Connecting the Dots: Get Your Ass out of the Basement and Find a Job!
By Tony Sagami
It made me laugh.
One of my sons brought me to Bring Your Father to School Day when he was in kindergarten. Each child took turns introducing their father and explaining what he did for a living.
“My dad makes houses.”
“My dad drives a truck.”
“My dad cooks food.”
When my son introduced me, he said, “My dad looks at a computer.”
My son wasn’t far from being right. If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time reading; reading about the economy and the markets.
I spend three to four hours a day reading, and in addition to all the major financial publications like the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, there are a couple dozen e-letters I read more faithfully than my parents did the Bible.
One of my absolute favorites is written by David Hay of Evergreen Capital Management in Bellevue, Washington. If you like John Mauldin’s Thoughts From The Frontline, you will love Hay’s Evergreen Virtual Advisor, which is free and is published once a week.
Above is a chart (one of many) from Hay’s most recent e-letter. It really hit home with me because I have three children in their 20s. They’re all currently in college, but the job situation for young adults is so bleak that a growing number of them have moved back home into mom and dad’s basement.
My daughter, Keiko, interning at Root Sports.
All these “boomerang” kids speak volumes about the current job market and the (deteriorating) state of the economy.
Don’t let the improving jobs numbers fool you. The April unemployment rate dropped to 5.4% from 5.5% in March, the lowest rate since May 2008. However, the jobs situation for 18- to 29-year-olds is awful.
Generation Opportunity, a non-partisan youth advocacy organization, reported that while the official unemployment rate for 18- to 29-year-olds is 7.9%, it’s actually 13.8% if you include those who have given up looking for work.
Generation Opportunity estimates that an additional 1.8 million young adults should be counted as unemployed by the Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force.
Not only are young adults not finding jobs, millions of them are saddled with huge student loan debts. According to the Center for American Progress, over 40 million Americans have student loan debt totaling $1.3 trillion, with the average loan balance around $27,000.
Student loans are a serious problem, but Americans of all ages are taking on more car and credit debt than ever.
High unemployment and high debt are a toxic combination, so you don’t have to look too far to understand why retail sales—despite the substantial drop in gas prices—are slumping.
The Commerce Department reported that retail sales—excluding automobiles, gas, and food—were also unchanged in April, well below the 0.5% increase that Wall Street was expecting.
Some of the hardest-hit retailers are those that cater to the basement-dwelling 18- to 29-year-olds. In the last two weeks…
- Buckle Inc., a young-adult clothing chain, reported lower-than-expected sales and profits.
- Urban Outfitters reported weaker-than-expected same-store sales and profits.
- Kate Spade, my daughter’s favorite fashion designer, reported a $55 million quarterly loss!
Perhaps the biggest retail warning sign of all came from Walmart.
Walmart is struggling with several problems beyond cash-strapped millennials—such as the strong dollar, employee wage increases, consumer wallet tightening, and surprising weakness in its e-commerce business—but it is definitely struggling.
On a year-over-year basis, quarterly revenue fell to $114.83 billion from $114.96 billion and shy of consensus forecasts of $116.3 billion. This isn’t a one-quarter slip either. Other than in Q3 of 2014, Walmart has reported eight out of nine quarters of shrinking sales.
Walmart isn’t very optimistic about the current quarter either; management now expects to earn $1.06-$1.18 per share, largely below the average analyst estimate of $1.17.
So what does this mean for us?
The US is certainly a consumer-driven economy, and the consumer is looking pretty sickly to me. Remember the horrible GDP numbers from the first quarter? There’s more where that came from.
Do you own any retail stocks? If yes, you better take a very critical look at them and evaluate how sensitive they are to the economic cycle. At a minimum, I highly recommend the use of protective stops to protect yourself from big drops.
Another way to hedge your bets is to look away from the US and into China, where a pending “October Surprise” promises to take yuan-denominated assets to the moon.
In any case, if you’re an empty-nester, maybe you should tidy up your basement. You may have some long-term guests moving in soon.
