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It absolutely makes sense. The idea that an 18 year old would start their own household is an artifact from a small period in our history when 18 year olds coul

It absolutely makes sense. The idea that an 18 year old would start their own household is an artifact from a small period in our history when 18 year olds could easily get an unskilled job that would afford a decent modest lifestyle. But that only really started in the late 40's and was over by the 70's.

buscoquadnary 5y ago
You know one thing I find interesting is you specifically call out "unskilled job", which I think has a point but the OP mentions specifically his son studying to be a carpenter that I would consider a "high skilled" job, even if it is blue collar, and then you suggest there was a small period of time when an 18 yo could provide for a family with unskilled labor. I then realized that for much of history up until recently by the time a young man was 18 years old he was already a skilled craftsman at his craft to a large extant. The young man would've been training with his father at his craft from the time he was ten years old and so by the time he was 18 would be proficient in what he had to do. I wonder then is part of the issue we face due to the fact that we spend so much time trying to instill a modern education into youth until they are adults that they have to spend an additional 4-8 years acquiring an actual skill in order to be able to provide value in the workforce?
- giantg2 5y ago
  I largely agree. My grandfather grew up on a farm, graduated 8th grade, then continued to work the farm while mining coal with the other men in his family. That wasn't uncommon in his time.
- toyg 5y ago
  Yep. And we do it largely because we started from a schooling model built to shape factory workers, and then tried to develop it by aping what the upper classes did - regardless of whether their models could actually scale or were at all desirable in large numbers. Sadly, doing so also stripped dignity from vocational / blue-collar work - even when it pays (very) well, kids are told that a life in the trades is for the uneducated, ignorant swines. Ironically, part of this development is led by emancipation of the lower classes themselves: "I break my back every day but my son will study and be a doctor". A sentiment we all admire, but ends up reinforcing the idea that the father's blue-collar work is crap - and that's not how it should be, all workers should have equal dignity and value.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Modern factory work is going to need a lot of that "upper-level" knowledge too, due to technical change. Pure "blue-collar" work where one could neglect education altogether is either gone or fast disappearing.
    - throwaway6532 5y ago
      That's going to be severely problematic for those in the bottom 15% of the intelligence distribution when there comes a point that there is nothing in society they could do that wouldn't be actively counter productive. Modern society and its trajectory seems a fundamentally unsustainable enterprise.
      - Aloha 5y ago
        Bottom 30% even - we must have a somewhat equitable distribution of opportunity, otherwise you end up with unrest.
        throwaway6532 5y ago
        The funny thing is... I would say for about a couple of hundred thousands years before the Neolithic Revolution, we did.
        Aloha 5y ago
        The spread between rich and poor was a whole hell of a lot smaller - industrialization broke alot of our carefully evolved social structures.
        throwaway6532 5y ago
        social media then amplified all of their flaws
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
- rhino369 5y ago
  When I said unskilled, I meant to distinguish the OP's carpenter son from unskilled jobs. I don't think there has ever been a time before 1945 when the average man was a skilled laborer. A liner worker in a factory or farm-hand isn't skilled labor. For most of history, those people were exploited. Craftsman usually had a decent living because it took training and there was generally demand. But if you train twice as many electricians, its not like there will be twice as many electrician jobs created. So learning a craft or trade is a great personal strategy, but it not a solution we can universally apply. I do think we force way too many people into college-track for little benefit and quite a bit of harm.
  - buscoquadnary 5y ago
