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I think the parents of many 20 and 30-somethings played a role in so many young(ish) adults failing to launch. American parents could learn a thing or two abou

I think the parents of many 20 and 30-somethings played a role in so many young(ish) adults failing to launch. American parents could learn a thing or two about parenting from previous generations and from a lot of immigrant families: nobody owes you anything, plan for a rainy day, find a partner you love and commit to them, work hard, cherish friends and family even when it's difficult, etc. I think parenting has over-corrected from the overly didactic and stern parenting of previous generations to endless "follow your bliss" and "you can do anything" -- which is causing a lot of young people to spin their wheels for decades at a time, never growing up while their body is growing old. It's a shame to see.

citilife 8y ago
> decades at a time I think we're seeing the result of the baby boomer generation, essentially. They rejected the old, as you put it -- stern way of parenting. I'd argue, perhaps it wasn't so much stern as it was the structured. There was structure, expectations, and responsibilities. Things previous generates required to live. Since then, we've grown increasingly accustomed to insane amounts of wealth (or perhaps debt?). This enabled us to lax our expectations, because you didn't need to be super disciplined to make the wealth. The fact that we rebuffed the social norms has it's good and bad, unfortunately it does appear that we took it too far -- at least from a "you can do anything perspective". Yes, you can do anything, but you have to work to get there. It appears a lot of people forget that last part and feel entitled to their wealth / place in society.
- api 8y ago
  Social trends almost always overcorrect. I wouldn't be surprised if we overcorrect the other way in future generations, then back again, etc. People seem to have trouble with the idea that the optimum is not at an extreme.
  - jmoss20 8y ago
    > "... the idea that the optimum is not an extreme." I'd put this as "not an extreme" /on any of the axes that we're considering/. Life has an awful lot of dimensions -- if you imagine a very high-dimensional hypercube and draw the optima randomly, the optima are almost guaranteed to be close to some surface (some "extreme"). To my eye, the real problem is finding the correct perspective -- the one at which an optimum lies at an extreme.
    - mismith 8y ago
      That’s a super deep comment; thanks for wording it so lucidly that I could connect my own thoughts on the matter to it
    - MRD85 8y ago
      >To my eye, the real problem is finding the correct perspective -- the one at which an optimum lies at an extreme. Something which has brought a lot of happiness to my life and dramatically changed the way I live is taking responsibility for my own happiness and life choices. I used to spin my wheels and drift through life but at 30 I was diagnosed with cancer. It's a long story and it turned out to not be serious, although I did have two surgeries. There was a time period where it seemed very serious, however, and this period completely changed how I view my own life. I didn't want to die with this sense of being so unfulfilled and I wished I had made better choices. Now I try to make these choices as I live.
      - pdimitar 8y ago
        I commend you for finding the way to live to the fullest. And I am envious. I have no impending doom looming above my head and I feel that this really makes me slow and feeling that I have time. I am 38 now and I am pretty aware that my time is ticking away. But there's always another crysis to salvage... I am trying my very best to crawl out of this hole but it's taking way too long. I feel I lack the very important perspective that you have but these things are profound epiphanies; you can't just talk somebody into having them. They are transformative experiences and the resulting change in you cannot be duplicated by just talking or reading others' stories... :(
  - VLM 8y ago
    Demographic replacement in the sense of the original posts "American parents" vs "Immigrant parents" will put a natural damper on whatever oscillations "American parents" try to implement. The woman in the linked story will never have descendants to overcorrect.
  - mar77i 8y ago
    Are you over-correcting towards a mean right there?
- afarrell 8y ago
  > There was structure, expectations, and responsibilities. jefftk makes this point in a reflection on raising his own child--that there is great value in providing an environment which is predictable: https://www.jefftk.com/p/how-to-parent-more-predictably https://www.jefftk.com/p/how-to-parent-more-predictably
- kakarot 8y ago
  [deleted]
  - zorga 8y ago
    That's an anecdote, not data; boomers were the hippy generation, that doesn't mean all of them were hippies.
ataturk 8y ago
I spent my 20s getting a PhD. I don't think I've ever gotten the most out of my degree professionally, but as a way to spend one ones 20s, it wasn't too bad. I never had more than about $10K to my name until sometime in my 30s. Having a career in tech certainly helped--I took very few loans, but the ones I did have were paid off within five years of exiting academia and smartening up about my career. I just wish I had gotten patents for the things I worked on in grad school, even if those patents belonged to the university. These days I strongly advise young people to just get a bachelors and forget the rest unless it's required (e.g. for teaching).
cf141q5325 8y ago
> It's a shame to see. Really depends what you want from life doenst it? It becomes problematic when people do it without realizing the consequences.
freehunter 8y ago
I feel similarly with the differences between me and my family vs my wife and her family. I grew up not desperately poor, but with only just enough money to get by. In the late 90s we had a computer, a basic Windows 95 machine with dial-up and about 1/4 of the RAM/CPU that modern machines had, but we had one. That's about all we had for modern comforts, which I think forced me to be laser-focused on one activity. There just wasn't a lot of opportunity for me anywhere else but the computer. If I decided I didn't like computers and wanted to be a painter, there was no way we were buying art supplies. I asked for a computer and I got it and that was all I was going to get. My wife's family wasn't rich, but the parenting attitude was "whatever you want, follow your heart". The kids had painting, sculpting, pianos, guitars, drums, dance lessons, soccer, karate, foreign language tutors, and anything else they desired. As soon as they got bored or frustrated, they quit and moved on to the next thing. The hope from the parents was if they were exposed to enough stuff, they'd find their passion. Of the three kids, only my wife has a steady job, and only because I nearly broke up with her when she was job hopping while we were dating. The other siblings quit their jobs at the first sign of any real struggle and move back in with their parents. I believe it's because they've never been forced to work past the uninteresting or difficult parts of any hobby or job in the past. I don't know where the line should be drawn between giving kids every opportunity to find their passion versus making them stick with something they may not actually enjoy. I hope I figure that out before I have kids.
