Real answer: insurance salesman in the 90’s.
This was a slightly exagerated, but rather typical upper-upper-middle class house.
A friend of a friend’s dad had the same job, and a similar sized house. Guy had his own pinball room.
He also had a daughter that was in a secret relationship with my girlfriend (that they thought I didn’t know about.)
Scissor-box it out with your “friend” all you want, free pinball is free pinball.
Pinball is life. Forrest Gump got it wrong. Life is not like a box of chocolates. It is like a pinball game. You’re bouncing around like crazy and then suddenly it all ends when you go down the drain…
Know what else is like pinball?
Kidney stones. Definitely feels like you’re getting your balls thrown into a lot of shit.
That sounds incredibly painful.
Good. That’s what I was aiming for.
It is painful.
What was worse for me? I began suffering from a kidney stone when I was parked at a New Jersey turnpike rest area/service area.
In a semi truck.
Almost 1000 miles from home or anyone I know
With my dog in the truck.
Obligatory pic. Gina, the dog in the story, is no longer with us, but she is the golden/husky mix, while Zeus, the bigger black and white mutt still is.
https://tinypic.host/image/Snapchat-1486115008.3dlaJ4
A dog that had horrible separation anxiety and would chew her way out of said truck if I left her in it with the climate controls on, for more than a few minutes.
I wound up calling 911, since obviously I’m not getting a semi truck into a hospital parking lot, and explaining the situation to the dispatcher. By the time the ambulance got to me, I was doubled over, dry heaving in the parking lot, with my dog freaking out thinking I’m about to die.
In her defense, by then, so did I. I still didn’t know it was a kidney stone, and my mind was going immediately to “burst appendix”, and me dying a thousand miles from home, in the middle of the night, leaving a wife and a daughter behind…
Ambulance crew loaded up me AND my dog, and one of the EMTs called the hospital, and got that handled.
The hospital security team babysat her, while the nurses and doctors fussed over me.
When it was time to get back to the truck, I tried to call a cab. None would take me back because of the dog. She wasn’t a big dog, but not a lapdog either.
Needless to say when the head ER nurse found out, she flipped her shit in perfect, foul-mouthed, Jersey attitude, and this southern boy loved her for it.
She said “I’ll take you myself if this guy doesn’t, and if he doesn’t, his fuckin whole company will be banned from this whole muthafuckin hospital!”
As an aside, that’s when it clicked that New Englanders ain’t rude or unfriendly. They just express love differently. 😂
Damn. I rambled like hell, but. It all needed to be said anyway
Dude… fuck me that was something else. And yeah, sometimes we need to let loose and tell what the hell happened in as much detail as possible to get closure.
Used to work in a life insurance company and the president bragged about how the top sellers got more money that him.
Heard he was great friends with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
And whoever said all those children were actually his kids.
TBH that would explain the Trump Cameo. It’s all about who you know.
This is just how things worked back when unions were in the equation. If you sold TVs or drove a truck for a living, you got a house. If you had a good job, you had a house like this and basically everything you wanted.
We traded that life for a few hundred people having yachts instead.
My mom worked in a factory, my dad has been chronically unemployed and her parents worked at a food cart.
We owned a 3 story house with two kitchens, four bathrooms, and six bedrooms for $70k in the hood. Gentrification happened and it’s worth a million now.
I make double what my mom makes, and with the combined salaries of my wife, we still rent.
People insisting trickle down economics worked, when, in fact, it tricked up into the pockets of Bezos and the Waltons.
It trickles up almost by definition.
In fact the only way to effectively redistribute wealth, proven time and time again, is taxation, which Reagan gutted.
“Trickle down” refers to urine, not wealth.
Tinkle down economics
This belongs on T shirts and beer cozies.
I don’t think the McAllisters were in union jobs. I think they were pretty high up the tier of management.
People talk about union jobs going away, but don’t forget, non-unionized middle management has totally been gutted by outside consultants over the same time period. So the changes in the workforce have hurt the earning power of both the line workers and the middle managers who used to make up the middle class.
Hm, I’m not really all that expert on the topic, but I feel like people in union jobs making enough of a salary to buy a comfortable home is going to drive up wages for everyone, even the people who have nothing to do with it.
