Why do we have so many Lost Boys?

[stanwyck]

I have twenty-year old boy/girl twins. My friends, co-workers and I have noticed more and more Lost Boys in the age group who recently graduated high-school. These are the kids who don't know what to do next. They take a couple of classes at a community college. Then quit. They work a part-time job. Then quit. They move out to live with a friend. Then move back. There are girls in this group, too. But it seems like more boys are, as Paul O'Neill said of Bush "disengaged". The after-effects of Colombine? 9-11? Or are they just so comfortable that they lack the incentive to "grow-up"?

[kmla]

1. My vote is for the latter...

... their wings won't be strong unless they try to fly out of the nest. Riding on mom and dad's back as they fly around doesn't count. And if mom and dad are willing to fly them everywhere, why should they learn?

[BigDaddyLove]

14. Absolutely correct.................

I was one of them, 'till life smacked the shit out of me and I had to work on my wing muscles.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

2. one question

Is your boy technologically-oriented? I bet he's not. If you are not good at science in this day and age you have two options: get very lucky at getting a meaningful career in the arts or the humanities or take a soul-deadening job as a "support" to the techies that rule the world. This will leave you lost. I work a second job as a cook not only because * has made sure I need every last cent I can get (I live simply and run out of money every month) but because without it my work-life would be 100% drudgery because that's about all there is for a person with my non-technical talents.

[Skittles]

4. production support is NOT "soul-deadening"

techies would flounder without said support

[fertilizeonarbusto]

7. i'll give you five bucks for every techie that would admit this

I do this for a living, believe me, if the boredom and the piss-poor pay do not get you, the condescecion from people who got worse grades than you in college (only in a field lucrative to corporations) and who are helpless with anything you can't plug in will.

[Bertha Venation]

43. glad you said it

I think my work would fall in there somewhere. Not soul-deadening at all -- I chose to be a drone so I could enjoy life, not spend it stressed about work.

[Skittles]

3. they grew up with instant gratification

and are expecting it their whole lives.

[mdmc]

5. "Grow up" and do what?

Protest for peace, join the Army? Knock up some chick, work 40 hours a week? Fix up a house?
To quote the Ramones: I just want to get some chicks, I just want to get some kicks! (Rock n ROll High School)

[FunBobbyMucha]

6. So hoping you're joking

or nineteen.

[HEyHEY]

16. how old are you?

Just curious. I'm not wanting to flame or preach to you I just have something to ay if you are the age I think you are.

[mdmc]

38. I'm 33

lost

[HEyHEY]

50. I was going to say

I used to be that way in highschool. THe totally bleak outlook and all that, then I found the young christian coalition --- no just kiddin.

Seriously I used to be that way. Then I just realized it wasn't worth wasting my time. You're alive, like it or not. So have some fun and try not to spend too much time pondering the reason for exisitance. Getou there and do stuff, and it'll come. Now, I try to find aspects I enjoy in everything - cheesy, some may say. But I am much happier for it.

[mdmc]

8. after 9-11-01

Our local obits were flooded with local mover and shakers that had died. Most of the locals were young professionals, under 30, with Master degrees. These people lived their lives to be successful, had postponed their youthful pursuits to ensure their ability to retire.
I think that there is more to life than work, and today's youth know all to well that life is short.

[roguevalley]

9. Life is short for the percentage that die. But for the rest of us, you

better not count on spontaneous combustion before
30. I hate to say it, but this generation if they
are adrift, and I see the same thing too, should
have had more of the gift of acquiring things without
being helped too much. If there is no curiosity and
ambition, there can be stagnation.

I'm glad I was born in 1953. When you grew up blue
collar then, with a $6000.00/yr. income for a back
breaking job, you learned about reality quickly. I
wonder if some of these kids get it that if they
don't find their way themselves, no one else is
going to do it for them.

RV, becoming her mother as we speak.

[Nikia]

10. Most jobs are dead end jobs for the undegreed

They know that it does not matter whether they start working now or ten years from now. They will be making the same amount of money. There is no advancement. Therer is little or no increase in pay for longevity or performance. That is the plight of the unskilled, even if they acquire skills on the job. There are those that want to keep people like them in their place.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. Maybe it's because they've watched

their dads and uncles who have degrees go to work for a company for 10-20 years, get laid off, and have to go work in Home Depot to make ends meet; losing the benefits that were the primary perk of having a post-grad degree.