- kirsebaer 8y ago
  You are onto something with letting kids be bored and struggle to create their own activities. You taught yourself to use a computer, without taking an expensive "kids learn computers class", right? Signing kids up for all these classes and structured activities can lead to a sort of passivity where they expect adults to tell them what to do.
  - ta3216 8y ago
    And what if he had Fortnite etc back then? Would he have really excelled at computer work? Maybe.
hnuser355 8y ago
I know some American parents who very much believe what you said, but they think that it only applies to other people and not themselves.
MisterBastahrd 8y ago
Boomers didn't just reject the old way of parenting. They rejected anything which didn't improve the bottom line for them individually. There has never been a more self-important, self-centered generation.
- sneakernets 8y ago
  Don't forget that they give advice they never followed themselves. If a millennial loses a once-profitable career due to sudden market shifts, "that's his fault for not persuing additional skills". But if a Boomer loses a job, it's never their fault.
  - Beskz 8y ago
    As a relatively "young" person (teen) I feel as if I subconsciously witness or experience this all the time. However I'm not fully aware of what exactly took place that ultimately got us to where we are today e.g., boomers and their effects on modern society, aside from people wanting to have sex/kids after WW2. I've been getting really into history recently so if anyone has any resources on the socio economic impact of other generations, specifically boomers, please let me know!
    - MisterBastahrd 8y ago
      It isn't just the boomers. The "Greatest Generation" were the ones who were the most politically active at a time that they yearned for political leadership from grandpa Reagan, who had a large hand in helping weaken unions, eliminate pensions, and balloon the national debt... but at the same time they were a hell of a lot more pragmatic than their kids, who somehow decided that America had a soul that needed to be fought for by voting for corporate kleptocrats who hugged the flag and the Bible and sent kids to wars they would have protested against at that age.
pesmhey 8y ago
It’s tough, the balance between the two extremes that you’re talking about. Immigrants, and the previous generations, were a lot more preoccupied with survival than with self-actualization. Watching a movie like Office Space becomes interesting to view from the perspective of survival. It’s almost indulgent. This guy has a well-paying job, his biggest woe is that his manager is not likeable, and he’s unhappy? But when you live it, you understand. For me, the balance has been most aptly described by the phrase: you can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want. You can travel, follow your bliss, whatever it takes to find some self-actualization (very important in the western world), but you pay a price. This way, you’re not completely discounting the value of ‘finding yourself’, but, like any major decision, you assess the ROI.
- derangedHorse 8y ago
  "you can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want." I heard this quote for the first time in ray Dalio's book Principles. It's one I intend to use in the future lol
almost_usual 8y ago
>I think parenting has over-corrected from the overly didactic and stern parenting of previous generations to endless "follow your bliss" and "you can do anything" -- which is causing a lot of young people to spin their wheels for decades at a time, never growing up while their body is growing old. It's a shame to see. It will likely be the last generation that has this opportunity. I don't imagine our children or their children living on a planet with much 'bliss' compared to their parents. Earth's trajectory is not looking good.
bjt2n3904 8y ago
It's easy to blame other people. The fact of the matter is, my generation drinks the "quit your job, sell everything, and boat around the world to find yourself" kool-aid because they like it. Even here we'll get a few blog posts a month from a one-man-show who's just got their start-up off the ground -- or alternatively, the one that's just burst into flames. It's the same story. "I keep putting all my money into lottery tickets hoping to make it big, with no plans for what to do when I don't." No one tells us to romanticize it. We're not ignorant of the risks. And yet, we still do.
- astrocat 8y ago
  It's also easy to look down on others from a position of moral superiority. Yeah, it's the same story, but why is the behavior so wildly rampant now when it wasn't previously? I seriously push back on the position that "nobody romanticizes it" - the self-made entrepreneur, the kid who backpacked around Africa for two years then started a successful NGO and now gets to meet celebrities every day (this is completely made up) - the point is, our culture DOES romanticize this, and frames it all in the context of "they followed their passion!" or some other baloney like that. I have two kids, and the ONE THING I try the hardest to teach them is personal responsibility. Yet I recognize that generally the term "personal responsibility" is kind of used as a gatekeeping term against the poor and the young. Whatever their problems are, they are self-imposed as they lack personal responsibility. Sympathy, compassion, charity not required. Every generation of parents is a generation of first-time parents. The best we can do is learn from past generations. I don't see any harm in identifying causes and effects of generational shifts in parenting style in order to better correct for the next round.
- munchbunny 8y ago
