Maybe I'm getting old...

[Peaches]

OMG, I just have to rant.

I must be getting old, or something. There was this letter written to “Ask Amy” today (like Dear Abby, but not) from some little 22-year-old twit, who was blaming her parents and the baby-boomer generation for raising kids with no life skills. According to her, she had no idea how to pay bills or get a job or what-have-you, and this was all her parents fault.

I just don’t understand this. How much has to be freakin spoon-fed, for the love of pete?!?! Is it that hard to make a budget, really? You know what you have coming in (or can approximate it), you know what you have to pay for—write it down, that’s a budget. Is it that hard to realize that you can’t spend more on a credit card than you have coming in? I don’t get this not understanding how to pay a bill—bill comes in the mail, you see it, you write a check—pretty self explanatory, and there’s always customer service!!! Is it that hard to write a check (if you look closely, it pretty much tells you how, ON THE CHECK!!!), or find a job?

Even if you can’t figure it out, what about taking personal responsibility and asking? Don’t know how to find a job (I didn’t, at whatever age I started)—ASK mom and dad, don’t just sit there and whine about it. Good god! Don’t understand retirement savings options and types of insurance—go to the library, or a financial planning seminar, or take a class at a community college. I refuse to believe that there are no books in libraries with pertinent life-skill information.

It just blows my mind that supposed adults can’t figure this stuff out on their own. (Barring any kind of disorder, learning disability, etc. of course.) And the irony of it is, this chick-y was complaining about not knowing how to be independent, and essentially blaming her parents for not spoon feeding the information to her.

I don’t get it. Someone please tell me that this was just an isolated case, or something. I mean, there’s a bit of an age difference going on, but not THAT much. Or am I (and the vast majority of my friends) the odd one here for being able to figure this out without being told?

 

[fascination]

at my son's high school commencement last weekend I was really happy to hear the speaker talk about there not being a fairy godmother and that real life is not like a high school for gifted kids where you advance just for showing up....she talked about how you have to THINK about where you want to go and, in small chunks, do what you need to do to get yourself there....I thought she was awesome

 

[timbp]

what's a "check"?

I've asked around, and people tell me it's a bit of paper telling one bank to pay money to another bank.

Which sort of makes sense, but haven't you people heard of the internet?
why spend a week moving money from one account to another inefficiently when you can insist on a large fee to do it efficiently.

 

[Purr]

what's a "check"?

I've asked around, and people tell me it's a bit of paper telling one bank to pay money to another bank.

Whatever happened to good old "cash"? You know, those bits of people people exchange for goods and services.

 

[cornutt]

Peaches: Good rant. Let me say that in some cases, I will cut them a little bit of slack because there are some irresponsible parents around. Consider the case of the kid who never learned anything about bank accounts because "Mom" was too busy cooking up meth in the kitchen, and "Dad" checked out the moment the EPT turned blue. And yes, I know of some cases.

But in general, your observations match mine: these days, everyone's got an excuse. Plus a wildly over-inflated opinion of their own value to the world. I saw a promo last night for an upcoming television series that focuses on the lives of a group of lottery winners, and I got to thinking about how many similar TV shows there seem to be these days: shows whose appeal is basically about being giving things, or having lots of things. (In the latter case, MTV is the absolute worst: they focus on the lives of spoiled-brat sports stars who lucked out on multi-million dollar contracts and spent every dime of it on bling, and hold this up as an example of the way everyone should live.) Somewhere out there, there's an audience of people telling themselves, "I should win $200M in the lottery because I'm special!" Other examples of this come up in the American Idol auditions every year: awful singers who think they are really, really good, and refuse to either face the truth or do anything to actually improve.

Now for an amusing aside on the check-writing thing: Those of us here of a certain age can remember when writing a check was a more complicated operation than it is now. Back in the day, banks had people who actually looked at checks before they were paid, and there were certain rituals that the check writer had to obey, such as filling out the amount in a specific way, and "protecting" the check. If anything about the check didn't look right to the examiner, the bank would bounce it. My stepfather told me a story once of a sales convention that he attended back in the 1970s, where he went out to dinner with a group of people and they all had one too many. When he wrote out the check for his dinner, evidently his coordination was, shall we say, a bit off. The bank returned the check, saying that the signature on it wasn't his! :shock: Nowdays you can scribble any old thing on a check and it will go through because no one looks at them.

 

[saludas]

I always wondered why you needed a license to color hair but none to raise a child.

