11 replies to this topic

[Jakerz]

Recently on the news up here in Canada it stated that 66% of polled canadians said they're financially helping their adult children. Many of them are doing so despite not being able to save enough for retiremant, and having to delay it. Me and a couple friends were chatting about this, debating whether or not the blame is on the kids(being lazy), the parents(enabling the kids), or the lack of job opportunities.

 

Some of the things the parents are helping with; tuition, transportation, cell phone bills, groceries, ect

 

I don't believe the parents should be delaying they're retirement to help their kids. Especially for things that aren't needed such as cellphones. I can see letting them stay at home rent free a little longer, until they find a job, but thats only if theyre handing resumes out every day and showing a solid effort in finding a job. I was lucky enough to find a decent job fairly quick though.

 

Interested to hear what you all think!

 

http://globalnews.ca...adult-children/

[Romy]

I still live at home but I avoid letting my parents pay for anything that I can take care of. I usually pay my cell phone bill, text books, tuition and even the internet bill for the house.

 

I've always managed to have a somewhat decent job though and I realize that some people might not have the same luck. 

 

People shouldn't let their parents pay for their things though if they can help it.

[Rocket]

I've seen this more and more over the past years.

 

I think a lot of it has to do with the economy and the cost of living keeps going up and up and up. I'm sure no parent wants to see their child living on the streets. But sometimes you have to suffer being poor living in a tiny studio until you can make something of yourself.

But I also feel the current generation of young adults is actually quite lazy. They put zero effort into supporting themselves (I see this firsthand from a lot of friends). Don't look for jobs, just stay and live with their parents, and the parents do nothing about it, hence having to support their adult children. I know all these people that say they wont work in fast food, and no jobs will hire them without experience. This is true about experience, but when you're making money who cares what kind of job it is to start. It gets you out there learning how to deal with scenarios you aren't used to which in turn will help you find another better job. Make minimum wage for a year save it while staying at home, then graduate into adulthood and move out on your own.

 

I think everyone just needs to stop being lazy fucks and living off of mom and dad (unless your parents are rich and dont care and it's not hurting them financially). I'm sorry if that offends you, but do you really want to live with mom and dad when you're 40?? But also a lot of parents are enablers, so it's not just the kids faults, it's rough either way.

 

I think my parents did a great job with me and my siblings, we were cut off at 16 and forced to get weekend jobs in high school, and then after that college or full time jobs. We're all doing extremely well for ourselves (my brother (22) still lives at home but he pays rent to my parents so that's different).

 

 

side note: I know this is not true for all cultures, certain cultures live in multi-family homes and it works for them. This is just based off my American perceptions and what I have witnessed in the United States.

[Coops]

This is a topic I had to go over recently in a class on the psychology of adolescence and the perception of the Millenial generation. I'm not entirely sure I agree with either side. Every generation always calls the next one lazy, or stupid. There is an incredible wealth divide in the United States. Not to mention, tuition and school related expenses are higher than ever and the typical minimum wage job has not kept up with the inflation of the USD. I think it's a stupidly complex problem in the US and can be attributed to a lot of different things, including societal expectations, lack of legitimate social welfare (the government makes money off student loans), lack of education (parents and kids), etc.

When I graduated with high school, literally a week after, I started chemotherapy while working full-time as a cart-pusher and cashier at Walmart. I continued working full time while physically wasting away, so I could pay for my first semester of college. My parents didn't prepare for me to go to school, their entire nest egg was spent on my eldest sibling who squandered it and dropped out. They figured I was worthless and bound to be a failure. My dad even went as far as to claim I was not doing enough chores in the house, and tried to charge me rent while I was working full-time, going to college full-time and enduring six months of chemotherapy. I resent that quite a bit. I worked my ass off and nearly died doing so. The government refused to help me. I only barely managed to pay my school bills, that is with a scholarship that paid half my tuition. It was the closest school (others were hours out of town). After that, I got married and was poor by the government's standard. Now I'm in a small amount of debt, I'm able to manage my health somewhat while attending between full-time and half-time (half time this semester since I'm having brain surgery in November). I worked for six months last year and this year didn't get a Pell Grant because I "made" too much (only a few grand over the poverty line with my husband's income). 

That's been my experience.

I think it's a lot of stuff going on. I've never expected anyone to hand me a golden ticket. But I think we, as a society, need to do better about investing in our kid's futures. As it stands now, we're pretty shitty for a "first-world" nation, compared with Scandinavian countries and the like. Our education and opportunities are shit. It's a business. Someone's getting rich on my despair. I think that's rather messed up. 