  The romance around travel and adventure has been around for centuries, if not millennia. The Homeric cycle has plenty of that, and other cultures have analogous stories. I think it's a young person thing, not a generation thing. Travel for self-discovery has the well-understood problem that self-discovery is not about the places you go or things you do. It's about how you react and change in the process. Hedonistic travel is fine and can be restoring, but pleasure only gives you insight into what you like, not how you handle life's challenges. The latter is where you actually find yourself. For that, travel is useful because it makes you uncomfortable, but first you have to seek discomfort.
hoaw 8y ago
I get why you would say that and why it is alluring for people to agree, it even is for me to some extent. But I don't really see any, even indication of, evidence that it would be true. I think you are confusing cause and effect. The people who are spinning their wheels aren't the once who just want a decent job and modest life. It is if you don't want to go into debt, you don't to move to a major city, you can't or don't want to get help from your parent and you believe in making your own way that you are spinning your wheels. The "follow you bliss" kids are all getting money from their parents. It is easy to have an opinion about how other people should live their lives. So just tel me, after they had your ideal upbringing, what do they do then and why would they not in that scenario benefit from essentially being spoiled?
siruncledrew 8y ago
I understand the failure to launch part that modern parenting contributes to. However, from personal experience, I do not believe it is only limited to American-born parents. I grew up with a lot of Chinese/Indian/Korean immigrant families around (which are among the most "successful" immigrants in America in terms of wealth and educational attainment). We grew up with high expectations to study hard, go to a top university, get a 6-figure job, and start a family in the suburbs. Throughout years 4-18 our parents told us "You will do X, Y, and Z because these are the ingredients that worked for us to live a good life in America, so this is what will work for you." While this does a good job providing structure, it doesn't take the individual into account. So many of my friends from immigrant families came out of college wondering "Now what?" because being a person was new to them in the sense that they had to figure out what to do with their life once things were no longer as pre-determined. This created a new wave of 'failure to launch' where 20-somethings found themselves living at home trying to figure out what to do, or working down a path of some job they hate because their parents wanted them to do it. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is a good way to describe the situation. "You can do anything" is a troublesome parental mindset to establish, but so is a mindset of "You can't do this because this is not one of the 5 jobs we believe is best for you". For example, my 25y.o. Chinese female friend is just now getting into CompSci (what she is good at) after dropping out of pharmacy school (her parents goal for her because "you are a girl, you should be a pharmacist or a dentist").
- jungler 8y ago
  The pleasing-the-parents issue is one that affects every family, since there are all kinds of hidden sociocultural expectations that tend to start being confronted near the end of the educational years and the start of career building and family formation. It's expressed more strongly in this time period because the job market has quickly reshaped itself around computing, and the traditionally safe options for young people are drying up while new aspirational fantasies like "become a pro Fortnite player" or "become a cryptocurrency baron" are working their way in. And it isn't just a generation gap - a whole set of institutions are like this, motivating the popular "Millenials killed tradition" genre of journalism. And for the Millenial generation that amounts to having to reinvent each institution in a new form. Not an ambition anyone particularly signed up for, but one where the jobs are now.
dwild 8y ago
> nobody owes you anything, plan for a rainy day, find a partner you love and commit to them, work hard, cherish friends and family even when it's difficult, etc. My SO is doing all theses things, a bit to the extreme too but she feel EXACTLY like that person in the post. - She planned for rainy days, much more than anyone I know, much more than her parents, much more than mine too. - She was in love with someone for a pretty long time, way too much, but he had pretty big issues and whatever she did, he would never fix his issue, he was taking her down so hard, yet she loved him and she kept committing to him, it took her 5 years to decide it was enough, 5 years where he was the priority and not her own life. - She worked pretty hard, again, way too much, she had a good well paid government job, they had nearly no resource because of cuts, the department of one of her colleague went from 8 to 2 employees. Right before she quit, they learned that they were only replacing 1 out of 8 employee that was quitting (she was one of the youngest, most were 45+). She pushed herself up to a depression, again also after nearly 5 years of this. - Cherish friends and family even when it's difficult. That girl has a heart so big, it's crazy. She hated spending time with her mom, her mom always denigrated her, she always pushed her to her limit and never ever she would fight back. She die recently and my SO was there for her up until the end, more than anyone else in the family. It has NOTHING to do with what you say. You may believe that's the right way, fine, but it has no bearing over the feelings of that person. I only started reading the answer from Polly and that make much more sense. It may help quite a bit my SO.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Bamafan 8y ago
On the flip side, many of the previous generations of parents would kill to have the choices their kids have. They simply never had those choices when they grew up.
brandonmenc 8y ago
> American parents could learn a thing or two about parenting from previous generations and from a lot of immigrant families. My parents and most of their peers got married right out of high school just to get out of the houses their 1st generation Catholic parents filled to the brim with like, seven or eight semi-neglected kids. A lot of them didn't make it out of those environments unscathed, and there's no guarantee they learned how to save money or hunker down for the long haul with a partner because of it. It's easy to look back on those times with rose-colored glasses, especially if you weren't there.
dcole2929 8y ago
