Teens these days - so they say

[GoldenRivet]

A man is entitled to an ever shrinking number of things in this world. Near as i am aware, expression of his opinions is still one of them, for now. So heres mine.

I never had a lot demanded of me as a kid growing up. Sometimes my dad would drag me out of bed at 730am on a Saturday to help him mow or weedeat, throw hay, stack bags of shavings, or fix a tractor. Or he would put me to work helping him put up a chain link fence, or a split rail fence, or repair this thing or that. Sometimes he wouldnt, sometimes he would leave me to my frivolous time wasting. I whined and moaned about it when he asked, but generally i got up and did it. I wasnt very good at it. yeah sometimes i nicked the vinyl siding, dented a downspout or two... or messed it all up some other way leaving him with more problems than he had at the start of it all. Yeah, sometimes he would lay into me for bringing the wrong tool "Dammit you wouldnt know a crescent wrench from a left titty!", or maybe he'd get onto me for holding the flashlight incorrectly "Son if i ever wanted to look at the back of my head in the dark i know just who to call!" The man was an expert at making you feel about an inch tall for screwing up the job... then, when it was all over, and we would behold 200 feet of fresh fence, and he would make you feel like a mountain just for having been a part of the payoff.

Thing is, the old man never needed any help with that crap, he was perfectly good at doing it on his own. Hell... i think for him it was down right theraputic sometimes to just find random thing to work on. Growing up that never made a lot of sense to me. But sooner or later as i got older i figured out that the old man was trying to teach me one thing or another, even if i was almost too damned thick to learn it.

You see... he knew that one day, i would be a grown man. I'd have to wake up at 5am, and go do a bunch of stuff i hated, so i could feed a family. He knew that one day, id be covered in more dirt and sweat by 9am than i cared to think about so i could keep the mortgage covered for another month. He knew that the alternative was that i could grow up to be a layabout, who bemoaned waking up before sunrise, who couldnt install a sink, or replace a missing shingle, or change a flat tire or do one darned thing worthwhile. and then what use would i be?

So what did i get out of all that?

plenty really... but primarily I learned that you can fish, or you can cut bait... but you cant just liesurely ride the boat.

I think thats part of why it sends me over the absolute edge when i see someone just sitting there, whiling away the hours staring off into space daydreaming, napping while there are things... important things within arms reach to be done, and there they sit, idle as an old mossy log.

I am pleased, often, to go out to the airfield at 630am, and meet some 16, 17, or 18 year old kid, eager to tackle the day. I ask "did you study that thing i asked you to study?" and they snap out a firm "yes sir!" and i ask four or five questions about the subject and their answers float on confidence through the air and my ears receive the correctness with delight.

What is it that makes some youngn's possess that drive? that desire to rise, hit the shower, and try to see if they can conquer the whole Earth by lunch? What grit is stored within their guts to cause them to be that way? is it their parenting? is it their lineage? are they smarter? dumber?

Really... i dont care why they have it. Why they have it doesnt matter. it just matters that they do.

What i really wanna know is... why are others so content to just lay beneath the shade tree with strawgrass between their teeth, and they sit with absolutely not one desire or ambition in the world except to simply linger there?

I scratch my head on it... but i damn sure know who im putting my money on, and my faith in, when the chips are down and everything is on the line.

Of particular trouble is my own teen. I grow tired, frustrated, annoyed, and downright angry when i come home for a late lunch at 230pm most days, and find her still asleep in bed.

18 years old, no job, no plan, no ambitions, school work is at the very bottom of the list. and always always always really sleepy for someone who slees 14 hours. Of course, i'm the step dad, so what in the hell right do i have to say anything? and when i do... well, i get a full broadside from both of the broads in my house.

over it

[Reece]

Ah, venting steam! Shouldn't be too long and she will find a boy and marry!!
Then peace and quiet!

Hope it all works out for you.

Cheers.

[Jimbuna]

I believe I know where you're coming from John because despite the fact both my kids have built successful careers for themselves I know a few close friends who would struggle to say the same about their own kids.

All the best for the future.

[Gorpet]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

A man is entitled to an ever shrinking number of things in this world. Near as i am aware, expression of his opinions is still one of them, for now. So heres mine.