It DOES make you wonder what the point of it all is...

[Rattlesnake]

12. I did that a few years ago...

and I had reasons for it. I went to a tech school for two weeks for C.Sci, saw how horrible it was, and dropped the major. I then moved back in with my mom and dad for a few months. I worked at a dead-end job at a nursing home. Hated that. I went back to college for a geology degree and now I'm staying put.

I think all those reasons are possible. For me, it was that I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I had to do many options before I found what I wanted to do.

Does this make sense? It seems too vague to me. I do have a slight case of the Mondays. :(

[stanwyck]

21. I find your post

captivating. You've been a Lost Child and made it out of the malaise. I don't believe people have to get a college degree. Or even a "good" job. Whatever that means these days. It's the lack of passion for something...for anything...that concerns me. That, and the fear of independence. I couldn't wait to leave home. And I had a loving family. I wish you well, Rattlesnake.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. It's not your imagination

Nationwide, colleges now have more female than male students.

Here's my theory: two social trends have converged. One is that today's girls have grown up encouraged to make their own way instead of waiting for a man to take care of them. Baby boomer and older DU women were probably told, as I was, to become a schoolteacher or nurse or secretary and work at that for a couple of years before getting married so that they would have "something to fall back on" if their hypothetical husband died young. (The possibility of divorce was not mentioned.) Today's girls are told that they can be whatever they want to be, and that includes married or not. At least they expect to continue working after marriage.

Having seen some of my mother's and grandmother's contemporaries stuck in horrible marriages because they had no job skills, I applaud this trend.

However, the second trend has no upside, and that is the Arnoldization of teenage male culture. The entire popular culture aimed at teenage boys, especially those who have no counter-influences at home, is 100% macho and relentlessly anti-intellectual. In the pop culture world, sports are the be-all and end-all of existence. The ideal man is buff and aggressive and as overstuffed with notions of "honor" as a Mafioso. Supermodel-type women are eager to be seduced and abandoned by him. Computers are okay for violent video games, but not for acquiring knowledge. Reading and non-popular music are for wimps. School in general is for wimps.

Yes, I know that the macho hero has always been with it, but the ones I remember from my own childhood, such as the stars of the cowboy shows and Superman, used their strength to protect the helpless and their prestige to promote positive values on their programs. Gene Autry might foil the bank robbers, but there was always a point in the program where he would talk quietly to one of the child actors about the importance of telling the truth or treating other people with respect or doing well in school.

The trouble with the more recent macho worldview is that it has no relevance to real life. In real life, there are few job openings for professional athletes or guys who like to bust up rooms. Upwardly mobile families know this and urge their sons to adopt more positive paths. Less clued-in families, or families who have lost influence over their children, let the pop culture rule.

The result is the Lost Boy, who drifts from McJob to McJob and spends his spare time partying and perhaps indulging in petty crime.

[bobbieinok]

20. I think you're on to something here

the messages the culture sends to males and females.

My son graduated HS in 86 and college in 90. A LOT of his highschool class (male and female) came back home and hung around for about a year or so doing odd jobs and taking some classes at the local university.

It was really weird.

This post college 'drift' was also here where I live now. This went on for the college grads here until maybe the class of 92 or 93.

Now that I look at the dates - was it partly the political climate? I haven't a clue.

[jonnyblitz]

31. wow. excellent post.

:thumbsup:

[Cheswick2.0]

33. how about families with single mothers struggling to make ends meet?

Boys are raised in this situation more often than not. What role models do these kids have? It's kind of hard to have influence over your kids when you are in that situation. But we never want to examine the divorce rate as a contributing cause for our social ills. That would mean some good people might have to question their choice to abandon a marriage that has stalled rather than revive it.

[Darth_Kitten]

34. Boys living with single mothers actually learn to respect women...

Single mothers, unlike parents in two parent homes, don't have the time and inclination to pamper and spoil boys. What role models do boys have in single parent homes? How about a independent, strong woman who has to work for everything she has ? What about NOT having to see the sharp differences in what men and what women have to take on in the home?
I suggest it's the two parent homes that are producing these aimless, pampered little darlings. :(

[mdmc]

36. good theory

:kick:

[Bertha Venation]

45. Brava.

Well said, Lydia.

[HEyHEY]

15. It's got nothing to do with Columbine

The little buggers are just typical too much TV, living in the Suburbs, bored, can't see the light type kids.