Of course, UPS drivers are making $175k/yr right now, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot stopping other companies for paying people in washers and balls of lint for doing the exact same job. My feeling is that it’s an issue of critical mass, but like I say that’s more or less just a guess.
but I feel like people in union jobs making enough of a salary to buy a comfortable home is going to drive up wages for everyone
Even if that is an effect where increased unionized non-supervisor wages push up supervisor salaries, my point is that there are simply fewer middle managers to benefit from that effect.
Plus the second order effects of a hollowed out middle choking out the pipeline for promoting and training future business leaders, so that it’s a small number of big corporate executives overseeing jobs they’ve never had instead of the older system of a lot more small and medium sized business leaders supervising jobs they used to personally work.
Yeah. The amount of fuckery is large, and varied.
Union membership in the US was at 16% in 1991. Obviously that’s better than today’s 10%, but that spread is hardly big enough to be the difference between the presumed worker’s paradise of the early '90s and the dystopian nightmare of 2025.
Thing is, you don’t even have to be in a union to get the benefit of other industries having them. They raise the bar for everyone.
I’m a Teamster - you don’t have to sell me on unions.
It doesn’t change overnight. Union membership was the plug holding all the money in the barrel, holding back the pressure of the bosses just taking whatever they could squeeze, gradually in a coordinated bloc, but not enough that people would jump ship from their specific operation and go to another place, but enough that every year there would be less and less, until now a majority of Americans can’t pay their expenses.
Maybe it wasn’t unions. You might be right. There are all these graphs pointing to something specific that happened in the 1970s that suddenly divorced productivity gains from wage gains, so maybe whatever it was that caused that finally began to have its real awful influence in the mid-1990s and finally really bear fruit in the late 2000s. Kevin’s dad didn’t buy that house in 1991. You get what I’m saying. There’s a delay. But, like I say, I have no real idea. I’m just guessing and throwing out random possibilities. Something fucked everything up. Probably a combination of things. Not having unions definitely couldn’t have helped.
If you were white, and it was immediately after WWII when every other major country in the world had been pulverized in WWII while the US was essentially untouched.
Even if it were possible to bring back the strong unions from the end of the great depression, and to bring back the laws from the New Deal which were in force at the end of WWII. And even if you did those things while simultaneously taking away the rights from black people so that they had the pre-civil-rights lifestyle. Even then, you couldn’t get to this level of wealth for a truck driver without also having a world war that smashed every other country and left the US whole.
Well let’s change that!
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Yeah, affording a house isn’t the same as having a mansion and taking everyone you know on a vacation.
You gotta read past the first sentence my man lol
I did
I’m sorry about your poor reading comprehension.
Some other 90’s TV shows and movies:
The Simpsons. Homer owns a 2 story house and supports a family of 5 (at least sometimes 6, with his father Abe) and two pets on a single income as a nuclear safety officer.
Christmas Vacation. Clark Griswold works as a chemical engineer at a food company working on such projects as a coating for cereal to keep it crunchy longer. There’s no indication that his wife works. He supports a family of 4, owns a large house, takes frequent lengthy vacations and has enough disposable income to install an in-ground swimming pool…assuming his typical year-end bonus.
Married…With Children. Al Bundy is a retail shoe salesman, his wife does not work. He owns a 2-story house and supports a family of 4.
A single breadwinner owning a large house and supporting a family with disposable income didn’t used to be hilariously unrealistic.
The implausible part about Homer’s job wasn’t the salary, it was the fact that he was in charge of safety at a nuclear plant despite being completely unqualified. Lenny and Carl both have Masters’ Degrees in Nuclear Science.
But Al Bundy was constantly out of money and he did not own the house. His paycheck went straight to Peg who wasted it on fashion, on herself and useless stuff. The children had to steal food because Peg or Al never cooked at home. At some point Al made a joke that life won’t get worse if anyone sues them for money, because he already has 2 mortgages on the house, his car is junk and he has no valuables and no savings to take away.
So he could be in a good financial place if his wife didn’t deliberately sabotage him.
The post-WW2 greatest generation lifestyle was something else. Not to say that all WW2 veterans were well-off (WW2 veterans had a LOT of PTSD and many never recovered from wartime trauma), but increased housing development meant cheap houses for many people. A lot of houses of that time left a lot to be desired in modern terms (like some bathrooms had slots to put used safety razors in, but had no way of emptying them out…), but far more people than ever were actually able to afford homes.
