GenExit: Making it work on the Cape - CCO
Published on Sunday, December 21, 2008
From Cape Cod Online - Click here for full story
By Stephanie Vosk
DENNIS — Laurel Kirker's little bedroom is fit for a 4-year-old, filled with ceramic fairies, toy horses, and a big hand-me-down bed.
There's a wide crack in her closet's wooden door. It was made by her father, Mark Kirker, 38, long before she was born, when he used to sleep in the very same room.
Thirty-two years later, his parents live in the attached in-law apartment they built as an addition to the small ranch-style home as a way to make room for Mark's growing family.
The Kirkers — including Mark's wife, Amanda, 29, and another daughter, Hayley, almost 3 — fill the three-bedroom, two-bath main house.
They pay $670 a month, including taxes, for the $90,000 mortgage used to build the addition. The house is paid off.
"We were actually in the process of starting to look for houses when my parents mentioned the idea of doing the in-law apartment next door," Mark said.
"If it wasn't for them, who knows where we'd be right now," said Amanda.
The Cape has seen a drastic drop in its younger population over the past 50 years, something experts say could be crippling to the area's future. But the Kirkers are like many other young families on the Cape interviewed by the Times over the past six months — living here may be a battle, but they don't want to leave and are willing to do what they can to stay.
"My family's all here, everybody's here. My mother lives right down the street," Amanda said.
"I was born and raised here on the beaches and around my whole family, and that's what I wanted for these girls," she said.
A match is made
Mark spent four years in the Coast Guard after he graduated from Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School in 1988, a brief hiatus from Cape life.
But when his tour finished, he returned home, picking up landscaping and carpentry work.
In 2000, Amanda, who graduated from D-Y in 1997, was working at the Dennis Public Market on Route 6A — one of the three jobs she had to make ends meet — when she met Mark, a customer there.
About seven months later, realizing it was crazy to pay two separate rents, they moved into an in-law apartment in Barnstable together, and later a duplex in South Yarmouth.
They were married on Dec. 28, 2001.
By the time they had Laurel in 2004, they had started to think about finding a house, and considered entering the town lottery for affordable housing. That's when Mark's parents approached them.
"We'd rather do it while we're alive than do it when we're dead, and they can use it now," said Mark's mother, Paula Kirker, who only had to walk through the kitchen to hear her granddaughter's request for a bedtime story.
Paula, 63, has worked as a bus driver and is a monitor on a special-needs preschool bus in Harwich. Her husband, Craig, 67, was the foreman at the Dennis Highlands Golf Course and is now semi-retired.
"We didn't have assets that we could turn into ready cash for them," Craig said.
Offering the house was the best way they could help.
Bills vs. paychecks
The younger Kirkers' mortgage payments may be modest compared with what their peers pay for housing, but other bills still pile up for the family of four.
Mark makes about $18 an hour as the foreman of a landscaping company, or just over $2,000 a month on average, though his take-home pay depends on the season.
Amanda had been staying home since Laurel was born, but about two years ago, she started taking courses at the Blaine Beauty School, borrowing $12,000 to complete the year-and-a-half program.
She attended classes at night, four days a week, and Mark's parents watched the girls until he got home each evening.
She began working as a hairdresser at The Salon 16 West in Orleans this summer, and brings home about $200 a week. But she pays a stay-at-home mom $50 a day to watch her daughters two days during the week while she works.
Splitting the electric bill with Mark's parents helps — it's usually about $100 to $150 a month. They make fixed payments for heating oil of $236 a month, for 10 months out of the year.
Their 1998 GMC Sierra pickup truck is theirs, but they still pay $400 a month for their 2001 Yukon XL.
Add on another $104 a month for car insurance and $130 for cell phones, plus $130 for basic cable, phone and Internet — a service they got only last year when they bought their first computer with their tax returns.
They are still paying back Amanda's school loan, about $160 a month. All of their credit cards are maxed out.
They are at least on the MassHealth insurance program, cost free, a small reprieve.
"It's like a never-ending battle," Amanda said. "As soon as you get ahead, something happens, and you're back to behind."
Sticking it out
While Amanda's not making much money now, the Kirkers are hoping her job will eventually pay off when the girls are in school full time.
In the meantime, Amanda hits the clearance racks and consignment shops when buying clothes for the girls, looks for sales at the grocery store and forgoes her daily cup o' joe at Dunkin' Donuts for a homemade pot.
Instead of going out to dinner, the couple spends time at friends' houses where their kids can play — during the winter, at least. In the summer, it's all beach, all the time.
Having a lot of close friends and family around is a big help, the couple says. Both of Amanda's grandmothers still live here in the houses her parents grew up in.
Mark's brother recently relocated to North Carolina. He's in the fishing and boating industry, and here it was just too seasonal.
The same can be said of Mark's industry, but for him, leaving is not an option.
"He wasn't married, he had no kids, he had no house, he could just pick up and move," Mark said about his brother. "We really can't and we don't want to. We're going to tough it out and hope we end up ahead down the road."
It doesn't hurt that they know they're not alone — a lot of their friends are in the same situation.
But it's mainly Cape natives who really try to make a go of it, despite the challenges, they find.
"There's something about the Cape that sucks you right back in," Amanda said.
Related Stories
Young immigrant population booms on the Cape
Hip on the Cape means home at 1 a.m.
Related Links
Part one of the Genexit series
Part two of the Genexit series
The Times asked other young people on the Cape what they do to "make it work"