[mitchum]

17. read "Stiffed" by Susan Faludi

the answers are in there

[Sentath]

19. good book

the comoditization of manhood and the rise of the decorative male

[Beaker]

18. wanna talk about "lost"...? I graduated high school in 1979-

and I still don't know what I want to do or be when i grow up.

[populistmom]

22. My husband was like this for years

He's 41, graduated from high school in 1980 and until he was 27, he spent his time bouncing from job to job, partying, and basically making a mess of his life. His big trigger that set him off was his best friend in high school basically took his own life. It set him on this bad path. When we met, he was 27 and going back to college and getting his life together, I was 18 and just starting mine, but in many ways I had more maturity than he had. I don't know if this is a new phenomenon or not. I think some young males basically drink their lives into the shitter before they decide to grow up and face reality. Some of us willingly faced reality from the beginning.

[Beaker]

26. "Some of us willingly faced reality from the beginning"...?

what exactly do you consider to be "reality"?
the life that the corporate task-masters oof the aristocracy have in mind for the wage slaves under the guise of "the American Dream"?

some of us realized from the beginning that that particular type of life was not for us, some of us have other reasons & rationalizations, and some of us have serious demons to fight...In the nearly 20 years between my late teens and late 30's I was continually misdiagnosed by lots of doctors in regard to a serious and progressive spinal ailment that therefore went undetected until it was fairly well advanced and now has me permanently disabled and in constant pain(which I control fairly well with legally prescribed narcotic medication, Rush you fuckin' junkie...))

I graduated high school a year before your husband, and I can tell you that the economy, and Ronnie Raygun's presidency had a lot to do with the malaise and indifference about the future that a lot of us felt...I left college after two years(and 3 schools) because the job picture was bleak, and I had an "in" to get me a decent-paying construction job as a union laborer. The work was fairly mindless and always outdoors, and the pay was good, especially with overtime every week- I felt I'd always have plenty of time for school...I tried going back to college several times over the years, but it never "took" all that well- I could never come up with a valid reason as to where it would lead...because I was in the 99th percentile in the ACT and PSAT(never took the SAT) I felt that a lot was expected of me- but I never wanted to climb any corporate ladders, I'm not especially competetive, and I always said to myself that I never wanted to have, or be, a Boss.

I've had lots of jobs in different fields besides construction between high school and here- some people might call it drifting, but so what? Is life (aka your "reality") a contest or a journey?
I've always done well in those different jobs in different fields, and whenever I stopped enjoying or being interested in the work, I'd quit(with notice of course) and move on.

Ultimately I decided to make a career out of turning over houses- buy'em cheap and maybe a little shoddy, fix'em up and either sell'em or rent'em and then move on to the next one. A month along the road to hopeful happiness I was rear-ended at a traffic light by an un-insured illegal, which caused me A LOT of pain, and ultimately led to the discovery, as well as quick acceleration of my condition(sort of a "good news, bad news" kind of situation).

Now I'm on permanent/total disability and finally gettting close to finishing up(at a very slow and pained pace) the rehabbing of the two-flat we bought going on 8 years ago. originally we intended to convert it to single family, but when the situation changed and we figured we could use the income- we decided to keep th upstairs apartment intact in order to rent it out...

I know I've been rambling, but I guess that my point is that my life and life experiences, as well as those of my fellow 'drifters" are just as real as everyone else's. We ALL face reality every day- and all of those realities are quite different..........

bed time.

[stanwyck]

32. You're right, of course

that life should not have a rigid, prescribed plan. It's a journey. My concern is the nihilistic attitude of these young men. Being locked into a deadend job, just because it's a job, is not what I want for these kids. I just want them to care. About something. Music. Literature. Sports. Charitable Work. Anything. It's the aimlessness with no desire that frightens me. I went to my 30-yr. high school reunion last summer. Let me tell you, Lost Boys at 48 are mind-numbingly sad. 30-years later they've still not found anything or anyone. I know I'm being very judmental about other people's lives, as though mine is perfect...But it hurts to see these very young men without hope or passion.