My mother’s house had one of these pleasant looking Razor Disposal Slots in a medicine cabinet. When we redid the bathroom there was just a pile of ancient rusty razor blades behind the wall.
Boomer era foresight. They probably dumped their used engine oil into holes in the back garden as well.
My own father takes a kind of “Oh well, I’m only gonna live another 10 or 20 years anyway” attitude toward…basically everything, from politics to the environment to roof repair.
It hasn’t occurred to him that it’s a pretty shitty thing to say to your son’s face. But it’s how they think.
I’ll happily trade your razor blade slot for the crumbling linen-covered iron electrical wiring inside metal pipes in our 50’s house. Don’t worry, we are busy replacing it all. But if I’m suddenly permanently offline our house probably burned down. 😋
My elementary school childhood home, the fuse box was over the bathtub. And although they didn’t completely make it a shower, it did have a removable shower head on a hose mounted down low so you could use it to rinse your hair etc. You had to be really careful where you sprayed it though.
A nuclear safety officer and a chemical engineer are both quite high paying jobs, it’s not that far fetched even today that someone could support a family with that job.
If Al Bundy owns his business, it’s also not very far fetched that a retail store could support a family.
Chemical engineering is among the highest paying engineering fields.
Al Bundy did not own the shoe store. It was owned by a woman called Gary if i remember correctly.
His dad was an exec, and his mom was a fashion designer. They either alluded to, or outright said what his dad’s profession was, and the only reason to have those mannequins sitting around is if someone is designing clothing.
His parents had money. However, the uncle was the one that paid for the vacation, as he had even more money.
It was also the 90s. To anyone who didn’t live it I can not overstate how many benefits the McCallister adults had. Not even from the government just the world. The Soviet Union had just collapsed, China hadn’t risen yet and Europe had just finally recovered from WWII. America was at the end of being uncontested internationally for 50 years and had another decade to go before it all starts to crumble. Being middle class in the United States meant you had a good paying job, not the single bread winner jobs of decades before but wayyy better than what most people are offered now. It was a very different time.
Remember how Homer Simpson was supposed to be a loser? Owning a 2 story house in the suburbs and supporting a family of 5 on a single salary? The 90’s hit different.
Ask any Baby Boomer for career advice, and you’ll see how true this is. Who else was advised to “go straight to the boss” when applying for a job?
Double points if you were then directed to apply on a website.
Triple points if you told whoever offered you advice that you had to do the entire application process online, and they didn’t believe you.
Quadruple points if the website both requires you to upload a CV and enter all of the details into a form before you can submit.
So we’re just giving out free points now?
According to everything I read his father was listed as a prominent man in business, but the script doesn’t go further than that. Yes, the script says the mother was a fashion designer, but doesn’t say for what company, or anything more specific than that.
They didn’t say more because it’s fashion you wouldn’t understand
now we need something where the bandits break in, and they get restrained by the sculptures, ala beetlejuice
However, the uncle was the one that paid for the vacation, as he had even more money.
I feel like I saw some BTS story about how the Home Alone canon was that it was in repayment for another vacation Kevin’s dad paid for.
Edit: I had it flipped. Kevin’s dad, Peter, paid for the trip in Home Alone 2 to take everyone to Florida.
Uncle Buck?
The question is not what you do, but when.
If you did the same job you do today 50 years ago, you’d get massively better pay for it. Real (inflation-adjusted) wages have declined in the last decades, especially if you compare with cost-of-living inflation.
It just means that the demand for human labor is diminishing.
It’s funny that people view the middle class lifestyle as luxurious now but while living the lower class life style they call themselves middle class
Was born at the right time
Kevin’s mom is a fashion designer, hence all the mannequins.
And the trip was paid for by Kevin’s uncle living in Paris because his work transferred him there.
Yup. Every time this post comes up I’m reminded that people don’t know the plot very well and are still unaware of their gender bias.
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I really wish this stupid meme would die.
They say it and refer to it multiple times during the opening: THE UNCLE THEY ARE VISITING IS THE ONE PAYING FOR THE VACATION.
I mean, that’s fine. But also it implies significant generational family wealth.
The point is that Kevin’s family is loaded. Dad’s likely an investment banker, mid-level corporate executive, white shoe lawyer, or other high income profession. And he comes from a family with similar wealth and status, such that they can afford to shell out five figures on an extended vacation abroad.