I can't disagree with your comment more. As someone who falls squarely in the Millennial Age range, late 20s to 30s (btw that's how old millennials are now), I find the issue with so many people in this position has less to do with their upbringing or personality in particular, and more to do with the fact that we are in many ways playing a game in which the rules have changed. And that's a direct consequence of the actions of not our parent but our parents' parents', who are somehow, still in power 20 years after they normally would have passed on control on the economy and government to the next generation. And what I mean by that is, that those who have come of age over the past 20 years have spent pretty much their entire lives being read a recipe for success. Go to college -> get a degree -> get a job -> live a successful live. It's a simple step by step plan that every single person in our lives have reinforced ad nauseam, because for most of the 20th Century that has been the surest path to a happy middle class life. The problem is that of course every single step in that path is now significantly more difficult than it was 20-30 years ago when our parents' generation did it. You can't just go to college anymore. It costs 10x what it did in the 80's and you can't even compare the cost to the 50's or 60's. It's also way more competitive getting into a top school. Even if you manage to get into college and pay for it, it's no longer good enough to just get a degree. You need to get a degree in the right thing and or find a way to differentiate yourself from the other 1 million students who graduate each year, because oh by the way our generation is the most well educated in the history of the world. Even if all those things go right finding a job is harder than ever. People retire later if at all now so the market is flooded not only with too many well educated applicants but the multitude of experienced candidates competing for the same entry level jobs. And even if you get a job, the crushing levels of student debt and the fact that wages haven't kept up with inflation, basically mean that it's incredibly hard to live a successful life on your own. So basically the issue is that people have spent their entire lives calibrated for a set of conditions that no longer exists. There isn't a golden path to a cozy middle class lifestyle anymore. And once you start compounding that with the normal issues everyone runs into adjusting to an adult life you get this malaise. Everyone's poor and hates their life and social media is there so you can compare yourself to the 10% of the population who seem to have it all figured out either because they have rich parents to subsidize their life, or they got lucky and picked a major that actually pays decently, or they married their HS sweetheart and hate life somewhat less than everyone else. And because it has to be said the fact that everyone keeps calling Millenial's lazy, and entitled for somehow not being as successful as previous generations despite the changing landscape doesn't help.
StillBored 8y ago
"cherish friends and family when it gets difficult". I'm not trying to sound harsh, but what I hear in the article is just a lack of perseverance and persistence. Relationships are hard, if you leave because the other person fails to lift the toilet seat, or you quit your job because your boss is an a-hole I find that to be a lack of character. Strife is what gives people a sense of satisfaction. Buying the new car after driving a POS for years that needed constant work on the weekend is massively more satisfying than having mommie buy you a BMW for your birthday. Having a good year with the wife after a couple where you barely talked... That is how people grow, not sitting in flower beds having everything handed to them and running away every-time the world doesn't respond as you wish.
MFLoon 8y ago
I've at times felt resentment towards my baby boomer/hippy parents for spoiling me and failing to teach me discipline, which I've had to learn in adulthood at what I imagine is a steeper opportunity cost than if I had learned discipline as a child. But on the other hand, I'm sympathetic to their impulse to reject the parenting styles of their parents. My father's father beat him brutally throughout his childhood. My mother's mother would shame her relentlessly for any slight failure to comply to her will, even well past childhood - when she earned her PhD, despite her mother's wishes for her to instead become an MD, after 7 hard years of working on her dissertation her mother's 'congratulatory' card ended with "I'll still pay for you to go to medical school" (and she had not helped her pay for graduate school). They rejected the cruelty of their parents world, but gained a false optimism from the progressive, high growth times of the 60s through 90s, and failed to prepare me for the real world which is still plenty cruel.
kelnos 8y ago
> cherish friends and family even when it's difficult I generally agree with what you're saying except for this. You should cherish friends and family... unless doing so ends up being a net negative. Maybe that goes beyond "even when it's difficult", but... life is too short to keep people around who hurt you, even if they're blood relatives. Set boundaries. If people fail to respect those boundaries, then they don't deserve to be in your life, at all. Cutting someone out of your life shouldn't be a decision taken lightly or on a whim, but it's a tool in your toolbox for keeping toxic people from bringing you down.
pizzazzaro 8y ago
You sound like someone who has never experienced poverty. Meanwhile, the original prompt of the inciting content has... Two days' hotel stay of savings. That's what this is about. The lack of meaning, the alienation after being told "we could be anything we want" when we grow up, to having no choice but to settle for careers in "whatever almost pays bills" since the collapse of 2008. We're bitter. We're ashamed of where we've been and what we've done to survive. And you know what happens when we get over that? We get angry, we may get political. We might even snap. If we're technically minded? I'm mad that I dont see more hacktivists.
- MRD85 8y ago
  >If we're technically minded? I'm mad that I dont see more hacktivists. If you're skilled enough to be a hacktivist that can contribute significantly than you're also skilled enough to find well-paying work and you won't become bitter.
jamaicahest 8y ago
Indeed, real love is a choice you make, not a magical feeling that persists throughout life without any effort on your part. Even though that is how it is portrayed in all movies.
derangedHorse 8y ago
People always use the same old argument that it's this "you can do anything" that's ruining this generation. There's no real evidence to support that, and I can tell you there are many people who were able to advance to high places using that mindset.