[populistmom]

49. My definition of reality

I consider reality to be not burying oneself in various chemicals to avoid dealing with problems. If you read my original post, you'll see that's what I was talking about. I'm not talking about judicious use of something prescribed for chronic pain (though I know as well that can have the potential of getting out of hand). Obviously, something I said touched a chord with you and for that, I'm sorry. I'm not some bitch trying to downgrade a man trying to "find his path" or expecting someone to go down some artificial corporate path. (Actually, these days my spouse is very happy in his chosen career and is becoming increasingly upwardly mobile in his field.) I did probably vent a bit because I'm a women who choose to be with a man who had some very serious issues that I thought were resolved when we were first together (and they were resolved long enough to have several children and for me to put my own career stuff on the backburner because I trusted him) and yet they went rearing their ugly head again a few years ago. While now getting better again, it's extremely hard to trust in these kinds of situations and the wall around my heart is regards to him is very strong, yet he still doesn't understand why. I also found out a couple years back I was cheated on early in our marriage. My life is as fucking real as it gets, dude. I have spent the last couple of years cleaning up financial and emotional messes another person made and I'll be damned if I let someone else judge me. I'd rather be private about stuff, but I will defend myself when I get the feeling that my character is being called into question. I'd better shut my mouth though in order to avoid tombstoning here by saying something I might regret.

I have an exorbitant amount of responsibilities while trying to play catch up in my own career with my peers so I can least have the potential of making better choices in the future if things don't get better. A future that will probably be alone because it really doesn't matter if I'm attractive or smart or whatever, it would take a very special man to take on these things along with me. My life has been void of any fun or pleasure or tangible support systems and has been for many years. People look at me from external appearances or what they think my life is and make judgments that it's easy, having no concept of the complete lack of balance that exists.

[NightTrain]

54. You must be incredibly strong!

That's all I can say, except that the more I learn about your life, the worse I feel for you.

With any luck, our upcoming DU gathering will boost your spirits at least for a little while! :pals:

[Dogmudgeon]

23. The Ass Masters

<Warning="RANT"/>

I'm 45, and I could be said to fit into the Lost Boy mold. Unfortunately, I'm a failure with a (much-vaunted) "work ethic" who none the less has failed to accumulate money, get married, have children, or establish himself in the world. Three major collapses for me -- in 1985, 1995, and 2001, when each of my "careers" ended in disaster.

A brief sketch? 1984: The insurance industry collapsed; I lost about $60,000 when my commissions were cancelled by the bankruptcy judge who oversaw the liquidation of the company I worked for. 1995: Medical technology became a living hell; I was making $15/hr with about 20 hr/wk of uncompensated overtime, AND was legally required to assume full malpractice liability, in spite of the fact that there was NO malpractice insurance for techs. 2001: I was a programmer when 9-11 and offshoring happened. Sprinkle in a few bouts of medical problems, and you have a LOSER with a capital L-O-S-E-R.

What's that you say? That I'm not taking Personal Responsibility? Yeah, right, I'm immature, my ass isn't in gear, I need a kick in the ass, ass, ass, ass. So say the Ass Masters.

"You could do it if you really wanted to." As Michael Moore said: Kill Horatio Alger!

The real problem isn't a lack of violence to the loser's ass; it's a lack of a predictable path toward success. Too much failure. All the kicks in the ass, biatch-slapping, ass-whupping etc. won't do a thing except make the problem worse.

But, according to the Ass Masters (some of who appear here at DU), this is what we need:

A kick in the ass.

A good old-fashioned bare-ass whippin'.

Reality to bitch-slap us.

A second kick in the ass.

A stiff dose of reality.

Enrollment in the School of Hard Knocks.

Kicked out on our asses.

Some good old-fashioned back-breaking work with minimum compensation.

Another kick in the ass.

Still more aggression toward our asses.

... and, as always ...

Grow Up. Face Facts. Take some Personal Responsibility. Deal with Reality.

The Reality, the Facts to Face, come to this:

THERE MUST BE LOSERS FOR THERE TO BE "WINNERS".

No amount of punishment of the ass will fix that. But if you believe that it will, surf here to find your soul-mates.

--bkl
One problem. I like to kick back.
And as a result of my history, I now have one big-assed non-sexual ass fetish myself.

[dawn]

24. Hey! You aren't a loser.

No one is. It's just life. I think everyone has a different path in life. There isn't a track that you must follow.

That said, I feel for you with your job losses. There are too many people out there who have given so much of their lives to industries and companies that failed them.

[Dogmudgeon]

25. Well, it was a rant

And I wrote another rant to follow it, but what the heck, that's what the Recycle Bin is for.

My self-esteem is intact, but it's been a 27-month-long drag and sometimes it seems like it will never end. But I have a few opportunities for temp jobs starting soon, and my next career is going to be in something I enjoy and can be self-employed doing.

