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[Thoraxes]

First paragraph: Alright, yeah.

Second and third paragraph: These people really don't fucking have a clue.

 

[Atilac]

I hold three bachelor degrees; two in computer science and the third is a contract major that is a mix between poli sci and business admin. I'm turning 31 this december, I can't find a job. The last offer I was considered for, some boomer with 20 years of experience took the entry position right out from under me. I can't move because I'm helping raise my niece.

This perpetual adolescence the article mentions is slowing killing me.

 

[Atilac]

I think this analysis also misses the extent to which the parents are living in the kids home as much as the kids are living in the parents home. All the problems besetting young people - increased rents, stagnant wages, poor economy - hit the adults at least partially. The upper middle class kids going back home after college are probably moochers to a significant extent, but I know more than one millennial working service jobs that contribute as much income to the household as their parents. My boyfriend's mom is moving in with us in a few weeks because the alternative is to stay in a trailer park.

The economics of the situation is that the optimal household size is somewhere from 3-6 people. People doing well economically can pay if they'd rather live alone before starting a new a family, but the rest of us are going to have to make do. You can do roommates, but on the whole, a family member that you've known for years is going to be much more reliable, less of a security risk, and at least for some of us more pleasant to be around.

When I finally get a job I need to stay at home to help with bills

 

[Hellwarden]

Guy basically brushes the economic factors aside and says our generation wasn't raised right. Basically we need to suck it up.

In short, fuck him.

 

[leroidys]

Well, I read the entire article.

Outside of the opening paragraphs, it's actually really benign. All it actually says is:

- Learn that buying things isn't a solution to your problems
- Get a job when you're a teenager
- Do volunteer work for old people
- Travel so you see how other people live
- Read books

If it weren't for the rather unfortunate part quoted in the OP, it would be like the most generic parenting advice article ever, and it's advice that hasn't changed for many decades.

There's nothing to get angry about here.

I don't know anything about this guy other than I'm supposed to hate him because GAF tells me to. I read the article strictly without any of this knowledge, and it wasn't all that exciting to me. It's really the kind of stuff I would make my kids do if I had any, like get a job in high school (preferably a shitty one like at McDonalds) so they know what shitty jobs are like. And read books.

Those sound like reasonable ways to enrich your life and/or become a better person, but those are not realistic ways of increasing your social standing or housing security.

Do you really not understand why people are cheesed when he's giving this kind of worthless advice to diminish the real, unprecedented challenges that this generation faces? Doubly so when the person writing the article is literally 1 of 100 in this country uniquely suited to actually do something to address this generations challenges directly?

 

[Monocle]

I know a condescending idiot who thinks like this guy. It takes a special kind of talent to blind yourself to cause and effect so you can look down on an entire generation.

 

[Kite]

Where in Texas? Because 60k isn't a lot in DFW.

Houston, shouldn't matter though. $60k+ more than enough for a single person to move out of their parent's house if they want to. And that is who the article in the OP is talking about.

 

[Klocker]

What's wrong with living with roommates... I'd assume that would be preferred to living with parents

Spoiler

especially by the parents

No excuse for adult youth to not be on their own in one way or another. just maybe not in the level of comfort to which they had become accustomed.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

I've been searching for a new apartment recently and I'm about ready to move back in with my mom and grandma after five years on my own. Finding a place is a pain in the ass and too expensive. My mom annoys the shit out of me but at least I'll be able to save some money while living somewhere nice.

 

[Kuroi Gogeta]

This reads like oldmanyellsatcloud.jpg

I hate this focus on personal responsibility. If you're not renting a 1 bedroom apartment at 18 then it's your fault for not wanting to be independent enough. Not that school was hard to keep up in, not that college is seen as not only mandatory but extremely expensive, not that rent is often over 50 percent of your income if a place is even available to begin with. It's not that even an entry level job requires experience and pays you a garbage wage since everything is so expensive.No,its not that. And it's not that it can take weeks and months of soul crushing rejection to get a job. Nope. It's the cellphones, the social media, all these people with [apparently] rich-ass parents who want to coddle them and not encourage them to work right? Fuck out of here. This line of thinking is so corrosive and I don't know what can be done to combat it. The narrative that those who are struggling simply just aren't trying hard enough must end, and it starts by giving a platform to someone who actually speaks with people who's birth years start with 199

 

[Haint]

What's wrong with living with roommates... I'd assume that would be preferred to living with parents

Spoiler

especially by the parents

No excuse for adult youth to not be on their own in one way or another. just maybe not in the level of comfort to which they had become accustomed.

Live like a prince or peasant, tough decision.

 

[entremet]

Disregarding economy is straight up laughable. They really are out of touch.

It does strike me that the culture of America has little in place for “coming of age". People don't seem to become adults, they simply graduate and do the same thing they were doing before.

What is maturity? When is someone actually an adult? There's drinking ages, and legal statuses as adults, but its not exactly a grand launching point for the rest of your life.

I remember having a bit of a crisis post-high school of not knowing if I was an adult or not. And when you look at cultures actually having coming of age ceremonies and having cultural weight over adulthood, I realize America has done a poor job of instilling what it means to be an adult in people.

Doesn't help that supposedly mature people do some childish stuff. Adulthood doesn't really mean anything to me. I'm more concerned with people's intelligence and wisdom. Maturity doesn't seem to mean anything.