Tony Sagami
30-year market expert Tony Sagami leads the Yield Shark and Rational Bear advisories at Mauldin Economics. To learn more about Yield Shark and how it helps you maximize dividend income, click here. To learn more about Rational Bear and how you can use it to benefit from falling stocks and sectors, click here.
To some degree, I think our kids have a sense of entitlement I don’t remember having.
My kid (almost 27) still living with us in our shittly little urban apartment, is always bemoaning landlords and rental this/that, crappy employers, blaming all kinds of things outside of himself for his lack of opportunity and disfortune.
We his parents, are blue collar people. We got up at 2 AM to load trucks, we lived in dives, we moved when we had to, we scraped out a living in this world over the decades in any way we could.
But somehow our kids have become too good for that? They think somebody owes them a living wage, a place with a roof and running water, a lunch every day, enough money for new shoes and cell phones – nobody ever gave us any of that. It took decades of working every shit job we could find to stay afloat.
We are Baby Boomers. We raised and put two kids through college by the skin of our teeth. Now over 60, we are still paying their bills. We have little in savings because we are still paying for our kids. Fuck all, we don’t even own a fucking car.
We worked all our lives just to live. That’s what peasants do. It’s a long tradition in peasantry.
You work, you eat, the government jacks you every chance it gets, you die.
I’m not seeing any real differences from ancient times to now. Except that as a Baby Boomer I am somehow responsible for everyone else’s misfortune.
Stan – tough love time.
Stan, a lot of us parents are too easy on our kids. Llpoh’s undoubtedly right that it’s tough love time, but I’ll credit you for your admission.
@Stan, wow, I’m so sorry you have allowed your spawn to run your life like that.
My son ALWAYS paid rent after he was done with school, ALWAYS was told that he could have anything his own earnings could buy, was given a drop dead date for getting out of my house, and because he had to help cook, clean, buy food, take care of himself and help with household maintenance and cleaning, he made the only prudent decision to get out as soon as he could.
I moved out of my parents’ home at 15, I thought my son living with me until he was 23/24 was insane. But then again, I’m a pretty awesome mom, I probably wouldn’t have left my mom and dad’s house if their home was like mine.
Make life harder for them, learn to say no, if they physically harm you, or even bully and become violent, help the state lock them up. @Llpoh is right, it is way beyond tough love time.
Your words betray fear, you seem to be afraid of your child and afraid of trying to make things different for yourself. That is so sad.
Pray to your God for strength and guidance, and make your kids become the adults they pretend to be. For cripes’ sakes man, you are doing them NO good for the future they will face when you leave this world.
And I still help my son out financially, but not for flashy shoes or bullshit. I help in all the time because I love him, and because he is standing on his own two feet, raising a family and rebuilding a POS house to call their very own. I support him because he deserves it. And he works hard and still, thanks to policies he can’t control, struggles financially.
Not because I owe him a damn thing. And he most definitely doesn’t ask, he knows I gave him life, then wings, and that the rest is up to him. Every gift I give him, every dime I spend, when he thanks me (which he always does or I would no longer give and he knows it), I tell him to enjoy it because for today, I have it, and tomorrow I may not, and might even expect him to help me. I know he would, because he helps me without rancor now.
Would YOUR kids help you Stan? Or would they come up with excuses and bullshit and turn their backs?
Good luck and hugs to you.
I have a friend who had to change the locks on his house to keep his kid out. And then….he broke in!!
We ran a very supportive family and my children all received good educations and had lots of love. My daughter moved away to university and never came home to live, as it should be. She is now married with a child of her own and recently informed me about her new job successes. My son is 31 and owns his own home just up the river from me. He likes to hang around with his girlfriend and we stay out of each other’s hair for the most part, even though we are very close. He lived at home while he did his apprenticeship schooling at the local college. He works away a great deal and I keep an eye on his house.
From the momeent you have a child you are raising them to leave and be their own person. You can remain tight and supportive, but being an adult means growing up and cutting the strings.
I left home at 17. Nobody gave me anything and nobody cared. It was a tough 20 years after that.
I will not do that to my children.
