A Little Rant on Today's Generation of Kids and Their (lack of) Work Ethic

[nnnnnate]

My perspective is that parents don't/won't make their kids do hard things. I see these things from a church aspect because thats how they are exposed to me but they won't give a talk, help teach a lesson, or plan an activity. The parents don't recognize that if they don't encourage their kids to do stuff like this when they are young the kids don't have the opportunities to grow when the stakes are super low. Its really not that big of a deal if they plan an activity and it sucks. Thats an opportunity to discuss why it sucked and how to do better next time.

I feel like this should all be posted in the "back in my day" thread and its really hard to not say that phrase as I type this out.

So the question I'll pose as a counter point is what are you doing with your kids/youth to help them have a strong work ethic?

 

[nnnnnate]

So what am I doing? I'm making my kid take piano lessons. When his brother is a few years older he'll start as well. Eli started a year ago and it hasn't been hard for him, yet. I took lessons for 8 years and it sucked the whole time. Guess what though, I can play the piano and the organ. I also make my boys clean up after themselves and they are doing more around the house like wash dishes, unload the dishwasher, and take the trash out. When I ask them to do something and they groan or moan about it I check the attitude and they try again. I'm always looking for age appropriate responsibilities that I can give to them.

 

[SoopaHick]

I think times have changed, the working wage now must factor in the cost of retraining an employee and the lost production of losing an employee.

And let's be honest here
Every generation complains about the one after them, nothing new there at all.

I think the problem here is a little harder though.

Where the confusion happens and is where I sometimes can relate with those my age that complain about wages and all that BS....
Yes they need to work harder, try different careers/skills, and stop getting into so much debt over useless things... But also... Wages haven't caught up with cost of living. Raises aren't making up for it at all. Many companies don't show the same loyalty and benefits to their employees as they used too. Myself for example, working for a booming company, have received 4 raises since starting. In that time I've gotten one promotion as well as achieved a major Certification to help the company. It wasn't until my most recent raise that I actually gained income due to inflation... and barely so.
The rapid inflation the last few years has really hurt this situation, and employers are only barely starting to catch up with wages, and many of them can't.

My brain is starting to ramble because I think about this every day and now I can't sort my thoughts so I'll stop here.

 

[glockman]

I think the problem here is a little harder though.

Where the confusion happens and is where I sometimes can relate with those my age that complain about wages and all that BS....
Yes they need to work harder, try different careers/skills, and stop getting into so much debt over useless things... But also... Wages haven't caught up with cost of living. Raises aren't making up for it at all. Many companies don't show the same loyalty and benefits to their employees as they used too. Myself for example, working for a booming company, have received 4 raises since starting. In that time I've gotten one promotion as well as achieved a major Certification to help the company. It wasn't until my most recent raise that I actually gained income due to inflation... and barely so.
The rapid inflation the last few years has really hurt this situation, and employers are only barely starting to catch up with wages, and many of them can't.

My brain is starting to ramble because I think about this every day and now I can't sort my thoughts so I'll stop here.

While I agree cost of living has outpaced wage increases, here is my take on it.
Back in 2000 when I got married and bought a house, I paid $150k for a house. The best interest rate was 7% with a perfect credit score. I had no cell phone payments, no internet, no cable and one car payment. That was it. Tell me how many people in their 20's couldn't afford to pay a mortgage and a single car payment?

The biggest increase in what people consider "cost of living" isn't the actual cost of living, it's the cost of luxuries that most previous generations didn't have. Eating out, subscription services and the like. Young people right now don't understand that those things aren't required to live and that their parents lived a long time without them. I think that is the root of what most people call entitlement. Yet as Houndoc points out, we think having indoor plumbing is a bare minimum while my grandparents lived a long time without it.

 

[SoopaHick]

While I agree cost of living has outpaced wage increases, here is my take on it.
Back in 2000 when I got married and bought a house, I paid $150k for a house. The best interest rate was 7% with a perfect credit score. I had no cell phone payments, no internet, no cable and one car payment. That was it. Tell me how many people in their 20's couldn't afford to pay a mortgage and a single car payment?

The biggest increase in what people consider "cost of living" isn't the actual cost of living, it's the cost of luxuries that most previous generations didn't have. Eating out, subscription services and the like. Young people right now don't understand that those things aren't required to live and that their parents lived a long time without them. I think that is the root of what most people call entitlement. Yet as Houndoc points out, we think having indoor plumbing is a bare minimum while my grandparents lived a long time without it.