    > But if you train twice as many electricians, its not like there will be twice as many electrician jobs created. So learning a craft or trade is a great personal strategy, but it not a solution we can universally apply. I don't know that I agree with that, right now at least on the data I have available and the anecdata I have observed there is a serious shortage of skilled blue color work, plumber, carpenter, electrician, etc. so there is definitely a shift that would be beneficial for society at large and individuals. But let's explore this idea a little bit more, right now we are used to the idea that there are X jobs for Y persons, especially in white color work. This seems to derive largely from the fact that white color work is focused not on production of goods and services but in the production of information (and to some extant bullsh*). For example there are only so many marketing jobs out there because there are only so much marketing a company needs done. Sure adding your first 3 marketers may increase your revenue by 50% but adding your 300th marketer probably isn't going to increase your income at all, in fact it's likely it might actually be a negative investment. The problem is the marketer doesn't actually add a resources to the world, they aren't producing marketing widgets, they merely identify and optimize existing distribution channels, and help others become aware of your company, and there is only so much you can do in that area, there is only so much inefficiency that can be optimized away. Contrast this instead with a plumber. You hire your first plumber he can do say 5 jobs a day, if you hire 3 more plumbers you can do 20 jobs a day now. Well let's suppose later on you hire another plumber he still adds the value to do 5 more jobs a day. Now you may say that there are only so many plumbing jobs out there, only so many people have their 3 year old push a bouncy ball down the toilet, but the plumber is also working on new housing and new business, the plumber isn't just optimizing the existing pie they are causing the overall size of the pie itself to increase. Now there does of course exist some sort of maximum to this, but after reading World War Z that explores this concept in quite a bit of depth (and has no similarity to the movie at all) I've realized that if society did collapse I as a software engineer have absolutely no real or applicable skills, whereas an electrician or a carpenter, they will be able to keep on doing their job as they were now, because they are creating actual wealth, not just optimizing existing wealth generation activities. My point being a society with an overabundance of electricians, carpenters and plumbers is probably better off than a society with an overabundance of project managers, paralegals, and risk analysts.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tharne 5y ago
> The idea that an 18 year old would start their own household is an artifact from a small period in our history when 18 year olds could easily get an unskilled job that would afford a decent modest lifestyle. I think this is the root of a lot of people's frustrations around housing, and adulthood. For most our history it was expected that you would have multiple generations sharing a household. The idea that you move out of your family's house the second you turn 18 or finish college is a relatively new idea. As parent commenter points out, this was really only the norm for two generations, suggesting that that, and not our current situation, is the historical outlier. Living with your family for a while allows you to save money and help your parents out after they spent the better part of two decades raising you.
- XorNot 5y ago
  I'm wildly uncomfortable with normalising the idea (that is far too normal already) that you owe your parents a thing for raising you. We have a lot of choices in this life, but whether I get brought into it isn't one. I have no expectations of what my son will or will not help me with in the future and will try as hard as possible to set him up well - because he didn't have a choice in his circumstance, I and solely I did.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I’m doing the same for our family, but it would seem kind of weird (and, frankly, disappointing) if after doing that, that if my wife and/or fell on hard times that the kids wouldn’t pitch in to help in return.
  - riversflow 5y ago
    > I'm wildly uncomfortable with normalising the idea (that is far too normal already) that you owe your parents a thing for raising you. Wow. This is wild to me. My grandfather was an orphan, most likely because his parents weren't married(if he were alive today, he'd be well over 100). I am absolutely grateful that my parents have done their best to raise me to be the intelligent, caring person I am, and to take care not to perpetuate the misdeeds of their parents(which, being Boomers, were numerous). As both someone who suffers from depression and identifies as a materialist, it is probably the single thing I am most grateful for, and certainly the most profound intangible in my life. The feeling that I owe them is honestly one of the fundamental things that keeps me going. If your parents are decent to you and showed care with how you were raised I absolutely think that you owe them. Having a functional, caring family is one of the greatest privileges one can have in life. You know who I don't owe anything too? The people who put my grandfather up for adoption.
rednerrus 5y ago
An 18 year old can easily get a "unskilled" job what will give you a modest lifestyle. There are ~20 cities in America where this isn't possible but just about everywhere else it's completely possible. There is a shortage of tradesman across the country. Are you capable of doing relatively simple math, showing up on time, and working hard? There's a decent job for you in a midwestern city where you can buy a house for $120,000.