– The thing that pisses me off till I’m ready to explode is the propaganda shit about how Baby Boomers had it so great, and how they wrecked the world with their selfishness, stole everybody’s pension money (would I approve of deleting my own pension forchissake??), and screwed all of humanity with their SUV’s and McMansions and are now working into old age stealing jobs from the young.
The biggest crock of shit ever foisted on the public.
Multi-generational homes were the norm up until WWII – but the more the nation inflated in every way, shape and form the more wealth the banks were able to harvest.
It was vital to atomize the family and “force” people into nuclear families.
So now our homes are not designed for multiple generations and “living with your parents” is considered a failure while warehousing the elderly is considered a success.
The banks win again.
@Stanley, you may “not do that” to your children, instead you do FOR them and then resent them for it. Much better, I guess?
I was married (to an abuser) and a new mom at 15. I went to work at 8, so no biggie to work for myself. I worked two jobs, went to college and raised a kid, all before I was 22. And got kicked around for my efforts. You bet I kept my kid from that path, all but the work part.
I don’t blame my parents for how hard my life was, my choices, my burden, and they did the best they could.
You aren’t “helping” your kids dear, you are enabling them to abuse you and feel entitled to it forever. YOU did this.
Changed my mind, no sorrow for you here.
Yep Stanley, young adulthood is tough for most of us, but that is why many of us grew up to be smarter, better, adults.
Hiding, or altering, the realities of life (it is hard work, tough, not fair, not for pansies) will only create soft-bellied darlings that others, whom are tougher and stronger, will take advantage.
I laugh at other parents like you Stan. You create pussies then cry because they are exactly the dependent, narcissistic pussies you created. See it all the time amongst my friends. They tell me how “lucky” I raised a kid to do for himself, work hard, and still love his mom. It wasn’t LUCK, it was WORK, work that they chose not to do so as not stress or burden their little darlings.
My job was to make my son a man, and I did. I was 15 freaking years old when I started, what is your excuse again? You were poor when you were a young adult? SO WERE MOST OF US ALL. THAT is the way life is supposed to be.
This is what I know, I never, ever, pretended that I had money I did not, I never, ever, spent money I couldn’t afford to gift him things he didn’t need, and I never, ever, did for him without him knowing life isn’t a free ride.
And this is also what I know, I look upon my son with a deep love and affection, he is not only my son, he has grown into a man that I am very proud to call my friend.
I am sorry you won’t ever feel that Stan, but as it is nobody’s fault but your own, I’m not wasting any more energy on it. As I said, enjoy what you created, or continue to resent it and eat yourself alive inside. Either way, good luck
Stanley,
As a Gen X’er I would love to have the same opportunities the boomers have had. Of course not every boomer profited the same and I can appreciate your struggle. Still, it’s undeniable that most of the boomers were of prime working age during very good times.
Generation Y might have a greater sense of entitlement but I’m sure the same was said of the boomers but their “greatest generation” parents. I was told my generation was apathetic, cynical, etc. As I look at myself and my peers I’d say most of us want the same thing the boomers have (or strive for) – job security, upward mobility, etc. Generation Y will fall in line eventually if given the opportunity.
@TE
If it will make you deride me even more (and make feel better about your own parenting skills), not only is my son still here, his girlfriend lives here too. She came as a temporary refugee from a bad home situation 3 1/2 years ago. We took her in.
Because we are bad people and bad parents and evil Baby Boomers.
If you wish to be even more aghast at our lack of good decision making , we had a homeless Bulgarian carpet layer living on our couch for a while a couple of years ago. Until we finally had to evict him from the sofa.
Not to mention the various other people we have taken in over the years, just because. Because somebody has to be kind even when there is no financial sense in being humane.
Dump the fuckers out in the street and call it a day. Government will be there to bail them out, right? Right?
@Olga: “Multi-generational homes were the norm up until WWII”
My wife’s grandmother lived to be 99. She told us that in 1930’s people wanted Social Security so their older parents didn’t have to live with them.
I know that my great grandmother (Cora) lived with my grand parents – and my grand mother didn’t care for it at all.
So this inter-generational family stuff might just be crap.