 

[mamboqueen]

Although I had not choice but to do everything independently in my 20's, I found those years to be my "blame it on everyone else" years and then my 30's became my "own it" years. People grow up, some faster than others. I had two jobs, a checking account and my first care before the age of 17. No one was going to do it for me. It's very odd now that the person I work for has 3 daughters whose flight arrangements and dental appointments I make. You know, sometimes being poor has its advantages!

 

[pygmalion]

Not sure where I stand on this one, Peaches. Although I do have to say I enjoyed your rant. lol.

Dang! I started to write a long, long, post, but just realized I don't have time to anything more than open a can of worms and make myself look like an ill-considered idiot. (Which I'm not, usually. :wink: )


My take on the 22-year-old? If she has enough sense to realize that she needs those skills, then she has enough sense to go figure it -- get a checking account, pay bills, get a job. There are books, counselors, classes and workshops aplenty. She needs to get off her butt, live her life and stop assigning blame. By the time you're 22, a lot of it is ... wait for it ... your responsibility, if not your fault.

That said, I do believe that it's a parent's job, from shortly after the child's birth (very shortly) to start teaching them life skills. Okay. Nobody does a perfect job. But it is a parent's responsibility, I think, to make their babies into functional adults by the time they need to be functional adults. Just my two cents. Wish I had time to say more.

 

[Peaches]

MQ: So there’s hope?

Saludas: No kidding! I’ve thought the same damn thing so many times.

Cornutt: Oh yeah, I’m right there with you on the slack-cutting. Hey, I’m a liberal—and isn’t cutting slack what it means to be a liberal?! ;-) lol. But after a certain point, when you’ve been born into advantages in life that most people can’t even dream of, wow, no excuse. I mean, to grow up in a stable, middle-class environment, no extenuating circumstances (my original disclaimer), with the benefit of a college education—then it just become inexcusable and pathetic. Think, people—use your brains!!!

As for the check-writing… I wish people still examined checks like that. ‘T’would be nice to think that there’s another layer of protection against fraud.

Best thing ever: using a dedicated credit card to automatically pay all of my bills every month, and then automatically debit my checking account to pay itself. Holy crap that makes my life simpler—no mucking about with timing of payments and paychecks, no interesting cash-flow things going on, no forgetting anything, nada. And, no fee for it. Woo-hoo!!!

 

[mamboqueen]

MQ: So there’s hope?

As for the check-writing… I wish people still examined checks like that. ‘T’would be nice to think that there’s another layer of protection against fraud.

Best thing ever: using a dedicated credit card to automatically pay all of my bills every month, and then automatically debit my checking account to pay itself. Holy crap that makes my life simpler—no mucking about with timing of payments and paychecks, no interesting cash-flow things going on, no forgetting anything, nada. And, no fee for it. Woo-hoo!!!

There is hope! Sooner or later they'll have to figure it out or they'll run into trouble.

And you know, the banks can't make it much easier than letting you pay right online for everything...no checks, no envelopes, no stamps.

What you do is good; you get points on your credit card, too, right?

 

[cl5814]

I left my comfy country to go explore another country when i was a mere 24 years old. No family, no close friends in new country. You quickly learn to ask questions, left, right and center. you quickly start thinking for yourself.
My point ? If you have to and want to, you will. I think the attitude is maybe a bigger problem. Everything was done for them when they grew up, so they expected things to carry on that way forever.

Would it help to send these kids out of state with $X and say, go make a living ? (probably a bit harsh, but would solve the problem)

 

[cornutt]

Would it help to send these kids out of state with $X and say, go make a living ? (probably a bit harsh, but would solve the problem)

Last summer, ABC Family had a show called "Kicked Out" where they more or less did that. Kids that were living with their parents were given some amount of cash and pointed in the direction of an apartment, and were then told to make their way. For completing certain tasks, like getting a job, they had a chance to win things like items of furniture or housewares -- nothing fancy, just all of those things you suddenly realize you don't have when you first live on your own. They made all the typical mistakes at first -- blowing all their cash and so forth. But then, with just a little guideance, most of them came around in a short while to being self-sufficient and liking their independence. So maybe there's hope.

 

[Peaches]

MQ: Nah, no points unfortunately. But it does wonders for upping the credit limit, which is good because the card then becomes a very effective emergency fund.

Bills and other are kept absolutely separate—I keep 1 card for bills and such, and 2 for variable spending (gas, groceries, and everything else). The cards for the variable spending has the points, which works out nicely because it’s usually more than the bills. Not that it should be, if we got our spending in line with our ideal budget. Damn those dance classes!


Pygmalion: Hmmm…didn’t see your post the last time I checked… No worries about being mistaken for an “ill-considered idiot”—I don’t think there’s anyone on DF who could make that mistake.

