12. I know a woman in New York who is always complaining because she is lonely. Not one of her relatives wants to go near her—and no wonder. If you visit her, she will tell you for hours what she did for her nieces when they were children:she nursed them through the measles and the mumps and the whooping-cough ;she boarded them for years;she helped to send one of them through business school, and she made a home for the other until she got married.

39. Scott acknowledges that he is competitive with his brothers,particularly David,more than they are with him. The youngest,Bradley,22,has a year to go at theUniversity of Vermont. His parents and grandparents pay his way, just as they didfor his brothers in their college years.In the Old Days

38.“I'm sitting with the manager,and he asked me how I had gotten interested in insurance. I mentioned Dave's job in reinsurance,and the manager's response was,'Oh,that is about 15 steps above the position you are interviewing for , '"Scottsaid , his eyes widening and his voice emotional.

37. It was in pursuit of a solid job that Scott applied to Hanover International's management training program. Turned down for that,he was called back tointerview for the lesser position in the claims department.

36. He is earning $ 75,000 — a sum beyond Scott's reach today, but not his expectations.“I worked hard through high school to get myself into the college ldid ,"Scott said , " and then I worked hard through college to graduate with thegrades and degree that l did to position myself for a solid job.”( He majored inpolitical science and minored in history. )

35.“I'm fortunate to be at a company where there is some security ," he said,adding that he supports Scott in his determination to hold out for the right job."Once youstart working , you get caught up in the work and you have bills to pay , and you losesight of what you really want ," the brother said.

34. Her oldest,David Jr. , 26 ,did land a good job.Graduating from Middlebury College in 2006,he joined a Boston insurance company,specializing in reinsurance ,nearlythree years ago,before the recession.

33. "No one on either side of the family has ever gone through this," Mrs. Nicholson said, "and I guess I'm impatient. I know he is educated and has a great work ethic and wants to start contributing, and I don't know what to do. "

32. The Nicholsons, whose combined annual income is worth of $ 175, 000 , have lavished attention on their three sons. Currently that attention is directed mainly at sustaining the self-confidence of their middle son.

31. That millennials as a group are optimistic is partly because many are, as Mr. Kohut put it, the children of doting baby boomers —among .them David Nicholson and his wife, Susan, 56 , an executive at a company that owns movie theaters.

30. "As frustrated as I get now, and I never intended to live at home, I'm in a good situation in a lot of ways, " Scott said. "I have very little overhead and no debt , and it is because I have no debt that I have any sort of flexibility to look for work. Otherwise, I would have to have a job, some kind of full-time job. "