-middle class status. I believe all of their primary goals were to make more money in order to give their family a better life. Therefore, this goal should not be forgotten in the process and they should make sure that their lives are not blindly taken over by money.