Everyone is in a different situation though. Assuming you went to college, how did you fund it? Assuming you didn't go to college, what job did you get that made it possible for you to have 3 kids? And pay health insurance? I'm assuming you have health insurance, because pregnancy would have put you deep into debt. there's a difference between "finding yourself" and doing your best to stay afloat but still needing help once in a while.
Really, the only people I know without student loan debt either had all of their expenses covered by parents or had parents who were lower income so the student got lots of grant money.
Every situation is unique, and its what you do with the situation. I have two friends, who I'm going to call Karen and Sean - minor details have been changed to protect them
They both graduated from the same expensive private college. Sean's college was trust fund funded. Karen got through on a financial aid package that included loans. They are both my age - so they graduated from college in 1988.
Karen took a job as a loan processor - the job didn't require a college education, but a college education gave her upward mobility in the job. In eighteen months she was a team lead and in another year a team supervisor. She lived in a small apartment with a room mate, took the bus, and paid down her loans aggressively. She basically started "adulting."
Sean couldn't find a job worthy of his degree, so he lived off his trust fund and delivered pizzas part time - and played a lot of video games. After eighteen months, his trustees told him to do something, and about the time Karen moved into a management position three years after graduation, Sean started working on his PhD.
Several years later, Sean finished with a masters - which wasn't enough to teach. About this time the dot com boom was happening. Karen moved into one of the many expanding IT positions that were available - with a huge jump in salary - not as a developer, but as a analyst, something her liberal arts degree well prepared her for. Sean interviewed for those positions, but had no real world experience, refused to cut his hair or cover his tattoo, and made it pretty obvious that he wasn't really interested in participating in corporate America. He was probably one of the few under employed people in the late 90s.
Karen married her college sweetheart. By now her loans (and his) were paid off and they had a downpayment for a house. They had a son soon after they married - who is now in college - and a daughter after that - who is in high school. Karen continued to climb the corporate ladder, her husband has done well too. They traded their starter home for a larger home when their daughter came along. They've never driven brand new cars, take reasonable vacations, and live well - but within their means. There son will graduate from a state school with no debt.
Sean continues to avoid growing up. The trust fund has mostly run out, and he makes a living doing some freelance work. In his mid 30s he married - his wife is a teacher and mainly supports them. Five years ago, when he was in his mid 40s (his wife is ten years younger), they had their first child - he kept saying they had plenty of time and he wasn't ready yet. She's getting to her wits end - once the family money runs dry, they have no assets and a kid, and he still wants to pretend he's nineteen.
In other words - Sean started with a head start, he should have been able to leverage that into a financially secure future, but didn't have the knowledge or desire to do so - he didn't want to grow up. Karen started with the student loans most people do, but she made grown up choices about what she was going to do.