And I went easy with the rant here, too. Normally I'd just open up full-throttle on them :-)

--bkl

[mdmc]

37. thanks for sharing

peace

[Bertha Venation]

46. good rant

well said, bkl.

[REP]

27. Over-Coddled, Over-Protected, Bubble-Wrapped Childhoods

Too many children today are raised as though they will live on another planet. Nothing must challenge their self-esteem; nothing must be worked for lest a reward make someone else feel bad; failures are forbidden and responsibility is always someone else's. The real world is a too much of shock.

[JVS]

28. It's the economy.

[grasswire]

29. I know one

Age 27, very bright, exceptionally personable. Dropped out of high school, kicked around doing retail and cramming six Lost Boys to an apartment. Back with Mom for a couple of years, then to the group apartment thing again, then back with Dad for a couple of years doing a bit of college, then back to Mom for a couple of years, now living with a girlfriend for a year. Odds and ends of retail, a self-taught genius in computer animation. Making about $8,000 a year. Inherited $20,000 last year, spent it. Taking meds for panic attacks and anxiety.

Why is he stuck in the Lost Boy scenario?

An anthropologist might say it's because we have no "coming of age" rituals where boys become men.

A historian might say it's because we have nothing for young men to "conquer" anymore. No pioneering, no exploration, no homesteading.

A drug counselor might say some are lost in reefer madness and substance.

An observer might think video games allow escape into fantasy.

Some might fault absentee fathers.

It's a very interesting topic.

[SoCalDem]

30. Here's my take on it.. I actually gave birth to one

The short verse..

Safety net..

Even though we harrumphed and threatened, he always knew that we would not actually "throw him out on his ass"..

No one wants to hear from a casual acquaintance.."Hey, I saw your son digging thru a dumpster behind Dennys"..

At some point there will come an event that CAN make all the difference in the world.. For our son it was the fact that his girlfriend was moving to Seattle..and in short order.. I said.. "Call her Mom, ask if you can go too".. He did, she said yes, and I helped him pack his stuff..They left the nezt day.. That was 5 years ago..

Once he had moved too far from the safety net, he HAD to stand on his own, and he HAS.. He is no longer with the girlfriend, but he has a good job, a decent place to live, a decent income, a dog, and he's on his own..

I have no doubt that if he had stayed here, he would still be using the Mom & Dad revolving door, knowing that we would always take him in..

I think some kids today are just too reluctant to take that bold step.. They don't want to live in a crappy apartment with loser roommates.. They don't want to take the bus because they cannot afford a car.. They are afraid.. Some are not, but some are :)

Soemtimes the Mommy & Daddy bird just have to boot them out of the nest and hope theiy will find their wings.:)

[Oggy]

35. Not just in the US

Your post could just as easily apply to here in the UK. I suspect it is a Western Phenomenon. I to drifted for years, and at the age of 33 I have only just recently felt settled within myself, and that took my 9 week old daughter to achieve!

[izzie]

39. I believe it has always been with us. All of history.

Women have never had this freedom until our age. Now they drift also. They have always had to care for children so we do not see it as much. Is it the meaning of life thing?

[FunBobbyMucha]

40. I will be thoroughly rogered for this, Oggy,

but I too wonder (if I read the intent of your post properly) whether or not the delay towards parenthood over the last couple generations (my folks had me at around 23, I had my son at 36) is a bigger factor in LostBoyerism than we give it credit.

I don't wanna sound like a Johnson&Johnson commercial, but having a baby really does change everything. Things that were VITAL to my existence at 35 meant nothing to me just 12 scant months later.

I realize this opens up a whole argument (the one in fact that I used to delay parenthood for years) about what the point of our lives is if all we're gonna do is immediately procreate, and I have no easy answer to that. But I do know that, meeting my infant son at 36, I felt a huge sense of loss that I hadn't made him years earlier.

And not to be mean, but I really couldn't agree less with the above post about single mother family being a better option than two parents. I admire the good single moms who have do it, but I would have to be really drunk to swallow the notion that a constantly stressed, absent mother is a better emotional and social example than the marital politics of a present husband and wife. I certainly have no anecdotal examples in my life to support that notion. It breeds a contempt, I believe, best described by Tyler Durden: "We're a generation raised by women. I really don't think another woman is the solution."