This isn't to suggest that there aren't lazy people today. But I don't think it's all laziness and I definitely don't think this generation is any more entitled than the last generation. 

EDIT: Also, sorry if this is disorganized or incoherent... I haven't slept in over 24 hours.   

Edited by Coops, 03 September 2015 - 08:04 AM.

[Fikri]

this topic reminds me of this:

 

i'll be honest and admit that i'm one of those lazy kids that leeches off their parents for everything. i'm kinda spoiled since i was a kid and never has the desire to do any job for side-income (never see the point honestly). it's my elder sister's fault tho. when i was little, i used to be stressed out because the money my parents gave me wasn't enough to buy my school supplies, and when i told my sister, she said, "newsflash: you still have your parents. ask them for more money". ever since that, that ideology kinda stuck in my brain.

 

i'd like to know, is there an age limit that you need to stop relying on your parents tho? i'm 23 and i'd like to think that i'm still their baby son.

 

but alas all fun is gonna be over soon. if everything goes smoothly, next year i'll be graduating college, get a job with my architecture degree and start being independent. *sigh*

[Coops]

this topic reminds me of this:

 

i'll be honest and admit that i'm one of those lazy kids that leeches off their parents for everything. i'm kinda spoiled since i was a kid and never has the desire to do any job for side-income (never see the point honestly). it's my elder sister's fault tho. when i was little, i used to be stressed out because the money my parents gave me wasn't enough to buy my school supplies, and when i told my sister, she said, "newsflash: you still have your parents. ask them for more money". ever since that, that ideology kinda stuck in my brain.

 

i'd like to know, is there an age limit that you need to stop relying on your parents tho? i'm 23 and i'd like to think that i'm still their baby son.

 

but alas all fun is gonna be over soon. if everything goes smoothly, next year i'll be graduating college, get a job with my architecture degree and start being independent. *sigh*

Oh my god. Love the Onion.

Anyways, @Fikri I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with relying on your parent's. I mean, that's sort of their job.. at least, to a degree. I felt the same stress all through middle school and high school. Basically until I left home and got married. I've asked my mom for money exactly one time and she flat out refused to help (I asked for a grand loan which I could return in one months time since the military doesn't give us moving expenses until after we have moved and I was scared we weren't gonna be able to pull it off). Also, you're aware that you're relying on your parents and that it's not necessary ideal and it isn't permanent. That awareness is more than some people and is a great foundation for becoming independent, whenever that might happen. 

I stopped relying on my parents when I was 19 and paid for my own chemotherapy drugs. I learned that my dad is a narcissistic piece of trash and my mom is oblivious or in denial. I don't think there is a one size fits all for dependence. I have a friend who has crippling anxiety and agoraphobia. He is almost thirty and just now has gone back to college. So, I think it kind of just depends on a situation. There are too many variables to determine some arbitrary limit. I've made family, people who didn't raise me and aren't my blood. I'd do anything for them. They know they always have a couch to crash on. Be that as it may, I would also challenge them to do more or get on their feet, in a positive way. Just do the best you can. It'll all come out in the wash anyways.  

[Rocket]

this topic reminds me of this:

 

i'll be honest and admit that i'm one of those lazy kids that leeches off their parents for everything. i'm kinda spoiled since i was a kid and never has the desire to do any job for side-income (never see the point honestly). it's my elder sister's fault tho. when i was little, i used to be stressed out because the money my parents gave me wasn't enough to buy my school supplies, and when i told my sister, she said, "newsflash: you still have your parents. ask them for more money". ever since that, that ideology kinda stuck in my brain.

 

i'd like to know, is there an age limit that you need to stop relying on your parents tho? i'm 23 and i'd like to think that i'm still their baby son.

 

but alas all fun is gonna be over soon. if everything goes smoothly, next year i'll be graduating college, get a job with my architecture degree and start being independent. *sigh*

 

I think the youngest in the family has it easier (my family for instance) my brother didn't go to college but he worked all through highschool and now he owns his own small business but he lives with his parents still (he's 22). He now pays rent, but he didn't for the longest time because he was the baby. He got into drugs heavily, was stealing, and all sorts of bad things but my parents still supported him. I honestly think that my mom didn't/doesn't ever want him to leave because he is basically all she has left out of her children being close by. I'm 2500+ miles away and soon my sister will be, so she'll only have our brother.