citilife 8y ago

> decades at a time I think we're seeing the result of the baby boomer generation, essentially. They rejected the old, as you put it -- stern way of parenting. I'd argue, perhaps it wasn't so much stern as it was the structured. There was structure, expectations, and responsibilities. Things previous generates required to live. Since then, we've grown increasingly accustomed to insane amounts of wealth (or perhaps debt?). This enabled us to lax our expectations, because you didn't need to be super disciplined to make the wealth. The fact that we rebuffed the social norms has it's good and bad, unfortunately it does appear that we took it too far -- at least from a "you can do anything perspective". Yes, you can do anything, but you have to work to get there. It appears a lot of people forget that last part and feel entitled to their wealth / place in society.

api 8y ago
Social trends almost always overcorrect. I wouldn't be surprised if we overcorrect the other way in future generations, then back again, etc. People seem to have trouble with the idea that the optimum is not at an extreme.
- jmoss20 8y ago
  > "... the idea that the optimum is not an extreme." I'd put this as "not an extreme" /on any of the axes that we're considering/. Life has an awful lot of dimensions -- if you imagine a very high-dimensional hypercube and draw the optima randomly, the optima are almost guaranteed to be close to some surface (some "extreme"). To my eye, the real problem is finding the correct perspective -- the one at which an optimum lies at an extreme.
  - mismith 8y ago
    That’s a super deep comment; thanks for wording it so lucidly that I could connect my own thoughts on the matter to it
  - MRD85 8y ago
    >To my eye, the real problem is finding the correct perspective -- the one at which an optimum lies at an extreme. Something which has brought a lot of happiness to my life and dramatically changed the way I live is taking responsibility for my own happiness and life choices. I used to spin my wheels and drift through life but at 30 I was diagnosed with cancer. It's a long story and it turned out to not be serious, although I did have two surgeries. There was a time period where it seemed very serious, however, and this period completely changed how I view my own life. I didn't want to die with this sense of being so unfulfilled and I wished I had made better choices. Now I try to make these choices as I live.
    - pdimitar 8y ago
      I commend you for finding the way to live to the fullest. And I am envious. I have no impending doom looming above my head and I feel that this really makes me slow and feeling that I have time. I am 38 now and I am pretty aware that my time is ticking away. But there's always another crysis to salvage... I am trying my very best to crawl out of this hole but it's taking way too long. I feel I lack the very important perspective that you have but these things are profound epiphanies; you can't just talk somebody into having them. They are transformative experiences and the resulting change in you cannot be duplicated by just talking or reading others' stories... :(
- VLM 8y ago
  Demographic replacement in the sense of the original posts "American parents" vs "Immigrant parents" will put a natural damper on whatever oscillations "American parents" try to implement. The woman in the linked story will never have descendants to overcorrect.
- mar77i 8y ago
  Are you over-correcting towards a mean right there?
afarrell 8y ago
> There was structure, expectations, and responsibilities. jefftk makes this point in a reflection on raising his own child--that there is great value in providing an environment which is predictable: https://www.jefftk.com/p/how-to-parent-more-predictably https://www.jefftk.com/p/how-to-parent-more-predictably
kakarot 8y ago
[deleted]
- zorga 8y ago
  That's an anecdote, not data; boomers were the hippy generation, that doesn't mean all of them were hippies.

ataturk 8y ago

I spent my 20s getting a PhD. I don't think I've ever gotten the most out of my degree professionally, but as a way to spend one ones 20s, it wasn't too bad. I never had more than about $10K to my name until sometime in my 30s. Having a career in tech certainly helped--I took very few loans, but the ones I did have were paid off within five years of exiting academia and smartening up about my career. I just wish I had gotten patents for the things I worked on in grad school, even if those patents belonged to the university. These days I strongly advise young people to just get a bachelors and forget the rest unless it's required (e.g. for teaching).

cf141q5325 8y ago

> It's a shame to see. Really depends what you want from life doenst it? It becomes problematic when people do it without realizing the consequences.

freehunter 8y ago

I feel similarly with the differences between me and my family vs my wife and her family. I grew up not desperately poor, but with only just enough money to get by. In the late 90s we had a computer, a basic Windows 95 machine with dial-up and about 1/4 of the RAM/CPU that modern machines had, but we had one. That's about all we had for modern comforts, which I think forced me to be laser-focused on one activity. There just wasn't a lot of opportunity for me anywhere else but the computer. If I decided I didn't like computers and wanted to be a painter, there was no way we were buying art supplies. I asked for a computer and I got it and that was all I was going to get. My wife's family wasn't rich, but the parenting attitude was "whatever you want, follow your heart". The kids had painting, sculpting, pianos, guitars, drums, dance lessons, soccer, karate, foreign language tutors, and anything else they desired. As soon as they got bored or frustrated, they quit and moved on to the next thing. The hope from the parents was if they were exposed to enough stuff, they'd find their passion. Of the three kids, only my wife has a steady job, and only because I nearly broke up with her when she was job hopping while we were dating. The other siblings quit their jobs at the first sign of any real struggle and move back in with their parents. I believe it's because they've never been forced to work past the uninteresting or difficult parts of any hobby or job in the past. I don't know where the line should be drawn between giving kids every opportunity to find their passion versus making them stick with something they may not actually enjoy. I hope I figure that out before I have kids.