[Oggy]

44. Biologically

My theory is, we are Biologically programmed to reproduce, and do so in tribal/family groups. A few hundred years ago we would not have so much time to "drift" although I will admit it would have happened, as survival would give us direction.

That however is away from the point. For me, and it sounds like the same for you, being a parent fills such a large emotional hole that I didn't even know was there, that suddenly there is clarity on where I am going and what I need to achieve.

The downside is I am more cynical, and negative about the state of the world than I have ever been, and I am so scared for my daughter in the world as it seems to be developing.

[FunBobbyMucha]

47. A Pepsi machine I walked past is no longer just a Pepsi machine

Now it is a large blunt object that could somehow fall over and crush my son. And the soda within will rot his teeth and make him fat and unhappy. And the corporate shilling neon glow of that ad on the front will make him crave style over substance, and I can go on and on about any object, person, or place, contemplating their inherent threat to my son's welfare.

Ogster, I was holding my baby boy on my lap when that plane slammed into the WTC. He'd never vomited, not once in a year and two months of life, and that morning he was throwing up, and nurse for 16 years or no, I was upset seeing my son sick (TS Garp feels depressed the first time he notices that his son developed morning breath--it's the first sign of death he's noticed in his eternal son's body). He was throwing up and I was catastrophically listing the diseases it might be, and that second plane collided, and suddenly I knew the world I'd brought my son into. It was like the house suddenly tilted about 15 degrees.

[Oggy]

51. Just remember

There are people like us all over the world. We can change things, not for us but for our kids. Style over substance will never win out as it isn't sustainable.

I must just say in the last year this is the most meaningful conversation I've had on DU, because I know that you know what I know!

Take it easy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

41. It's not just a Western phenomenon

It's become a big news topic in Japan, where they've coined the Japanese-English term "parasite single."

Singles in Japan, especially women, tended to live with their parents until marriage, and if they never married, they lived with their parents forever, but young men tended to go live in company housing or the homes of their employers. It was also expected that once they finished their formal schooling, they would settle down to a career.

The decade-long economic slump has made it hard for young men to get into the "lifetime employment system" that their fathers and grandfathers enjoyed, so there is now a new job category in Japan: the "freeters," people who have no traditional occupation but just drift from one temp job to another. (The closest translation would be "slacker," but unlike "slacker," "freeter" has no joking connotations.)

The lack of good jobs for young men and the concurrent falling away of the idea that a women should be married by age 25 have meant that young women are working and staying single longer than in the past. Of course, if they are working fulltime and living with their parents (who don't charge them room and board or ask for help with chores, for the most part) as is the custom, they have a lot of money to play with. (In the past, they would have been saving up for an elaborate wedding.) They buy designer clothes, frequent fancy clubs and restaurants, and travel, while Mom prepares the meals, cleans their rooms, and does their laundry.

While the Japanese economy takes some of the blame for this situation, the hovering, overly accommodating Japanese mother is also at fault. (I have often felt like telling Japanese mothers, "Give your kid some space and don't be such a doormat.")

While I had many disputes with my mother when I was younger, she was quite emphatic about telling us that once we were out of school, we would be expected to live on our own, unless a real emergency came up, and then it would be temporary.

All three of us did come back at one point or another, but by the same token, since we were accustomed to being on our own, we found the experience of living with our elders to be confinding and annoying, so we got out as soon as we could.

[SoCalDem]

42. Accelerated cost of living has affected lots of "twentysomethings"

When I turned 20, I married (husband was 26), and we moved hundreds of miles from our families.. It was tough, and we were broke, but we managed.. I can still remember wondering how on earth we were going to afford $175.00 a month rent..:)

Actual earning power has leveled off and actually regressed in some cases during the last 30 years, so lots of kids who graduate now, cannot easily afford to live on their own.. If they cannot find a "good job", they are often faced with net paychecks of a couple of hundred a week.. Rents around here, go from $700 (for a studio) and up..

If they have a car payment, they are SCREWED.. Rent, car payment, and car insurance eats up all their money.. It's no wonder they want to stay at home..:(.. I think they actually have good intentions, and want to save money to move out, but the numbers are staggering, and they just regress..

To get your first apartment around here, one must come up with hundreds in deposits, and at least $1500.00 just to rent an apartment.. You must pass a credit check, and landlords often turn down young people..

It WAS easier in my day, but I think we were more willing to strike out on our own and were more willing to have roommates.. The young kids I know of, want their own place, or they want one with their girlfriend/boyfriend...