[Coops]

I think the youngest in the family has it easier (my family for instance) my brother didn't go to college but he worked all through highschool and now he owns his own small business but he lives with his parents still (he's 22). He now pays rent, but he didn't for the longest time because he was the baby. He got into drugs heavily, was stealing, and all sorts of bad things but my parents still supported him. I honestly think that my mom didn't/doesn't ever want him to leave because he is basically all she has left out of her children being close by. I'm 2500+ miles away and soon my sister will be, so she'll only have our brother.

@Rocket my family dynamic is literally the opposite. My elder siblings had it waaaaay easier than I ever did. For instance, my parents paid for my sister to move to Maine and go to college. Paid for her to move to Texas when she wanted to come live with us again. She dropped out as a junior in college. Ran away with a guy she met online. When I was a kid, like 5-9, I was more spoiled and I had less responsibility. That changed once I was 10 though. No idea what happened.

But that sucks about your brother. I get what you're saying about the youngest. I imagine it must be hard for you to watch your parents enable that behavior. Loneliness is a pretty strong motivator too.

[Rocket]

@Rocket my family dynamic is literally the opposite. My elder siblings had it waaaaay easier than I ever did. For instance, my parents paid for my sister to move to Maine and go to college. Paid for her to move to Texas when she wanted to come live with us again. She dropped out as a junior in college. Ran away with a guy she met online. When I was a kid, like 5-9, I was more spoiled and I had less responsibility. That changed once I was 10 though. No idea what happened.

But that sucks about your brother. I get what you're saying about the youngest. I imagine it must be hard for you to watch your parents enable that behavior. Loneliness is a pretty strong motivator too.

Being the oldest, I think I was the test subject. I was cut off at 16 and forced to get a job. I did and all that good jazz. My younger sister and brother both had it easier but they were still given the same guidelines as me just not as strict.

 

The only time I relied on parents for money as an adult was in 2014 when I moved states due to unforeseen circumstances. I borrowed nearly $5,000 from my father to help ship my ass 2500 miles across the ocean, and had to live with him for a year. I was 27. I paid him basically half of what I made each month after I got a job until my debt was paid off, plus rent for the remainder of the time and saved until I could get a place of my own.

 

oh and my brother has completely turned his life around he was a nasty rebel from 16-20 but the past 2 years he's done amazing things with his life and I couldn't be prouder.

[KaibaSama]

I feel like it may be a bit of both. Some people/kids are lazy and feel like they don't need to do anything, but the job market isn't that good right now, and college grads are having issues trying to find jobs. I know a family friend of mine just recently got a job in the field he went to college for. He was a technology/computer science major I believe.  He was working at a coffee shop before that for a long time, and he's somewhere in his late 20's and still lives with his parents because he can't really afford to live anywhere else as he doesn't have enough money. He only got minimum wage at the coffee shop and I don't even think it was a full-time job, it was part time. 

 

Then you do get the kids who are lazy and just stay with their parents because their parents let them. I know some people like that. I was sort of like that last year, though I was still in high school. I tried sending out many job applications that year for part time work and just kept getting rejected. I felt so bad by all the rejections that I just gave up and stayed at home doing nothing all summer. I applied at a Dunkin' Donuts that opened near me recently, and some kid in my math class got the job I had wanted. I secretly hated him for the rest of the year. My mom said I'm not allowed to do that this summer, so I'll go back to trying to find a summer job. It's a bit harder for me as I don't have a car, or a drivers license so I sort of have to either apply to somewhere within walking distance or hope my mom can dive me to work. I also prefer to do my applications online. I can barely handle going in and asking for an application. It freaks me out really badly to do that. 

 

I don't really have experience either. I did do volunteer work at our humane society for a year, but that was just walking the wonderful dogs in the shelter. Sure, I had to go through training for that, as we had protocols on how to get the dogs in and out and how to deal with multiple dogs in a cage among other things, but it was still just walking dogs. I'm also of the mindset that I don't really want to work at a fast food place. In my mind, that's for people who dropped out of high school and don't have the credentials to get any other sort of job. (There is a McD's by my house). Dunkin' Donuts to me doesn't have the same connotation, though it is sort of fast food, like a Wendy's or McD's does. 

[Coops]

Being the oldest, I think I was the test subject. I was cut off at 16 and forced to get a job. I did and all that good jazz. My younger sister and brother both had it easier but they were still given the same guidelines as me just not as strict.

 

The only time I relied on parents for money as an adult was in 2014 when I moved states due to unforeseen circumstances. I borrowed nearly $5,000 from my father to help ship my ass 2500 miles across the ocean, and had to live with him for a year. I was 27. I paid him basically half of what I made each month after I got a job until my debt was paid off, plus rent for the remainder of the time and saved until I could get a place of my own.