Stanley, one must always take other posts with a grain of salt. It is easy to sit behind a computer anonymously and and deride others. I admire most of what you have said above–I would be hard pressed to turn my back on my children as well. I do agree though that they should pay rent or some equivalent. I , like you am a baby boomer ( in name only ) as I detest the term. I have tried to do everything right and am blessed. I have sacrificed by NOT buying the mcmansion, etc. to put my kids through college. I will not however, except as described above support them long term. If it means they relocate to a good job market , so be it as I did after college. The main fault I see with millenials and for most job seekers for that matter, is an unwillingness to relocate. This is nonnegotiable in todays world.
A man from the future came to my door the other day. He said he came to give me a pill. That if I swallowed the pill, I would instantly be 18 again. And I said — “GET THE FUCK OFF MY PORCH!!!”
Looking back in retrospect, being 18 in 1971 was fairly great. Being 18 in 2015? Blowme, I’d want no part of that. Young people (not all, of course) are basically sooooo fucked.
Stucky, I agree that young people today are basically screwed. The economy has rebalanced the job market and has eliminated most college entry level jobs as well as multitiudes of other categories including blue collar ones. I really don’t think there is a solution. But I do know, the worlds largest econony cannot be based on Uber and Google and the like as much as the fruit and nuts crowd in Cali might think so..
Greetings,
Though I will only paraphrase it, the Russian military has some great thoughts on this:
A wet soldier doesn’t fear the rain.
The more comfort the less courage there is.
Humans will always take the easy way out – that is a given. If children are still living at home and doing nothing then it is the fault of the parents. I say that the only way to get things moving is to make it less comfortable. Only then will the layabout find the courage to get up and do something.
Stanley has a big heart but he can’t seem to see the difference between a “freeloader” and someone who is truly needy and requires charity/help. TE like myself has no sympathy for slackers who won’t pull their own weight in the world.
I have a friend who still has three grown children living in his home, ages 29,27,21. They work at Starbucks for peanuts and still live off their parental units even though the two older children have degrees from college. Free rent, free car, free insurance, free food……….these are freeloaders same as the FSA. And don’t give me the song and dance that there are NO JOBS, that’s an excuse.
It’s too bad we’re not all perfect, huh, Stan?
@Stanley, you were the one whining about them my dear. I wasn’t deriding you, I was trying to wake you the hell up.
I raised my son, from birth, to believe he was going to leave. I didn’t guilt or force him into anything, other than the one basic truth that I’ve found in this world:
If you want something, want to be something, you have to work for it. There is no free ride. He didn’t go to college, and I was 100% supportive of that decision as long as he worked and paid rent.
You and I, apparently, do not see the world the same way. I am sorry if I made you feel less than, your choices and paths are different from mine, that is all.
Peace and good luck to you Stanley.
@Bea, exactly. I’ve recently come upon a new saying that I am using (in my head) often. “Think about how hard God works trying to take care of the over 7 billion souls on this earth, and the billions in the other one(s), if God can work that hard, then so can I.”
So many in our TV dinner society think that work is a four letter word and that they are owed something. I’m just glad my son, and hopefully my 9 yo daughter too, don’t. Hugs Lady!
Stanley, I don’t see anyone deriding you. You voluntarily shared some details of your situation. Others have offered opinions and possible options for you. Fact is, you’ve made choices in your life that led directly to what I perceive is some level of unhappiness with the results. Change or don’t change. The choice is up to you but making the same choices over and over while expecting different results is insanity.
It seems like you were made to stand on your own two feet from an early age. You got by and instead of making your children and their entourage stand on their own two feet, you give them reasons and the ability not to. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that but by doing so, you enable them to stand on your two feet instead of their own so why bitch about it?
Personally I’d drop them off at the local mission and allow them to stand on someone else’s two feet for awhile. It won’t kill them and might just encourage them to stand on their own like you did all those years ago. You can still be there for moral support without providing material and monetary support.
I looked forward to beginning my own life upon graduation for most of my childhood. Not because I had a bad life. It was quite the opposite but I was dying to begin my own adventure with all it’s trials and tribulations just like any other wild creature on this planet. It’s the natural order of things. I never regretted a minute of it.