I agree with you that it’s a parent’s responsibility to raise children to be independent adults. Absolutely! But there are some things where I’ve got to wonder if it needs to be explicitly stated—to me, it’s not rocket science to figure out how much “play” money you’ve got each month by doing a budget. Or to do a budget to figure out how much rent you can afford (in which case, parents can be useful for pointing out things like renter’s insurance, how location will affect car insurance rates, expectations about how much utilities should run). Perhaps it’s a failure of the parents to teach their kids to think things through, and to analyze needs and consequences, and goal setting and steps towards reaching the goal. Meh, I don’t know…I’m not a parent.

I guess you’re right that if she realizes she doesn’t know the stuff, she knows enough to find the information. I guess it just really grated on me that she seemed to take no responsibility for her own life skills. At 22, you’re an adult and your own responsibility.

 

[Peaches]

all of those things you suddenly realize you don't have when you first live on your own

This reminds me of when DH and I got our first apartment, right before we got married. We had planned on things like sheets, towels, shower curtains, brooms, cleaning supplies, food. Furniture was out of our price range, except what we had been given for wedding gifts (a cooler was our dining room table for a while, and we slept on a pile of comforters until someone gave us a fouton). We thought we were doing good.

Then that first evening after we moved stuff in, we realized that we didn't have any lights. We both grew up in houses with overhead lighting, and needing lamps never even ocurred to us! So, emergency run out to Target that night. The next morning we discovered that we had no sharp knives--and couldn't find his swiss army kniefe--another emergency run to Target.

God, he shuttled back and forth to Target so many times at first, discovering things we didn't have. (I wasn't living there at first.) Ahhh, good times!

 

[bordertangoman]

OMG, I just have to rant.

I must be getting old, or something. There was this letter written to “Ask Amy” today (like Dear Abby, but not) from some little 22-year-old twit, who was blaming her parents and the baby-boomer generation for raising kids with no life skills. According to her, she had no idea how to pay bills or get a job or what-have-you, and this was all her parents fault.

I just don’t understand this. How much has to be freakin spoon-fed, for the love of pete?!?! Is it that hard to make a budget, really? You know what you have coming in (or can approximate it), you know what you have to pay for—write it down, that’s a budget. Is it that hard to realize that you can’t spend more on a credit card than you have coming in? I don’t get this not understanding how to pay a bill—bill comes in the mail, you see it, you write a check—pretty self explanatory, and there’s always customer service!!! Is it that hard to write a check (if you look closely, it pretty much tells you how, ON THE CHECK!!!), or find a job?

Even if you can’t figure it out, what about taking personal responsibility and asking? Don’t know how to find a job (I didn’t, at whatever age I started)—ASK mom and dad, don’t just sit there and whine about it. Good god! Don’t understand retirement savings options and types of insurance—go to the library, or a financial planning seminar, or take a class at a community college. I refuse to believe that there are no books in libraries with pertinent life-skill information.
I don’t get it. Someone please tell me that this was just an isolated case, or something. I mean, there’s a bit of an age difference going on, but not THAT much. Or am I (and the vast majority of my friends) the odd one here for being able to figure this out without being told?

I think I agree with your 'Dear Abby' Correspondent. If you read Susan Faludi's stiffed; she describes the important social role that apprenticeships played in which a young man would not only be learning a trade skill but would also have a mentor to provide 'life skills' moral guidance etc. Parents are not necessarily the best people to impart this information simply because it is in their offspring's nature to rebel. I also would refer you to Helena Norberg Hodge ("Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh") on how the introduction of Western Style Education to the people of Ladakh resulted in a generation of disenfranchised young adults who had lost their traditional familial and agragarian skills which would have been passed on by living alongside their working parents in the fields , but there were no western style jobs for them when they became adults.

So I think there are some fundamental flaws in our education system: that in schools what is taught is a lot of theoretical knowledge, that its goals seem to ignore some fundamental issues such as human happiness; or even teaching people how to think for themselves instead of being spoon fed like foi-gras geese. A teacher friend of mine observed that in his school the eleven year olds coming in were enthusiastic and freash faced and eager and the 16-17 year olds were bored, disinterested and cynical. He aimed to find out what was causing this ( and hopefully do something about it). Furthermore in his teacher training, as a mature student, he discoverecd that the teaching methods he was being taught were unproven. ie no-one had actually done filed tests to see if this way of teaching was better than that way. The system relied on text books by eminent and respected theoreticians, experts in their field but who had never applied their Grand Theories of Education in a classroom to see if they worked.

I suspect that extra-curricular activities are far more useful in developing social and life skills (Scouts, Guides as one proime example etc, to which I never belonged)