I never had a lot demanded of me as a kid growing up. Sometimes my dad would drag me out of bed at 730am on a Saturday to help him mow or weedeat, throw hay, stack bags of shavings, or fix a tractor. Or he would put me to work helping him put up a chain link fence, or a split rail fence, or repair this thing or that. Sometimes he wouldnt, sometimes he would leave me to my frivolous time wasting. I whined and moaned about it when he asked, but generally i got up and did it. I wasnt very good at it. yeah sometimes i nicked the vinyl siding, dented a downspout or two... or messed it all up some other way leaving him with more problems than he had at the start of it all. Yeah, sometimes he would lay into me for bringing the wrong tool "Dammit you wouldnt know a crescent wrench from a left titty!", or maybe he'd get onto me for holding the flashlight incorrectly "Son if i ever wanted to look at the back of my head in the dark i know just who to call!" The man was an expert at making you feel about an inch tall for screwing up the job... then, when it was all over, and we would behold 200 feet of fresh fence, and he would make you feel like a mountain just for having been a part of the payoff.

Thing is, the old man never needed any help with that crap, he was perfectly good at doing it on his own. Hell... i think for him it was down right theraputic sometimes to just find random thing to work on. Growing up that never made a lot of sense to me. But sooner or later as i got older i figured out that the old man was trying to teach me one thing or another, even if i was almost too damned thick to learn it.

You see... he knew that one day, i would be a grown man. I'd have to wake up at 5am, and go do a bunch of stuff i hated, so i could feed a family. He knew that one day, id be covered in more dirt and sweat by 9am than i cared to think about so i could keep the mortgage covered for another month. He knew that the alternative was that i could grow up to be a layabout, who bemoaned waking up before sunrise, who couldnt install a sink, or replace a missing shingle, or change a flat tire or do one darned thing worthwhile. and then what use would i be?

So what did i get out of all that?

plenty really... but primarily I learned that you can fish, or you can cut bait... but you cant just liesurely ride the boat.

I think thats part of why it sends me over the absolute edge when i see someone just sitting there, whiling away the hours staring off into space daydreaming, napping while there are things... important things within arms reach to be done, and there they sit, idle as an old mossy log.

I am pleased, often, to go out to the airfield at 630am, and meet some 16, 17, or 18 year old kid, eager to tackle the day. I ask "did you study that thing i asked you to study?" and they snap out a firm "yes sir!" and i ask four or five questions about the subject and their answers float on confidence through the air and my ears receive the correctness with delight.

What is it that makes some youngn's possess that drive? that desire to rise, hit the shower, and try to see if they can conquer the whole Earth by lunch? What grit is stored within their guts to cause them to be that way? is it their parenting? is it their lineage? are they smarter? dumber?

Really... i dont care why they have it. Why they have it doesnt matter. it just matters that they do.

What i really wanna know is... why are others so content to just lay beneath the shade tree with strawgrass between their teeth, and they sit with absolutely not one desire or ambition in the world except to simply linger there?

I scratch my head on it... but i damn sure know who im putting my money on, and my faith in, when the chips are down and everything is on the line.

Of particular trouble is my own teen. I grow tired, frustrated, annoyed, and downright angry when i come home for a late lunch at 230pm most days, and find her still asleep in bed.

18 years old, no job, no plan, no ambitions, school work is at the very bottom of the list. and always always always really sleepy for someone who slees 14 hours. Of course, i'm the step dad, so what in the hell right do i have to say anything? and when i do... well, i get a full broadside from both of the broads in my house.

over it

Well Rivet, Welcome to the wonderful world of relationships and marriage of today.Anyway Anytime you become a step dad, well you roll the dice and take a chance depending on how young they are. But today more so than ever you are only a step dad. And it's a bundle you get that after a while becomes hell. To know is to know without saying a word.
Good luck my friend and you just might find that old song Heart of Stone by the Rolling Stones...And at some point in future,the next time you lift off that runway and lift the nose into the blue skies swing your head around.And look back at the past. Climb above the clouds to a beautiful blue sky and sunshine and feel freedom Pilot, the world is yours.

[Kapitan]

As i'm getting older i'm looking back and thinking wow the generation following me feel like i owe them something.

Sadly I think our governments have had a lot to do with this "entitlement" the belief you can roll out of university and start as a CEO on £100,000 a year and that everyone is a winner and should get a participation award for simply doing something.