Best of luck to you Stanley but I gotta warn you, luck won’t get you far on this planet.
I have a good friend who has massively spoiled her Millenial daughter. I never could understand it until one day in an unrelated conversation she shared that growing up, she always felt like white trash in her community. She said she made sure her daughter never had to feel that way.
Sometimes we use our kids to work out our own issues.
Everytime someone tells me a story like this. I tell them to have their kid join the military or something similar. I advise that they choose something that has a better chance at staying alive or transfering to a civilian job. Not everyone has to be an infantry soldier.
It’s what i did when i turned 17. I wanted to move out and travel and see things and learn. Most services have good programs to help with going to college. Time for people to help their kids grow up.
How strange. I’m a Gen X with Silent Gen parents. I’ve had to work harder than my parents did.
Here’s another problem: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html?_r=0
Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.
Considering my own family I have a different perspective. I just got back from my grandmother’s funeral yesterday. She was from the silent generation and she lived with my gen X aunt for the past 15 years. This wasn’t because she had to or as a burden on my aunt. My grandmother wanted to live with family and my aunt appreciated the help with raising her daughters. There was never a moment of doubt that my grandmother would live out her life living with family.
What irks me about the conversation of millenials being basement dwellers or baby boomers who will be in dire straights once their retirement realities hit home is the idea that either group are considered “useless eaters” in a sense. I heavily doubt multiple generations living under one roof is not beneficial in some ways. The benefit of my grandmother living with my aunt is she helped raises the grand kids (my siblings and cousins throughout the 1990s and 2000s) and my grandmother was taken care of in unmeasurable ways in her later years.
My grandmother only suffered from asthma and when they stopped making the inhalers she used for the 60 years the family pulled resources to buy as many in bulk as they could. My aunt nagged my grandmother until she bought burial insurance (which she refused to even discuss) and it was a life saver because my aunt was able to cover the costs of her funeral as well as her final debts.
@Stanley- If you bemoan your millennial children it is your own fault. The way I see it is either your children are useless eaters (which is completely your fault) or you only measure their worth in dollar signs. Not everybody figures out their purpose early in life and the game has changed.
Stanley – honestly, you are blind as a bat. You are getting fucked – those two are draining you of blood, and of whatever little luxuries you may have in your future. And you are allowing it. And making excuses for it.
All you see is 1) let them live with you, or 2) toss them in the street. What a load of horseshit – there are tons of options.
How about setting a real timeframe, and sticking to it? How about charging them some serious rent rent? How about banishing them to their own corner of your shitty apartment – ie their bedroom – when you are home? Take away their Igizmos? Take their going out money? They do not like it – they can CHOOSE to leave. Because they are sucking your blood, and you are letting it happen.
Seriously, you have to give them INCENTIVE to do something with their lives.
But no – it is all too hard for you. What a crock of shit.
Reality is – YOU LIKE IT JUST AS IT IS. YOU LIKE THEM BEING DEPENDENT ON YOU.
Otherwise, you would do something about it.
I should have been more clear – those kids do not need the tough love – you do.
Thumbs up to Steph.
yahsure- I think you are on to something. Military service at 18 years old for those who need “direction” . I think the Israelis make everyone do it for a couple of years. Probably is good for character building. It might even be good for the country. Who Knows?
Young people are not entirely screwed.
I met a young guy the other day – 27 years old. He began selling small trailers (the type used for hauling trash and such) when he was 15. At 20, he started to manufacture/assemble his own trailers. A couple of years later, he began importing a lot of parts, and has an employee or two.
He currently sells hundreds of trailers, with only on full time employee, and one part time employee. He plans to retire by 40. I asked him about his stance on employees – he said no way in hell would he hire any more than he has, they are too much trouble. He works 100 hour weeks, and drives a $100,000 car. I asked about the car. He said it was his one extravagance – he does not have time to own or keep up a house, and all the rest of his money goes into the business – primarily by increasing product lines and developing new products.
What about wife/girlfriend I asked? No time and too much trouble he said. Later he said.
The guy was a go-getter. Totally had his shit in one sock.
He is EXACTLY an example of what I mean when I say people should stop thinking about jobs, and start thinking about going to work and how to make some money and make a living.