buscoquadnary 5y ago

You know one thing I find interesting is you specifically call out "unskilled job", which I think has a point but the OP mentions specifically his son studying to be a carpenter that I would consider a "high skilled" job, even if it is blue collar, and then you suggest there was a small period of time when an 18 yo could provide for a family with unskilled labor. I then realized that for much of history up until recently by the time a young man was 18 years old he was already a skilled craftsman at his craft to a large extant. The young man would've been training with his father at his craft from the time he was ten years old and so by the time he was 18 would be proficient in what he had to do. I wonder then is part of the issue we face due to the fact that we spend so much time trying to instill a modern education into youth until they are adults that they have to spend an additional 4-8 years acquiring an actual skill in order to be able to provide value in the workforce?

giantg2 5y ago
I largely agree. My grandfather grew up on a farm, graduated 8th grade, then continued to work the farm while mining coal with the other men in his family. That wasn't uncommon in his time.
toyg 5y ago
Yep. And we do it largely because we started from a schooling model built to shape factory workers, and then tried to develop it by aping what the upper classes did - regardless of whether their models could actually scale or were at all desirable in large numbers. Sadly, doing so also stripped dignity from vocational / blue-collar work - even when it pays (very) well, kids are told that a life in the trades is for the uneducated, ignorant swines. Ironically, part of this development is led by emancipation of the lower classes themselves: "I break my back every day but my son will study and be a doctor". A sentiment we all admire, but ends up reinforcing the idea that the father's blue-collar work is crap - and that's not how it should be, all workers should have equal dignity and value.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Modern factory work is going to need a lot of that "upper-level" knowledge too, due to technical change. Pure "blue-collar" work where one could neglect education altogether is either gone or fast disappearing.
  - throwaway6532 5y ago
    That's going to be severely problematic for those in the bottom 15% of the intelligence distribution when there comes a point that there is nothing in society they could do that wouldn't be actively counter productive. Modern society and its trajectory seems a fundamentally unsustainable enterprise.
    - Aloha 5y ago
      Bottom 30% even - we must have a somewhat equitable distribution of opportunity, otherwise you end up with unrest.
      - throwaway6532 5y ago
        The funny thing is... I would say for about a couple of hundred thousands years before the Neolithic Revolution, we did.
        Aloha 5y ago
        The spread between rich and poor was a whole hell of a lot smaller - industrialization broke alot of our carefully evolved social structures.
        throwaway6532 5y ago
        social media then amplified all of their flaws
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
rhino369 5y ago
When I said unskilled, I meant to distinguish the OP's carpenter son from unskilled jobs. I don't think there has ever been a time before 1945 when the average man was a skilled laborer. A liner worker in a factory or farm-hand isn't skilled labor. For most of history, those people were exploited. Craftsman usually had a decent living because it took training and there was generally demand. But if you train twice as many electricians, its not like there will be twice as many electrician jobs created. So learning a craft or trade is a great personal strategy, but it not a solution we can universally apply. I do think we force way too many people into college-track for little benefit and quite a bit of harm.
- buscoquadnary 5y ago
  > But if you train twice as many electricians, its not like there will be twice as many electrician jobs created. So learning a craft or trade is a great personal strategy, but it not a solution we can universally apply. I don't know that I agree with that, right now at least on the data I have available and the anecdata I have observed there is a serious shortage of skilled blue color work, plumber, carpenter, electrician, etc. so there is definitely a shift that would be beneficial for society at large and individuals. But let's explore this idea a little bit more, right now we are used to the idea that there are X jobs for Y persons, especially in white color work. This seems to derive largely from the fact that white color work is focused not on production of goods and services but in the production of information (and to some extant bullsh*). For example there are only so many marketing jobs out there because there are only so much marketing a company needs done. Sure adding your first 3 marketers may increase your revenue by 50% but adding your 300th marketer probably isn't going to increase your income at all, in fact it's likely it might actually be a negative investment. The problem is the marketer doesn't actually add a resources to the world, they aren't producing marketing widgets, they merely identify and optimize existing distribution channels, and help others become aware of your company, and there is only so much you can do in that area, there is only so much inefficiency that can be optimized away. Contrast this instead with a plumber. You hire your first plumber he can do say 5 jobs a day, if you hire 3 more plumbers you can do 20 jobs a day now. Well let's suppose later on you hire another plumber he still adds the value to do 5 more jobs a day. Now you may say that there are only so many plumbing jobs out there, only so many people have their 3 year old push a bouncy ball down the toilet, but the plumber is also working on new housing and new business, the plumber isn't just optimizing the existing pie they are causing the overall size of the pie itself to increase. Now there does of course exist some sort of maximum to this, but after reading World War Z that explores this concept in quite a bit of depth (and has no similarity to the movie at all) I've realized that if society did collapse I as a software engineer have absolutely no real or applicable skills, whereas an electrician or a carpenter, they will be able to keep on doing their job as they were now, because they are creating actual wealth, not just optimizing existing wealth generation activities. My point being a society with an overabundance of electricians, carpenters and plumbers is probably better off than a society with an overabundance of project managers, paralegals, and risk analysts.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tharne 5y ago

> The idea that an 18 year old would start their own household is an artifact from a small period in our history when 18 year olds could easily get an unskilled job that would afford a decent modest lifestyle. I think this is the root of a lot of people's frustrations around housing, and adulthood. For most our history it was expected that you would have multiple generations sharing a household. The idea that you move out of your family's house the second you turn 18 or finish college is a relatively new idea. As parent commenter points out, this was really only the norm for two generations, suggesting that that, and not our current situation, is the historical outlier. Living with your family for a while allows you to save money and help your parents out after they spent the better part of two decades raising you.

XorNot 5y ago
I'm wildly uncomfortable with normalising the idea (that is far too normal already) that you owe your parents a thing for raising you. We have a lot of choices in this life, but whether I get brought into it isn't one. I have no expectations of what my son will or will not help me with in the future and will try as hard as possible to set him up well - because he didn't have a choice in his circumstance, I and solely I did.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I’m doing the same for our family, but it would seem kind of weird (and, frankly, disappointing) if after doing that, that if my wife and/or fell on hard times that the kids wouldn’t pitch in to help in return.
- riversflow 5y ago
  > I'm wildly uncomfortable with normalising the idea (that is far too normal already) that you owe your parents a thing for raising you. Wow. This is wild to me. My grandfather was an orphan, most likely because his parents weren't married(if he were alive today, he'd be well over 100). I am absolutely grateful that my parents have done their best to raise me to be the intelligent, caring person I am, and to take care not to perpetuate the misdeeds of their parents(which, being Boomers, were numerous). As both someone who suffers from depression and identifies as a materialist, it is probably the single thing I am most grateful for, and certainly the most profound intangible in my life. The feeling that I owe them is honestly one of the fundamental things that keeps me going. If your parents are decent to you and showed care with how you were raised I absolutely think that you owe them. Having a functional, caring family is one of the greatest privileges one can have in life. You know who I don't owe anything too? The people who put my grandfather up for adoption.

rednerrus 5y ago

An 18 year old can easily get a "unskilled" job what will give you a modest lifestyle. There are ~20 cities in America where this isn't possible but just about everywhere else it's completely possible. There is a shortage of tradesman across the country. Are you capable of doing relatively simple math, showing up on time, and working hard? There's a decent job for you in a midwestern city where you can buy a house for $120,000.