Fact is many of the younger generation feel that a simple job like working in retail or hospitality is beneath them and they deserve better so instead of gaining some valuable experience they simply dont bother and whinge when no one hires them because they have no experience.

[Platapus]

The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect to elders, and a love for chatter in place of exercise. …
Children began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households. They no longer rose from their seats when an elder entered the room; they contradicted their parents, chattered before company, gobbled up the dainties at table, and committed various offences against Hellenic tastes, such as crossing their legs. They tyrannised over the paidagogoi and schoolmasters.

-- Kenneth John Freeman 1907 (paraphrasing of Hellenic attitudes towards the youth in 600 - 300 BC)

Kids!
I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!
Kids!
Who can understand anything they say?
Kids!
They a disobedient, disrespectful oafs!
Noisy, crazy, dirty, lazy, loafers!
While we're on the subject:
Kids!
You can talk and talk till your face is blue!
Kids!
But they still just do what they want to do!
Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?
Kids!
I've tried to raise him the best I could
Kids! Kids!
Laughing, singing, dancing, grinning, morons!
And while we're on the subject!
Kids! They are just impossible to control!
Kids! With their awful clothes and their rock an' roll!
Why can't they dance like we did
What's wrong with Sammy Caine?
What's the matter with kids today!

[em2nought]

Maybe she has sleep apnea. I think I'd fill out a profile on a dating app for her. Snore White seeking seven dwarves. Those off to work we go types need not apply.

[Armistead]

I enjoyed your post, in that you portrayed how I think many of us older folks grew up. My dad had a rule about getting up, he didn't care what time we went to bed, but we were getting out of bed at 6am and that was 7 days a week and you made your bed up right after you got out of it. The generation of adults in my youth expected kids to do things and also growing up for years on a farm we did things we hated. We got home from school we always had the rotating chores to do a few hours a day before we could play with friends. We all sat at the table for dinner and you ate what was on your plate or did without. As you said, when the adults taught us something the men usually did so with insult and jest, ever reminding us how easy we had it compared to what they went through. I think we were also a generation of learning trades cuz most of us weren't getting loans and going to college. I did trade work for years, hard work, until I built a business as a GC and had employees doing most the physical stuff. I think we just live with a generation today that thinks the world owes them a great job and pay or they'll just live off their parents. Like somehow it's gonna just fall out of the sky. I hear constantly of grown adults in their 20's laying around the house, up all night playing on the computer and sleeping the day away. I think culture has made children so fragile and offended they just aren't gonna learn the lesson of ... hard knocks, cept when no one is there anymore and they're forced to or die.

[Ostfriese]

Like we did the members of the young generations dreams of an easy job which will make them rich in no time (who of you hasn't thought about that in his/her youth?).


A key difference in my opinion is the availabilty, or more precisely the overflow of information. When I grew up in the 1980s we got our information from a library - if it had the right books. Today they use the always available internet and are flooded with a plethora of information, and for every bit of information there will be dozens of other pieces of information, saying different things. This means that a key skill for young people today is the ability to filter information, which requires a lot of effort. In my line of work I still see a lot of young people who are capable of that, and they still have great ideas and do their job properly, so I simply refuse to point my finger at "the Youth" in general.


However, even the people I mentioned already know that -unlike my generation- they will never earn enough money to achieve the same level as their parents. A single income family these days isn't able to raise kids AND purchase a home without falling significantly behind those who don't raise kids. For a long time (not just the last couple of years) inflation has been higher than pay rises, so effectively they have less spare money than we did. And especially the smart ones get this very early in their lives. So, why should they put all possible effort into wage slaving, when they can pay for their needs with a 20-hours-per-week job and enjoy more free time?


A quote from Kapitan: "many of the younger generation feel that a simple job like working in retail or hospitality is beneath them"

While I agree with this in general I must also add that the same goes for any other generation as well. Simple jobs are beneath most people these days, and those who work a simple job are being looked down to by most others, not just the younger generation.

[u crank]

Kids these days they don't value a dollar
Don't like chewing but they sure can swallow
Wasn't that way in my younger days
There's something wrong with kids these days

Tom Rush song from 1972.

I was somewhat insulted when I heard this song back when I was 22 years old.

I get it now.