kirsebaer 8y ago
You are onto something with letting kids be bored and struggle to create their own activities. You taught yourself to use a computer, without taking an expensive "kids learn computers class", right? Signing kids up for all these classes and structured activities can lead to a sort of passivity where they expect adults to tell them what to do.
- ta3216 8y ago
  And what if he had Fortnite etc back then? Would he have really excelled at computer work? Maybe.

hnuser355 8y ago

I know some American parents who very much believe what you said, but they think that it only applies to other people and not themselves.

MisterBastahrd 8y ago

Boomers didn't just reject the old way of parenting. They rejected anything which didn't improve the bottom line for them individually. There has never been a more self-important, self-centered generation.

sneakernets 8y ago
Don't forget that they give advice they never followed themselves. If a millennial loses a once-profitable career due to sudden market shifts, "that's his fault for not persuing additional skills". But if a Boomer loses a job, it's never their fault.
- Beskz 8y ago
  As a relatively "young" person (teen) I feel as if I subconsciously witness or experience this all the time. However I'm not fully aware of what exactly took place that ultimately got us to where we are today e.g., boomers and their effects on modern society, aside from people wanting to have sex/kids after WW2. I've been getting really into history recently so if anyone has any resources on the socio economic impact of other generations, specifically boomers, please let me know!
  - MisterBastahrd 8y ago
    It isn't just the boomers. The "Greatest Generation" were the ones who were the most politically active at a time that they yearned for political leadership from grandpa Reagan, who had a large hand in helping weaken unions, eliminate pensions, and balloon the national debt... but at the same time they were a hell of a lot more pragmatic than their kids, who somehow decided that America had a soul that needed to be fought for by voting for corporate kleptocrats who hugged the flag and the Bible and sent kids to wars they would have protested against at that age.

pesmhey 8y ago

It’s tough, the balance between the two extremes that you’re talking about. Immigrants, and the previous generations, were a lot more preoccupied with survival than with self-actualization. Watching a movie like Office Space becomes interesting to view from the perspective of survival. It’s almost indulgent. This guy has a well-paying job, his biggest woe is that his manager is not likeable, and he’s unhappy? But when you live it, you understand. For me, the balance has been most aptly described by the phrase: you can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want. You can travel, follow your bliss, whatever it takes to find some self-actualization (very important in the western world), but you pay a price. This way, you’re not completely discounting the value of ‘finding yourself’, but, like any major decision, you assess the ROI.

derangedHorse 8y ago
"you can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want." I heard this quote for the first time in ray Dalio's book Principles. It's one I intend to use in the future lol

almost_usual 8y ago

>I think parenting has over-corrected from the overly didactic and stern parenting of previous generations to endless "follow your bliss" and "you can do anything" -- which is causing a lot of young people to spin their wheels for decades at a time, never growing up while their body is growing old. It's a shame to see. It will likely be the last generation that has this opportunity. I don't imagine our children or their children living on a planet with much 'bliss' compared to their parents. Earth's trajectory is not looking good.

bjt2n3904 8y ago

It's easy to blame other people. The fact of the matter is, my generation drinks the "quit your job, sell everything, and boat around the world to find yourself" kool-aid because they like it. Even here we'll get a few blog posts a month from a one-man-show who's just got their start-up off the ground -- or alternatively, the one that's just burst into flames. It's the same story. "I keep putting all my money into lottery tickets hoping to make it big, with no plans for what to do when I don't." No one tells us to romanticize it. We're not ignorant of the risks. And yet, we still do.

astrocat 8y ago
It's also easy to look down on others from a position of moral superiority. Yeah, it's the same story, but why is the behavior so wildly rampant now when it wasn't previously? I seriously push back on the position that "nobody romanticizes it" - the self-made entrepreneur, the kid who backpacked around Africa for two years then started a successful NGO and now gets to meet celebrities every day (this is completely made up) - the point is, our culture DOES romanticize this, and frames it all in the context of "they followed their passion!" or some other baloney like that. I have two kids, and the ONE THING I try the hardest to teach them is personal responsibility. Yet I recognize that generally the term "personal responsibility" is kind of used as a gatekeeping term against the poor and the young. Whatever their problems are, they are self-imposed as they lack personal responsibility. Sympathy, compassion, charity not required. Every generation of parents is a generation of first-time parents. The best we can do is learn from past generations. I don't see any harm in identifying causes and effects of generational shifts in parenting style in order to better correct for the next round.
munchbunny 8y ago
The romance around travel and adventure has been around for centuries, if not millennia. The Homeric cycle has plenty of that, and other cultures have analogous stories. I think it's a young person thing, not a generation thing. Travel for self-discovery has the well-understood problem that self-discovery is not about the places you go or things you do. It's about how you react and change in the process. Hedonistic travel is fine and can be restoring, but pleasure only gives you insight into what you like, not how you handle life's challenges. The latter is where you actually find yourself. For that, travel is useful because it makes you uncomfortable, but first you have to seek discomfort.