In past generations marriage was considered a true sign of maturity and even that has shifted due to social mores changing.

I don't think many young folks want to live with their parents, but with wages being so low and housing being a huge chunk of take home pay, aong with loan debt, are people surprised regarding the shifting behaviors.

You don't attack the individual you assess the system that created these effects.

 

[Klocker]

Live like a prince or peasant, tough decision.

As a parent with two "adult" children I'm not giving them a choice. Lol

If they want to live like I do they need to go put in their time, peasant-like, we gave them plenty of time here.

 

[ATF487]

I think there's an argument to be made that adolescence is extending and late teens/early 20s adults are being socialized differently. But my main problems with these pieces is that usually blame the kids for not being able to live in a harder world that they have created for them.

 

[Chumly]

Well, I read the entire article.

Outside of the opening paragraphs, it's actually really benign. All it actually says is:

- Learn that buying things isn't a solution to your problems
- Get a job when you're a teenager
- Do volunteer work for old people
- Travel so you see how other people live
- Read books

If it weren't for the rather unfortunate part quoted in the OP, it would be like the most generic parenting advice article ever, and it's advice that hasn't changed for many decades.

There's nothing to get angry about here.

First of all you are correct in that was one of the most boring generic parenting advice I have ever seen.

People are upset though because he is a United States senator who is in a unique position to fix the problems in society and he is out there spouting off how the youth in America weren't raised right.

Secondly the article is really an issue with pampered upper class kids who the article is really for but he's brushing it off on all American youth. The bottom 50% of America has a much more unique set of problems than no work ethic. I can tell you as someone from Nebraska that Ben sasse doesn't know what real people have to go through.

 

[br3wnor]

I agree with this somewhat.

In my own antecdotal experience at a job ive been at for 5 years watching the churn and turnover of the entry level jobs as they hire 50 people and only 10 are there after 6 months, mostly due to stupid stuff like attendance and behavioral problems.They have actually had a problem with people who are just tourists, get good at the interview process, stay on for the training in a classroom, then stop showing up for the real job when they get bored, then on to the next company. You can't realistically say anything but factual things and its very dangerous to say negative things in a job referral so the next employer is none the wiser, especially if they lie on the resume/application.

My wife works a starbucks and says they regularly will hire 15 people and be lucky if 2-3 of them don't just stop showing up after 2 weeks.

I mean, when you see stuff like that happening over and over at entry level you can't blame the employer, when the training resources are there, and both our jobs are very generous with pay and benefits for their relative skill level required.

Yeah, but I don't think this is generational, I think it's just human nature. (FROM MY OWN ANECDOTAL EXPERIENCE of having worked at 8+ jobs in the past 10 years) A lot of people just don't have a good work ethic and just by coming to work every day and doing what you're told you automatically become a 'good' worker.

In a selfish way, I'm happy it is the way it is. I went to a TTT (Third Teir Toilet) Law School and had average grades but every internship I had along the way I worked my ass off and made connections w/ my coworkers and bosses. It helped me stand out against the other interns and I got my first 2 full time post law school jobs at places I interned at. The job I landed last month is a state job w/ fantastic pay and a pension, I plan to retire here and none of it would have been possible had I not made an impression as an intern and kept contact w/ my old boss for the past 4 years.

Now I'm a white male so I understand the inherit privilege I have been given since birth, but my dad was a construction worker, I grew up lower middle class, had to go to community college and graduated w/ my bachelors in 2009 which was literally the worst year to graduate w/ a college degree basically since ever. I spent 2009-2012 working dead end, shit jobs making $10-15 an hour before finally taking the dive to go to law school (entirely on loans, I have well over $100,000 in debt) knowing full well that the legal job market is still pretty shitty and I was taking a massive risk, but I had to rely on my ability to make it work.

So while I agree with people shitting on the 'bootstraps' mentality, especially when it is in relation to people who are either born into extreme poverty or are a minority or all the things that put you at an inherit disadvantage socioeconomically in America, there is merit to the idea that you gotta really hustle and make the most of whatever opportunities you do have if you want any shot of achieving the 'American dream'.

 

[The Lamp]

Lol this fucker. I'm a full time engineer with a chemical engineering degree and engineer's salary and I live with my family because I have to support my mom's medical bills that this country doesn't cover because of its shit disability policies and to help pay for my $80,000 in debt for studying at a public university because of this country's shit education policies. $3,000 for an MRI and surgery here and there, $800 per month in loan payments, $300 for each of two ER visits this year. Yeah, tell me more about how I don't know how to be a grown up, Senator. Unless you're trained in statistics and economics, stop projecting your biases and assumptions to diagnose the general public as millennial manchildren.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

There is when you consider the context of the person writing it and what his policies are.

Pretty much. I mean, some of it is 100% common sense yet if he doesnt vote against the fossilized-in-the-80s GOP answer to this, his half-understanding of todays problems doesnt mean anything.

 

[CrimsonCrescendo]

Student Loan debt, housing prices, stagnant wages, lack of a "living wage", increasing distribution of wealth to the 1% of the 1%, automation, the shift to either outsourcing work or contracting, and so on have a shit ton more to do with people not being able to live on their own than "You just won't do without the latest cellphone".

 

[Oblivion]

Someone explain to me how someone who takes three shitty part-time jobs to go to college and get a degree, and still be tens of thousands of dollars in debt can be considered either "lazy" or "entitled".