T A B L E__T A L K Where should newcomers to the market find out about investing? Advise or learn in the Business and Personal Finance area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Get them while they're young By Kevin Kelleher Money managers are targeting children as the next growth market (06/12/98) Mad about Steve Madden By Heather Chaplin Wall Street loves this low-end shoemaker -- and so do fashion-conscious young women (06/05/98) Finding the g(ive) spot By Kevin Kelleher In the increasingly competitive quest for dollars, charity organizations are looking for ways to find that magic motivational appeal (05/29/98) The reluctant capitalist By Heather Chaplin Salon's Reluctant Capitalist looks at the knotty problem of what to do when you've won $195 million on the lottery (05/22/98) The reluctant capitalist By Heather Chaplin From red to green (05/15/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Money archives		____WITH ENVY AND CONCERN, A MOTHER ____LOOKS AT HER DAUGHTER'S LUCRATIVE ____ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD OF WORK. ___________BY LINDA TISCHLER | My baby daughter, age 21, recently got her first job offer: an associate's position in this year's hot field, management consulting. $42K. $2K signing bonus. Relocation expenses. Three weeks vacation. Keep the business frequent flyer miles. She was not impressed. After all, her boyfriend, 22, the computer science whiz, started at $50K. And that was a year ago. When he showed up in Silicon Valley, he was bummed to discover from his geek pals at work that he had settled too low. A buddy from MIT had nailed $60K for a similar job in another firm -- plus stock options. Now, her boyfriend's firm is paying new recruits $12K more than last year. So naturally, my little girl held out for a better offer. And it came. $44K to start, a $5K signing bonus, $5K relocation allowance. Four weeks vacation. Use the frequent flyer miles to fly to Vail or Cancun for the weekend. Did I mention the "sell weekend," the pièce de résistance designed to close the deal? A suite at the Pierre, dinner and a Broadway show, a catered party at a cool club, raspberries and champagne at 2 a.m., followed by a round of pizza from room service (these are college kids, after all). Brunch the next morning at the Rainbow Room. Her dad and I happened to be in New York the same weekend, staying at a fleabag hotel on Central Park South. It was a great offer: Listen to a 45-minute time share spiel and you can stay the weekend for only $199. Better not to culture the surfaces of the bathroom, however, or you might find the Ebola virus. We should have slept on the sofa in my daughter's suite. Naturally, we're proud parents. All those sacks of money for tuition finally paying off! But part of me is disconcerted, if not envious. My kid is smart. Personable. Conscientious. A model employee. But what does she know? She brings Ivy League liberal arts credentials to the table, but virtually no business experience. Virtually? What am I saying? She spent three summers as a camp counselor teaching middle schoolers ballroom dancing and trust games and one summer helping a home design Web site build a plumbing supply database. For this, she gets $44K plus perks? Sour grapes? Sure. Her dad's a professor. Her mother a journalist. It took us half our careers to earn that kind of money. And I still get less vacation time than she does. I know it's the American dream for each generation to improve on its parents' experiences, but I didn't expect to find my kid's leap so unnerving. I graduated some two decades ago, straight into a recession. My own liberal arts credentials got me a job scheduling commercial spots for a rock radio station at $125 a week. I was told to thank my lucky stars I got the job at all. And it took quite a while to climb up from that pit. With a combined income of $100,000 -- to start -- my daughter and her boyfriend can skip the cinder block-and-plywood bookcases and wine in screw-top bottles and go straight to gilt-edged yuppiedom. No hard-luck stories with which to bore their own kids. Whether they burn out on corporate politicking and stress remains to be seen. And what lessons might they derive from their friction-free ascent into the middle class? Do they understand that they are sailing in the wake of one of the most extraordinary economic booms of a lifetime -- or do they believe their good fortune is the reward of their own cleverness? Will they, stepping over the begging street person, dismissively mutter, "Get a job"? And when the downturn comes, as it will, can they absorb the shock to their systems, persevere and move on, or will they lapse into whining, "Why me?" I once interviewed child psychologist Jerome Kagan for a story about the boomer generation's overwrought parenting style. Kagan is noted for his studies of temperament, demonstrating, for example, that a shy child may well be born that way, just as a terrier may be born skittish. He said today's parents assume far too much responsibility for how their children turn out. Sure, they can monitor everything from what goes into the kid's mouth to how much TV he watches. But there are vast determinants beyond their control. Is the child born into war or peace? Feast or famine? The United States or Rwanda? So, too, with my baby's graduating class. All the piano lessons and organic apples their parents could buy couldn't give them what the Dow Jones Industrial Average has awarded them as a graduation prize. Let them collect their bonuses, revel in their perks and bask in the embrace of their desperately seeking employers. There's time enough to learn the less appealing lessons from the school of hard knocks. SALON | June 19, 1998  Linda Tischler is the arts and music producer for Boston Sidewalk.