hoaw 8y ago

I get why you would say that and why it is alluring for people to agree, it even is for me to some extent. But I don't really see any, even indication of, evidence that it would be true. I think you are confusing cause and effect. The people who are spinning their wheels aren't the once who just want a decent job and modest life. It is if you don't want to go into debt, you don't to move to a major city, you can't or don't want to get help from your parent and you believe in making your own way that you are spinning your wheels. The "follow you bliss" kids are all getting money from their parents. It is easy to have an opinion about how other people should live their lives. So just tel me, after they had your ideal upbringing, what do they do then and why would they not in that scenario benefit from essentially being spoiled?

siruncledrew 8y ago

I understand the failure to launch part that modern parenting contributes to. However, from personal experience, I do not believe it is only limited to American-born parents. I grew up with a lot of Chinese/Indian/Korean immigrant families around (which are among the most "successful" immigrants in America in terms of wealth and educational attainment). We grew up with high expectations to study hard, go to a top university, get a 6-figure job, and start a family in the suburbs. Throughout years 4-18 our parents told us "You will do X, Y, and Z because these are the ingredients that worked for us to live a good life in America, so this is what will work for you." While this does a good job providing structure, it doesn't take the individual into account. So many of my friends from immigrant families came out of college wondering "Now what?" because being a person was new to them in the sense that they had to figure out what to do with their life once things were no longer as pre-determined. This created a new wave of 'failure to launch' where 20-somethings found themselves living at home trying to figure out what to do, or working down a path of some job they hate because their parents wanted them to do it. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is a good way to describe the situation. "You can do anything" is a troublesome parental mindset to establish, but so is a mindset of "You can't do this because this is not one of the 5 jobs we believe is best for you". For example, my 25y.o. Chinese female friend is just now getting into CompSci (what she is good at) after dropping out of pharmacy school (her parents goal for her because "you are a girl, you should be a pharmacist or a dentist").

jungler 8y ago
The pleasing-the-parents issue is one that affects every family, since there are all kinds of hidden sociocultural expectations that tend to start being confronted near the end of the educational years and the start of career building and family formation. It's expressed more strongly in this time period because the job market has quickly reshaped itself around computing, and the traditionally safe options for young people are drying up while new aspirational fantasies like "become a pro Fortnite player" or "become a cryptocurrency baron" are working their way in. And it isn't just a generation gap - a whole set of institutions are like this, motivating the popular "Millenials killed tradition" genre of journalism. And for the Millenial generation that amounts to having to reinvent each institution in a new form. Not an ambition anyone particularly signed up for, but one where the jobs are now.

dwild 8y ago

> nobody owes you anything, plan for a rainy day, find a partner you love and commit to them, work hard, cherish friends and family even when it's difficult, etc. My SO is doing all theses things, a bit to the extreme too but she feel EXACTLY like that person in the post. - She planned for rainy days, much more than anyone I know, much more than her parents, much more than mine too. - She was in love with someone for a pretty long time, way too much, but he had pretty big issues and whatever she did, he would never fix his issue, he was taking her down so hard, yet she loved him and she kept committing to him, it took her 5 years to decide it was enough, 5 years where he was the priority and not her own life. - She worked pretty hard, again, way too much, she had a good well paid government job, they had nearly no resource because of cuts, the department of one of her colleague went from 8 to 2 employees. Right before she quit, they learned that they were only replacing 1 out of 8 employee that was quitting (she was one of the youngest, most were 45+). She pushed herself up to a depression, again also after nearly 5 years of this. - Cherish friends and family even when it's difficult. That girl has a heart so big, it's crazy. She hated spending time with her mom, her mom always denigrated her, she always pushed her to her limit and never ever she would fight back. She die recently and my SO was there for her up until the end, more than anyone else in the family. It has NOTHING to do with what you say. You may believe that's the right way, fine, but it has no bearing over the feelings of that person. I only started reading the answer from Polly and that make much more sense. It may help quite a bit my SO.

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Bamafan 8y ago

On the flip side, many of the previous generations of parents would kill to have the choices their kids have. They simply never had those choices when they grew up.

brandonmenc 8y ago

> American parents could learn a thing or two about parenting from previous generations and from a lot of immigrant families. My parents and most of their peers got married right out of high school just to get out of the houses their 1st generation Catholic parents filled to the brim with like, seven or eight semi-neglected kids. A lot of them didn't make it out of those environments unscathed, and there's no guarantee they learned how to save money or hunker down for the long haul with a partner because of it. It's easy to look back on those times with rose-colored glasses, especially if you weren't there.