I can understand the landlord's point of view too, but there doesn;t seem to even be any cheap places left, where young kids can start out..

[Bertha Venation]

48. wonder how much of a "lost boys" phenomenon, if that's what it is,

is attributable to emotionally off-balance kids? As I've read this thread, and as I've watched my nephew grow up, I've wondered, where does he fit in? He's just turned 19. He graduated HS w/ 4.2 GPA and honors in Spanish. His parents (read: his mother) gave him a choice if he wanted to continue living at home: get a job or go to college. So he enrolled in JC.

But as for that "if he wanted to continue living at home:" my nephew is different. Realistically, he could not make it on his own yet. Based on her reading, my sister has given him diagnoses of ADHD and Aspberger's, and she also thinks he's high-functioning autistic. :shrug: No, she's not an MD/psychiatrist or a psychologist. She's a mother who is too bloody close to her son's problems to be objective. I don't know why he's never rec'd standard testing or treatment for any of these things, but it's moot for the topic at hand: he couldn't support himself.

Chris possesses a bright intellect and he's a walking encyclopedia. His life revolves around video games and television. He's pent-up with extreme anger and is socially and emotionally very immature.

I wonder every day what his future holds. Sometimes I wish I were his mother so I could make the decisions, but I couldn't do any better than my sister has done.

[haele]

52. Several issues that I can see...

The major one seems to be in terms of what opportunities are out there - 40 years ago, there was a lot of mobility and some value given to general low skilled labor; living one's life as a gas station attendant, a salesman, a secretary/receptionist or a general handy-person was considered a valuable asset to the company and one could support a halfway decent lifestyle and/or family on these jobs. These jobs also could lead up the ladder, as it were, to more responsibility and respect so long as an effort was put into the work.
Nowdays, these are considered second or third jobs that are of little value at best. (I mentally see CEO's and shareholders complaining "- ah jeez, do we have to have customer service? Can't the customers just throw money at us without us having to provide anything?")

The cultural issue of the aimless adult is linked to a similar; if there is no value perceived in the work, then there is no value in the worker - and there is no reason to acknowledge or invest in the worker beyond that which is necessary to get the work done.
Since western society tends to be hierarchal, there are only so many "profitable" upper management jobs out there and increasingly, the chances are stacked against someone succeeding when they are forced to start out as a low level worker.
Even if someone starting out at the bottom (as it were) is lucky enough to have the means and/or opportunity to strike out on his or her own, hard work and "planning" will not insure that there will be success - especially if they come up against competition that has more money or more "networking opportunities" than they have.

This leads to another issue - constant competition and conflict. American culture, with it's stereotypical promotion of "freedom of the individual to succeed or fail on their own" does not promote a feeling of community or the individual as dedicated part of the group with a specific valued role - rather, it promotes a culture of escape. Up to the end of WWII and the beginning of the urban/technology boom, there was always a frontier to escape to, to start over at when the competition or conflict over resources would become too much for an individual to handle. In that frontier, an individual's skills and work would automatically increase in value as there is not as much fragmentation of available resources to survive; the individual is "on his/her own" and has more control over the amount of effort required to survive.
Unfortunately, there isn't any frontier left. Sons and daughters can't just "do what needs to be done" and be able to make a living; they're forced to compete against brothers and sisters, suck up to soulless, elitist "superiors", and otherwise conform to a hierarchy they have no choice but to acknowledge if they want the opportunity to use their potential.
Without the tools and the understanding to either accept the increasingly constricted world, the average member of the "American Culture" is faced with the choice of going neurotic trying to adapt to the modern business culture or giving up on society and drifting on the fringes.

There are also factors with individual mental instability, materialism and parental "coddling" but not to the extent that most of the "blame the victim" crowd likes to promote. Most of the time, the victim isn't even aware that they are lacking the tools and the opportunities to live life the way they are told is acceptable.

Haele

[DrWeird]

53. No jobs.

The kids aren't any different today than the were fifty years ago. But fifty years ago you could land a job at a factory, learn skills, make enough money to buy a house and raise a family. Today if you want to do that you need a college degree, and many people aren't cut out for college degrees, and even with said degree it's very hard to get a job. I looked for a year and ended up having to go back to grad school.

Look in the classifieds. The only jobs listed consist of selling knives, stuffing envelopes, and convalescent care workers with ten to twenty years of experience.