I agree that too many focus on the luxury's as necessities. I'll admit first that I'd rather break a finger than cook most nights. I despise the kitchen.

What hurts my soul and I can't see a future in is the housing. It is the main issue with the "complainers" that has any credit. If I sold my house today I wouldn't be able to afford to replace it with something of equal value despite the fact that I have over 100k equity in it. The interest alone would raise my payment at least $1k. Which I couldn't afford that payment raise again... because of the wage/raises increase issues.
When @mbryson posted about his company hiring in the welding department I considered it because it would net me a $10/hr raise back then for the job I was qualified for. But the commute would've been too far. So I looked at the housing prices which is similar to the area I'm in, just older houses. To trade straight across value wise with interest and payment estimates I would be losing my entire $10 raise to the mortgage payment. For a straight across trade on value!

 

[Tonkaman]

So the question I'll pose as a counter point is what are you doing with your kids/youth to help them have a strong work ethic?

Dirt bikes because they are the answer to all of life’s problems 😎


…oh and ass kicking

 

[Pike2350]

I agree that too many focus on the luxury's as necessities. I'll admit first that I'd rather break a finger than cook most nights. I despise the kitchen.

What hurts my soul and I can't see a future in is the housing. It is the main issue with the "complainers" that has any credit. If I sold my house today I wouldn't be able to afford to replace it with something of equal value despite the fact that I have over 100k equity in it. The interest alone would raise my payment at least $1k. Which I couldn't afford that payment raise again... because of the wage/raises increase issues.
When @mbryson posted about his company hiring in the welding department I considered it because it would net me a $10/hr raise back then for the job I was qualified for. But the commute would've been too far. So I looked at the housing prices which is similar to the area I'm in, just older houses. To trade straight across value wise with interest and payment estimates I would be losing my entire $10 raise to the mortgage payment. For a straight across trade on value!

Golden handcuffs of low interest rates. That isn't something that affects younger people. It affects everyone wanting to upgrade.

Why upgrade though? If you have a house, why move?

 

[SoopaHick]

Golden handcuffs of low interest rates. That isn't something that affects younger people. It affects everyone wanting to upgrade.

Why upgrade though? If you have a house, why move?

In that specific situation it was the pay increase and an improvement on the aspects of my job that I strongly dislike.
Long term, because my house doesn't have several things I deeply desire. But that's long term and not as relevant because I very much understand that my "wants" don't fall into the realm of this conversation.

 

[DAA]

So what am I doing? I'm making my kid take piano lessons. When his brother is a few years older he'll start as well. Eli started a year ago and it hasn't been hard for him, yet. I took lessons for 8 years and it sucked the whole time. Guess what though, I can play the piano and the organ. I also make my boys clean up after themselves and they are doing more around the house like wash dishes, unload the dishwasher, and take the trash out. When I ask them to do something and they groan or moan about it I check the attitude and they try again. I'm always looking for age appropriate responsibilities that I can give to them.

I hated piano lessons almost as much as going to church. I mean, I really, really, really hated piano lessons. Not quite as much as going to church. But almost.

I didn't make my kids do either and they are both well adjusted well functioning adults.

Basically, my parenting came down to explaining in explicit detail to my kids what the real cost of ****ing up was going to be. And then let them choose. Which is really what my parents did with me. But I chose to **** up, and got lucky. My kids chose not to **** up and didn't need to get lucky.

- DAA

 

[jeeper]

I will say this... When I was a teenager, we only worked as much as we had to also. I complained about everything, did little, and failed all through school.
I doubt any one of you woke up at 5am to get the cows milked and fed before running to school, so that you could happily come home and mow the hay like daddy asked. (or whatever your associated work/life was at the time) We only worked because we had to, because we were forced. OR until we found something we cared enough to work for (motorcycles and girls for me)
Every one of us would quit today if the bills were paid for us.
We can't really expect kids to want to do something they don't care for, unless they are also forced.
That being said, I do think too many kids are not forced enough. (insert any one of the many examples we all could share here)