dcole2929 8y ago

I can't disagree with your comment more. As someone who falls squarely in the Millennial Age range, late 20s to 30s (btw that's how old millennials are now), I find the issue with so many people in this position has less to do with their upbringing or personality in particular, and more to do with the fact that we are in many ways playing a game in which the rules have changed. And that's a direct consequence of the actions of not our parent but our parents' parents', who are somehow, still in power 20 years after they normally would have passed on control on the economy and government to the next generation. And what I mean by that is, that those who have come of age over the past 20 years have spent pretty much their entire lives being read a recipe for success. Go to college -> get a degree -> get a job -> live a successful live. It's a simple step by step plan that every single person in our lives have reinforced ad nauseam, because for most of the 20th Century that has been the surest path to a happy middle class life. The problem is that of course every single step in that path is now significantly more difficult than it was 20-30 years ago when our parents' generation did it. You can't just go to college anymore. It costs 10x what it did in the 80's and you can't even compare the cost to the 50's or 60's. It's also way more competitive getting into a top school. Even if you manage to get into college and pay for it, it's no longer good enough to just get a degree. You need to get a degree in the right thing and or find a way to differentiate yourself from the other 1 million students who graduate each year, because oh by the way our generation is the most well educated in the history of the world. Even if all those things go right finding a job is harder than ever. People retire later if at all now so the market is flooded not only with too many well educated applicants but the multitude of experienced candidates competing for the same entry level jobs. And even if you get a job, the crushing levels of student debt and the fact that wages haven't kept up with inflation, basically mean that it's incredibly hard to live a successful life on your own. So basically the issue is that people have spent their entire lives calibrated for a set of conditions that no longer exists. There isn't a golden path to a cozy middle class lifestyle anymore. And once you start compounding that with the normal issues everyone runs into adjusting to an adult life you get this malaise. Everyone's poor and hates their life and social media is there so you can compare yourself to the 10% of the population who seem to have it all figured out either because they have rich parents to subsidize their life, or they got lucky and picked a major that actually pays decently, or they married their HS sweetheart and hate life somewhat less than everyone else. And because it has to be said the fact that everyone keeps calling Millenial's lazy, and entitled for somehow not being as successful as previous generations despite the changing landscape doesn't help.

StillBored 8y ago

"cherish friends and family when it gets difficult". I'm not trying to sound harsh, but what I hear in the article is just a lack of perseverance and persistence. Relationships are hard, if you leave because the other person fails to lift the toilet seat, or you quit your job because your boss is an a-hole I find that to be a lack of character. Strife is what gives people a sense of satisfaction. Buying the new car after driving a POS for years that needed constant work on the weekend is massively more satisfying than having mommie buy you a BMW for your birthday. Having a good year with the wife after a couple where you barely talked... That is how people grow, not sitting in flower beds having everything handed to them and running away every-time the world doesn't respond as you wish.

MFLoon 8y ago

I've at times felt resentment towards my baby boomer/hippy parents for spoiling me and failing to teach me discipline, which I've had to learn in adulthood at what I imagine is a steeper opportunity cost than if I had learned discipline as a child. But on the other hand, I'm sympathetic to their impulse to reject the parenting styles of their parents. My father's father beat him brutally throughout his childhood. My mother's mother would shame her relentlessly for any slight failure to comply to her will, even well past childhood - when she earned her PhD, despite her mother's wishes for her to instead become an MD, after 7 hard years of working on her dissertation her mother's 'congratulatory' card ended with "I'll still pay for you to go to medical school" (and she had not helped her pay for graduate school). They rejected the cruelty of their parents world, but gained a false optimism from the progressive, high growth times of the 60s through 90s, and failed to prepare me for the real world which is still plenty cruel.

kelnos 8y ago

> cherish friends and family even when it's difficult I generally agree with what you're saying except for this. You should cherish friends and family... unless doing so ends up being a net negative. Maybe that goes beyond "even when it's difficult", but... life is too short to keep people around who hurt you, even if they're blood relatives. Set boundaries. If people fail to respect those boundaries, then they don't deserve to be in your life, at all. Cutting someone out of your life shouldn't be a decision taken lightly or on a whim, but it's a tool in your toolbox for keeping toxic people from bringing you down.

pizzazzaro 8y ago

You sound like someone who has never experienced poverty. Meanwhile, the original prompt of the inciting content has... Two days' hotel stay of savings. That's what this is about. The lack of meaning, the alienation after being told "we could be anything we want" when we grow up, to having no choice but to settle for careers in "whatever almost pays bills" since the collapse of 2008. We're bitter. We're ashamed of where we've been and what we've done to survive. And you know what happens when we get over that? We get angry, we may get political. We might even snap. If we're technically minded? I'm mad that I dont see more hacktivists.

MRD85 8y ago
>If we're technically minded? I'm mad that I dont see more hacktivists. If you're skilled enough to be a hacktivist that can contribute significantly than you're also skilled enough to find well-paying work and you won't become bitter.

jamaicahest 8y ago

Indeed, real love is a choice you make, not a magical feeling that persists throughout life without any effort on your part. Even though that is how it is portrayed in all movies.

derangedHorse 8y ago

People always use the same old argument that it's this "you can do anything" that's ruining this generation. There's no real evidence to support that, and I can tell you there are many people who were able to advance to high places using that mindset.