I think this is alluded to in the class character of Kevin himself, who seems fairly comfortable playing the spoiled rich kid, but is initially terrified and disoriented when presented with people living in poverty.
I wouldn’t say loaded. They’re upper middle class. They put the kids in coach while the parents flew first class. If they were loaded they’d all be flying in a private jet.
They put the kids in coach while the parents flew first class.
I mean, when you’re 8 years old, coach might as well be first class.
Roger Federer and his kids all fly in a private jet!
That doesn’t explain the house and so many children though.
Most of the kids were family members visiting. Do we even know which kids were just part of the main family that lived in the house other than Buzz and Kevin? I can’t even remember if Buzz or any of the other kids from the first movie appear in the second one. 🤔
What does / did the uncle do, then?
I don’t remember it being revealed what Rob’s job is, but he is transferred from New York to Paris just before the start of the first movie. And it’s his townhouse in NYC that is used in Home Alone 2.
Sell cocaine in Paris, probably
Stole Kardashian jewelry.
Also, the answer is banking/finance.
This house is currently worth about $5.5 million.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/671-Lincoln-Ave-Winnetka-IL-60093/3360197_zpid/Dang thats really close to Lake Michigan.
You assume they were his children. I mean he might have just been doing an Epstein.
From what I remember, only a few of the kids on the trip were his, the rest were cousins. His wealthy(er) brother was the one flying them to Paris at his expense. Also he was the one sitting on a ridiculously 3 story brownstone in Manhattan. I don’t believe we meet the brother in the films. Kevin’s mom was supposed to have been the substantial breadwinner in the house as a fashion designer.
It’s not just Home Alone for me. Almost every show I watch, I look at the places where the characters live with immense envy.
Lord of the Rings: Man, I’d love to live in that hobbit house. That looks incredibly cozy.
Daredevil: That is such a nice loft, and it has such great light. It’s unfair that a guy who’s blind doesn’t truly appreciate his great apartment because he can’t see.
Futurama: Fry’s a delivery boy and he lives in a robot’s closet, and it’s still better than where I live.
Only Murders in the Building: NYC and these guys have those kinds of amazing places? (To be fair, this is a major plot element of the 4th season)
Futurama was wicked funny how they introduced that. It seemed like it was gonna suck big time for fry to live in a closet sized ‘apartment’ but that ‘apartment’ had a closet that was bigger than most big ass apartments!
Pretty much any Artist Loft in the 90s.
removed, you have enough room to have a softball tournament in your front room, quit complaining about how 'rough ’ the neighborhood is.
It was a pretty nice closet, to be fair.
I’ve noticed this too. In movies and TV, its not just the people that are beautiful, often times, its their material wealth too.
Yeah, and it sometimes makes sense just from an acting PoV, so you can forgive it. It’s hard to fit all the characters and cameras in a scene if someone lives in a typical cramped apartment. So, like in the Friends TV show, none of them has jobs that should indicate they’re rich. But, the sets they use for the apartments suggest they have huge apartments. In that show, Joey’s apartment isn’t beautifully furnished, it looks fairly cheap. But, it’s really spacious for NYC. But, it seems like it’s all about giving the director the freedom to frame shots to get everybody involved, and to allow characters to move around.
OTOH, A recent movie, “Black Bag” was terrible for this. I hated the movie because it was just impossible to believe. This guy, who’s supposed to be a British intelligence officer (i.e. living on government wages). His wife is also an intelligence officer. Yet, somehow, they live in this condo that looks like it would be about £5m to buy, or about £5000/month. Since the plot revolves around whether one of them is a traitor and is selling state secrets, it seems pretty obvious it’s this guy or his wife because no civil servant is living in a place like that on just a government salary.
well daredevil’s place would suck for anyone who can see because of the giant led billboard shining right into the place
I remember that from S1, but it doesn’t show up in S2, does it? Maybe they took it down?
i have no clue ive only seen season 1 lol
Giedi Prime looks like a great place to raise a family.
If you’re a Baron, maybe.
I’m about to rewatch Joe’s Apartment in a whole new light
It’s hard to fit a camera crew in a realistically sized house
Definitely Health Insurance CEO.
Money laundering. The trip was an excuse to meet with his associates without arousing suspicion.
I was gonna say, my head canon seems to either recall or have invented the idea that the dad was some kind of CFO or accountant… but I don’t know if that idea has any actual evidenced merit from the movies, been a long time since I’ve seen em.