A “job” is but one of the ways to make a living. There are other, better ways.
But you have to be willing to work. I have mentioned 100 hour weeks before.
Bet the mere mention of that would send Stanley’s kid into convulsions.
“He is EXACTLY an example of what I mean when I say people should stop thinking about jobs, and start thinking about going to work and how to make some money and make a living. ”
This is what parents should be instilling in their children. It isn’t about a job or the income. It is about being the creator of your own fortune in life. It irritates me when people can’t think outside of the employee/employer mindset enough to actually give guidance to their children. The biggest financial risk I see for young people in today’s economy is putting their faith in a job or management. There are business owners and managers that run companies into the ground. You can be qualified and still not get the job. You can get fired for being too good at your job as well as for being incompetent.
The ole’ “go to school to get a good job” is the laziest parenting style. It is as irresponsible to do to your children as “follow your dreams and the money will follow”.
My greatest idea was the day I declared I would never let another idiot fire me. I stopped working for idiots and stopped having any faith in being employed by companies. Instead I started dabbling in different ideas of how I could make money outside the employee/employer model. It is actually fun to find to business ventures as well as challenge myself to earn more money know that I know there is no cap on my earning potential.
Steph– your last post is a gem.
Damn – Steph is coming out with some brilliant stuff! Really, great stuff.
I get irritated by the whole thing abut “gotta find a job’, “gotta create jobs”, etc.
That is the wrong mindset.
When I look at a problem, I always look at what result do I want. I do not first consider the process, then the result. I consider the result, then work out an appropriate process.
People do not need “jobs” – that is a potential process to a result.
They need to first consider the desired result – which is they need to make a living, they need to make money.
There are a lot of ways to do that. A job is but one. And as Steph has pointed out, it is the one that probably sucks the most. Working for someone/thing is fraught with uncertainty, especially in the modern world.
I suggest people get a trade or profession (carpenter, plumber, mechanic, welder, doctor, lawyer, accountant, (those are going offshore at lightspeed) etc., are trades that can be converted into your own business, except doctors may soon be nationalized), start a business, etc. as then you are not beholden to anyone and the idea of needing a job disappears.
You will, however need customers, more than likely.
They can suck too, but hey, no system is perfect.
That’s the thing I have never understood, this Idea that someone needs to provide you with a job.
You hear it all the time, “there are no jobs” “the government needs to do something”.
Why does anyone, the Government, Society, Corporations, whatever, why do they owe you or anyone else a job? It seems as though most people are willing to sit around and wait for someone to post a job so that they can then apply. What if no one ever posts a job opening, then what? You wait forever?
Whose responsibility is it to develop a job for you? Why isn’t it your responsibility to develop a job for someone else?
Consider a world where everyone has disappeared and there are only two people left. Which one owes the other a job? Or what if there are ten people. Which one of the ten owes the other nine a job? It should be obvious then that no one owes anyone a job.
IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to find a way to be useful to others in society such that they will trade what you value of theirs for what they find of value from you.
Ding ding ding! And we have another winner!
ASIG shoots, he scores!
I hear all the time when I tell people this that it will not work – “no way everybody could do this.”
That is correct. But it will work for that tiny minority that actually do do it. “Everyone” will not do it.
Sheeple will be sheeple. I advise being a wolf.
Llpoh- Luckily for me the last time I was fired by an idiot I had my John Goodman’s “fuck you” worked out. All my bills were up to date, my pantry was full of food I spent 3 months stocking up with grocery store BOGOs, I had money in savings and empty lines of credit I built up with secured credit cards. When I got fired I was already making an escape plan. My greatest motivator was to never work for another idiot. It was really that simple.
A quip from the past month. I set a goal that I wanted to make $1,000 a week. I thought about just getting a server job for the weekend because 15 hours on the weekend would net me an additional $200-300 doing something that is second nature to me by now. I went on one interview and just knew I would never work for another company ever.
All the hoops I had to just through with the interview process showed me how much my thinking has changed. They wasted my time and asked me ridiculous questions. They played phone tag and asked me for references. They asked me shit “Why do you want to work as a server.”