Back in my day , we were poor. I learned to fix junk into nicer junk, sell, rinse and repeat. I was always too poor to get any kind of auto loan or credit card, so I never had one. I believe this to be a blessing in disguise now that I am older, as I have never acquired a taste for the nice things that I cant afford to pay cash for.. It also helped me realize that I only have so much money to spend, and I was only going to spend it where I thought it to be most important to me. We didn't buy a TV until about 12 years into marriage. Paid for our first streaming service 3 years ago, and still have just the one (for motorcycle racing access, obviously). Phones are basic SE edition iphone's (the previous version, not the current), still buy my pants from Walmart, and just glued my 2 year old shoe bottom back on last night to get a few more miles out of it.
My wife and kids have to make sacrifices of some things to have other things. Some day the trust funds will kick in, and things will be great.. but until then, we get to cook every meal at home. I've been an appraiser for 4 presidential terms. Of those, I had 4 really good years (you can guess which, but I wont say), but our household is currently back to reheating yesterdays macaroni diner for todays lunch. Cars wont be repo'd, lights wont get shut off, and kids wont go naked because of the choices we made to be frugal.

All of that was my long winded soap box to say that life sucks for everyone in some way. It sucks as a parent to make my kids work. I spend more time yelling at them to 'get back to work', or diffusing the fights they have to ever make up for the amount of work they do. It would be way faster and easier to do it myself. But that doesn't get them any experience. They need to learn to communicate with others when things aren't good. They need to cry because it sucks. They need to have emotions come up, so they can learn to handle them. (insert road rage stories here, that happen because of unchecked emotions). They need to be outside being bored. And it is OUR duty as adults to help them with that as soon and often as possible. And hopefully they will be better people because of it.

 

[Coco]

Had another guy start today - he made it to lunch then was abducted by aliens... 👽

 

[Houndoc]

I don't think that cell phones could be considered a luxury, even if many of us grew up with out them. As the indoor plumbing example above shows, as society changes so does what is considered normal or necessary.

I would honestly have to say that my kids (and many of their friends) were far ahead in many ways where I was as a teenager (more focused, more spiritual etc.) Now one is middle of vet school (married, has 2 kids and is in her third year of her DVM program), my son is married with a baby and in medical school and my youngest in her last semester at USU, and will be graduating with two majors, a difficult minor and a graduate level certificate.

It would be hard for me to say why they turned out how they did. Sometimes the best answer I have is I was sent great kids and managed not to mess them up.

But yes, we did expect them to help around the house when they where young, work to pay for their wants and they had challenging hobbies (both girls trained their own horses) that taught them that not everything goes as you want (some broken bones to prove it) and it takes time and hard work to reach your goals.

 

[Houndoc]

I think the problem here is a little harder though.

Where the confusion happens and is where I sometimes can relate with those my age that complain about wages and all that BS....
Yes they need to work harder, try different careers/skills, and stop getting into so much debt over useless things... But also... Wages haven't caught up with cost of living. Raises aren't making up for it at all. Many companies don't show the same loyalty and benefits to their employees as they used too. Myself for example, working for a booming company, have received 4 raises since starting. In that time I've gotten one promotion as well as achieved a major Certification to help the company. It wasn't until my most recent raise that I actually gained income due to inflation... and barely so.
The rapid inflation the last few years has really hurt this situation, and employers are only barely starting to catch up with wages, and many of them can't.

My brain is starting to ramble because I think about this every day and now I can't sort my thoughts so I'll stop here.

As a business owner I have to admit this is spot on. My staff average pay has probably doubled over the last 5-7 years- and honestly is well deserved and long over due. And still has room for improvement.
Many of us as business owners don't want to pay staff a fair wage (define that however you wish, I won't debate it) but get frustrated by high turn over, lack of dedication or other components of what we lump together as "work ethic."

 

[nnnnnate]

I hated piano lessons almost as much as going to church. I mean, I really, really, really hated piano lessons. Not quite as much as going to church. But almost.

I didn't make my kids do either and they are both well adjusted well functioning adults.

Basically, my parenting came down to explaining in explicit detail to my kids what the real cost of ****ing up was going to be. And then let them choose. Which is really what my parents did with me. But I chose to **** up, and got lucky. My kids chose not to **** up and didn't need to get lucky.

- DAA

Seven kids and every one of us took lessons for 8+ years. Every one of us can still play for pleasure or when needed. I haven't played the organ in probably ten years and someone needed an organist for a funeral so luckily I had a week to practice and I managed to not make a fool of myself. My wife also took piano lessons for many years and plays a lot better than I do, but never played around on an organ.

I appreciate that I can play now but it was a really hard thing for me growing up for the normal reasons but compounded because of my attention issues. If we didn't do our practicing we couldn't do anything else. I guess we were obedient enough that we never tried to push them in that.