 

oh and my brother has completely turned his life around he was a nasty rebel from 16-20 but the past 2 years he's done amazing things with his life and I couldn't be prouder.

@Rocket it's pretty awesome you paid your dad back and he supported you in an emergency. It gives me hope, my parents made me such a cynic in some ways. xD It's great that your brother was able to turn things around, before it impacted him in a more permanent manner. 

[Katya]

Same thing happens in Europe and here in Portugal. There's not just one cause for this, but some young adults tend to blame the "economic crisis" to excuse their life style and lack of common sense towards their helping parents. Of course, if this happens is because the parents themselves let it.

 

In other cases parents are overprotective/overdenfensive about their son's faillures "oh, this damn crisis, (s)he just can't get a job!". I mean, I'm sure there's tons of people that want to work and can't find a job, but others are just leeching their parents/grandparents/government. I see it wih my own eyes every day, men and women spend their entire days in the cafés/bars drinking and smoking and screaming at the TV screen every time a politian is talking about the crisis and how bad our wages are. The way I see it, if you're not contributing for this society your word doesn't worth a thing. Besides you're not entitled to talk about lack of job opportunities if every time you get called to the job center (don't know the name in English, sorry) you say "eh, I really wouldn't like to do that type of job" or "what, I'm gonna get paid LESS than the social aid gov is giving me now?".
Some of these young adults need a slap in their face to wake up from the numbness they're in. Sadly, for some that only will happen when their parents die, or when the social aid runs out and then when they start to look up for a job they will hear the "sorry, you're too old for the job and you have no experience - where have you been doing the last 20 years?" response.
 
Of course, crisis has its share in this. People are getting fired/retired every day and no one is hired to those vacant positions. But we have people with master degrees working in call centers, but at least they are working and not only contributing for our society but also for their future retirement. Give a medal to those poor batards that spent 3/4 of their lives studying so they can handle morons over a telephone 8hrs a day, instead of writing checks with "social aid" stamp to those who will spend it in booze, cigarrettes and drugs.
 
Me and my brother didn't get an easy life and we had to fight for everything we wanted. We have a fucking bastard for a father figure that never gave us even a piece of bread and our mum made everything she could. We never had lack of anything material (clothes, a decent roof over our heads, school supplies) or food but it was because of my mother's family business, since her job wasn't enough to feed four mouths (everything my father got he would waste in hookers). When my brother was 16 he went to study at night to get a day job and start supporting himself. Two years later he moved out. I did the same more or so and the same age with the difference when I left home I knew I would have to help my mum doing the same so she could leave her fucking husband. For two years I worked in bars, cafés, stationery stores, supermarkets, walking dogs, taking care of my mum's friends' kids/grandsons. I did everything I had to do to survive with dignity and I'm not ashamed of any of that. During those years I didn't waste a cent in booze (I had it for free bar jobs lol), nor drugs (never in my life I got high from any kind of drug, actually), or entertainment (internet, cinema, books, music), all I got was put towards my future and help for my mum. At 18 I went to the army, because they would give me help for an apartment if I needed to move more than a certain quantity of quilometers from my residence, plus I would get free drivers license and all the extra for overseas missions if that ever happened (which it did and because of that I helped my mum recover our family farm and helped her move in).
 
Even after I left the army I went to work as pollice in the national guard, because here it's the most easy thing to do (go to the army) when you wan to go to the guard, which was my ultimate goal. And after that I've had more jobs. Luckily I don't need to, I've saved enough during those years to live a comfortable life, my husband is well paid (he managed to continue in the national guard and he's getting all the ranks I always wanted, the fucker <3) but I still work when I want to. I'm curretly working in a café/bar, because I like it, and it helps me feel useful for me, my family and for the society.
I'm not afraid for my kids' future, not financially at least. They are being teached that they need to work for what they want, because nothing in this life comes for free. I won't push them to be doctors, great lawyers or CEO's as long as they can provide their adult selfs and be happy with whatever job they get. If they want to go to university, good!, they will do with their parents didn't for many reasons, but they will need to work for it, during school and in the first years of adulthood, despite the fact they will have (hopefully) their parents to support them till a certain extent.
 
So... For me and my brother it was a "sink or swim" situation and we had to swim damn hard because, literally, our lives depended on it. And is that what lacks for most of young adults nowadays - a reason for them to throw themselves in the ocean and swim like crazy or they'll perish.
 
 
Sorry for any errors/mispelling. I revised this statement at least 10 times and I think I got rid of every single one, but my English sucks and I'm not ashamed of that either.