The best client I ever got was a two sentence response to a writing job offer off of reddit. Within 20 minutes of sending the message I had money $100 deposited in my account for an article the length I post of TBP. I once got paid $60 ($40 hour rate) for giving business consulting advice on twitter. There is money out there and the goal should be to find the path of least resistance to get it.
It is a challenge for me to fill the entry positions, 11 or 12 dollars to start, it seems like we always have 5+ hours of overtime available. The work is hard, dirty, distinctly menial and dangerous, there is no shortage of Mexicans willing to perform. I stick with Coloradans, but filling the starts is challenging, keeping them off their devices, even more so.
Not to denigrate all millenials, we have an excellent core grope of them that leave little to be desired, working as hard as any generation has.
I suspect no matter where you are at in the country there is work if you are sufficiently motivated. A start is a start, go getters know this and the most menial start begins the momentum.
Well awlllright. We’re morphing into Cuba, and everyones fucking happy. Ever been to Cuba?
Stanley
When my brother got married in 1956 he moved his new bride in to our home……..big mistake as she was a holy terror and my mother was ready to choke the life out of her. That lasted less than a year and all the while our mother was pushing my brother to find a good job and get the hell out. That was 1956 Stanley…….same crap different century.
Long story short, my brother found a job working at Winn-Dixie and my mother went into action finding them a very small apartment in the attic of a large home of some folks looking to make some extra income. Win-win for everybody, my brother is still married to the same gal for 59 years and he stayed with Winn-Dixie Grocery for 15 years then moved on to another career and the rest of us had peace back in our lives.
Bottom line- your son does not have to live at the Ritz Carlton with or without the girlfriend although she could work and add in income to rent something small. Give him his bedroom furniture and some folding lawn chairs and a card table to start. Next give them two weeks to find a job doing SOMETHING . Last but not least SHOW THEM THE DOOR in a loving way and let them know you will try to feed them dinner on occasion. They will be fine, really.
Wrap a child in bubble wrap such that they can’t fall down, and they will never learn to walk.
We had a hard time letting go of our only son, but when he was 13 or 14 my father (the former POW from WWII told me that mothers have to let the fathers take over the sons at that age or it ruins them. Then he pointed to my nephew, who was born to my unwed sister at home and who all of us women adored to the point of turning him into the cutest but wimpiest young man on the face of the earth. Happily for him, he married a young woman whose family sort of took him in and they live next door to THEM now, raising two daughters, so at least he is SORT of on his own. He has a full time job as an assistant manager of a local Walmart, IF that is TRULY a full time job. He says it is and sometimes works at other Walmart stores… seems a bit proud of that, so I’m happy for him.
Anyway, I digress. Point was well taken from Dad, so I backed off and let Nick make a man of my boy. And for mothers who don’t have an uncle, male friend or someone to step in and do that for them when the biological father turned out to be a psycho loser, I guess you just have to stop babying them and make them grow up without the stern hand of a “Nick the Knife” like I had.
Don’t get me wrong… our boy gave us lots of worries. He’s a definite millennial. Tells us all the time how ridiculous the money system is… how earning money is crazy. That people should just contribute their time because they enjoy working for the community. Then, I ask why he doesn’t enjoy cleaning up his clothes for the home community and IT STARTS…
Digressing.
He mucked horse stables for a while and I told him that if he shoveled horse shit at 15 then maybe he wouldn’t have to later in life. He worked the grocery/fast food scene briefly and got stars in his eyes at the opportunity to work at a local pizzaria, where a friend of his told him the boss told him he could get a friend on. Well, after a week of holding a sign outside for four hours a day in the summer, we told him he could quit if he went out every single day to find a new job. He found one in two days and kept it until he graduated from junior college.
He bagged groceries for tips, saving like a miser to not have to do any crap job again… We told him that if he paid for his first year at University of Missouri, we would see him through the rest that he couldn’t pay for and he landed at Rolla, Missouri with the first year’s tuition and board (minus a couple of dollars here and there for groceries)… and well, you probably know the rest of the story.
In case you don’t? All is well…No debt here…