We were expected to work through the summers in high school. My mom told me and my older brother than we had to work at least 30 hours a week. We were lucky to have the opportunity to lifeguard but that sucked enough (attention issues) that my second summer I went and found another part time job at training table to get my hours. The next summer I got a full time job gardening at temple square. We were expected to save money for college but we also wanted to work so we would have money to play and go on dates. We had cars to use and insurance and gas was paid as long as we made the 3.5 gpa good student discount.

I've got neighbors with teenage kids at home that pay for people to come and mow their lawns and clean their houses and wash their windows.

 

[SoopaHick]

I've got neighbors with teenage kids at home that pay for people to come and mow their lawns and clean their houses and wash their windows.

This is something I see all over in my neighborhood. Same neighbors that act like I'm some kind of Superman when they walk by and I'm busting my butt to put in sprinkler lines, build a retaining wall, raking gravel, and planting grass. I'm over here wishing I could afford to pay someone to do it while they're over there in awe that I know how.

Maybe I'm just really good at putting off the aura that "I didn't just YouTube how to do it"

 

[J-mobzz]

my first job was lagoon @14. Halfway through my first day working the jet star I was like F*** this walked out and rode the UTA home. I’m not lazy and my next job was washing and detailing cars. Much harder work then unloading people from a roller coaster but the lagoon vibe was not me. I didn’t like the people I was working with the pay was the lowest allowed by law.

The people that worked at the car lot/mechanic shop I worked at were just cool fun people. That’s where I was first introduced to Jeeps, learned to weld, pulled my first transmission etc.. it was just a fun place to work and I was sad when I had to move on after high school.

I had no remorse for walking out on lagoon then or now.


Funny one of my kids just got hired at lagoon to work frightmares haunted houses. Hopefully he likes it more than I did.

 

[J-mobzz]

I don’t understand this idea of loyalty to employers personally. The last job I left a little over a year ago I gave them one day notice because I had a big fat commission check waiting for that quarter and I felt like if I gave them anything more that was just giving them opportunity to get out of paying me.

They asked if I would still stay in contact to help transition and we basically negotiated them to pay me for another month to answer my phone while I started working at the new place.

I don’t know I guess I’m just say quality people cost a lot of money. And in today’s world when it’s $800 to rent a bedroom in somebody else’s house and $80 to fill up your tank with gas it’s going to take more than a basic minimum livable wage to find those quality people.

 

[DAA]

Seven kids and every one of us took lessons for 8+ years.

We were expected to work through the summers in high school.

I was forced to take the piano lessons. It was just mind numbing, thoughtless, repetition to me. I hated it. Every mind numbing repetitive second of it. Just how I was and still am wired. But, as you say, I HAD to do it or I wasn't allowed to do other things I might actually enjoy. With much life experience between then and now, I think it was cruelty to make me do it. I really do. All I got out of it was a desire to not have to do what anyone told me to do. And, I acted on that desire in my teens...

I have not been unemployed for a single day since I was 12 years old. I wanted anything growing up, I had to work and pay for it. Anything. School clothes starting at 14, I had to buy them myself. A car? Insurance? Hahahahahahahahaa!!!! That was rich kid dream world stuff to me. I had to drop out of high school and do what I had to do to make money and get my own place and buy a car. I uh, "worked around" the insurance thing and never actually had any until I was in my 30's.

Yes, I ****ed up. And yes, it took a lot of luck to literally survive my life choices. And I don't blame anyone but me. But making me do that piano shit sure didn't help a gawd dam thing and it didn't ever help me pay a bill or stay alive or get laid. All I got out of it was bitterness and resentment.

- DAA

 

[jeeper]

I'm sure it's because of the spy's that read my computer.. but this popped up on my FB feed just now.

 

[glockman]

I don’t understand this idea of loyalty to employers personally. The last job I left a little over a year ago I gave them one day notice because I had a big fat commission check waiting for that quarter and I felt like if I gave them anything more that was just giving them opportunity to get out of paying me.

They asked if I would still stay in contact to help transition and we basically negotiated them to pay me for another month to answer my phone while I started working at the new place.

I don’t know I guess I’m just say quality people cost a lot of money. And in today’s world when it’s $800 to rent a bedroom in somebody else’s house and $80 to fill up your tank with gas it’s going to take more than a basic minimum livable wage to find those quality people.

I have zero loyalty to my corporate overlords but I'm loyal to my boss who has looked out for me for many, many years. I am also loyal to several of the people I work with who I've been friends with since before they had kids who are now in college. It's easier to be loyal when you are rewarded appropriately though.