If you look closely at history, you can see an economic cycle (someone can probably explain this in better terms than I): Bad times, revolution, good times, and (I don’t know how else to describe it) entitlement. Bad times produce a hard working, strong mentality, then there’s a revolution, then good times, then that over time, produces an entitlement mentality. Then the cycle repeats, as no one is doing anything to support the economy because of entitlement from good times.
Millennials are most often the children of Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers grew up on the good economy in the post-WWII 50’s. This is the “good times” phase. They grew up with parents (Silent generation) who were children during the great depression. As a result, they were taught to hold on to every dollar. But they also adapted to a profitable economy. (They elected Jimmy Carter) So they (the Boomers) likely did not teach their children these same habits.
On the tail end of the BB genration, and into the Gen. X and Millennial generations, we can see a shift from “good times” to “entitlement.” Soon the pendelum will swing into “bad times,” and
Moral of the story: if you grew up not appreciating hard-earned money, then chances are, you won’t value the money you make as an adult. You have to teach it to yourself. Millennials grew up with this, and with the Internet, they can see the propoganda from their friends in socialist nations, which only exacerbates the issue.
I mean, I’m still struggling learning to manage money (being a Millennial myself) even though my dad, who has a BBA and knows all the ins and outs of finances, had been ingraining it in my brain from the day I received my first birthday check, said to save 75% and spend 25%.
Although I wasn’t able to work during highschool and 1st two years of college to save for university and graduate school, I am working on getting scholarships, so as to help my parents in that way. Any legal means of getting money, I’m going to at least look at. Sure, it’s nice to have a little bit of help, but they should gradually be working towards independence. Just like any helper and helpee roles, they need to do their job so the people helping them can help them. Got to help yourself before you receive help from others.
To be clear, if my children were lying around the basement expecting me to provide for them as adults, they would be out of luck. They have outstanding work ethics and should they ever need my help, they are welcome to it. They are both in school, so I help them out financially, but both of them work in addition to going to school and contribute to their tuition and living expenses, I pick up the slack.
But this discussion reminds of some friends of mine, who insisted their kids make their own way through school even though they were more than able to contribute to their childrens education and living expenses. Now they have a son who dropped out of college, hooked up with a woman with three kids and are paying his rent while he works dead end jobs in restaurants. They are going to end up paying far more to support him and his family then they would have spent in tuition and room and board to get him through college as a result. Sure they could cut him off and watch his kids suffer, but they won’t. Penny wise, pound foolish.
One thing’s for certain, I’ll be encouraging my children to join the Air Force for a tour or two so they can get a leg up in the civilian work force and supplement college expenses.
The problem we face today is the left is making out acceptable (living wage, healthcare) to work a scut entry level job so people do not have to aspire to more.
From my experience as being a business owner this new generation expects to come out of college and land that dream job earning top wages. When they leave college with that degree in hand they are expecting great things to happen. It’s when they come in for that interview that life hits them dead on in the face.
Maybe society was not clear enough when it started pushing college degrees? A lot of these folks had some very high expectations and were let down. They borrowed thousands of $ for their degree just to discover that dream job they had expected is is just that, a dream.
Anyone with a degree that graduated under 10% of their class is in for a rude awakening when going out there looking for that dream job. When the economy was tight companies that were hiring we’re only hiring the top percent. Everyone else was left rummaging through the leftovers. It’s always been that way it’s just now it has gotten worse.
A lot of kids have their college degree but their degree is just about worthless in the job market. A degree in English Literature and Language or Philosophy and Religious Studies are as worthless as tits on a boar hog.
I have college grads come in for interviews that have their degree in electrical engineering that can’t pass a basic electrican’s test. WTF, what did they do while in college and better yet how in the hell did they ever graduate?
Kids don’t seem to understand that on the job experience, adaptability and ability to problem solve means more in the real world than a degree.
A degree gets you in the door. That is it. There forward, you gotta learn to sink or swim. Learning to swim takes years. In the meantime, it is the mentors that are dragging your ass back up to the surface… but if and only if they see you as a swimmer.
You left off one of the biggest factors which is “consumerism”. We don’t produce goods anymore, we just produce people who consume them.
Worse we are driven to always provide ourselves and especially our kids with the newest, coolest, fastest and trendiest whatever is on the market.
I remember mostly getting clothes as birthday and Christmas presents and usually we’d each recieve something we needed as well like a bike, a saddle, or tools as well.
Our parents like their parents put away at least some money for each of us growing up so we’d have a college fund to help pay for our educations as well.
I grew up in a upper middle class family. After my father left the Air Force he went to work for GE overseeing Air Force contracts. My mother worked for an insurance company. Both had the bad experience of living through the great depression.
We never hurt for money but to see how we lived one would think we were barely getting by as compared to today’s living standards. We rarely ate out, mom always had dinner prepared. Mom still would mend socks and pants. If we had ice cream at home it meant a birthday or a holiday. If mom came home with snacks and pop it meant my parents were having company over.
We never had cell phones, internet, so such thing as video games or PC’s. Hell, we never even had AC in our home until I was 16. I never even knew anyone that had a color TV, but we did receive 4 channels. Christmas we got gifts but it wasn’t like it is today, we never had them piled up midway on the tree. We got items we needed and a toy or two.
We played outside made up games played baseball, etc. None of this crap of laying around inside screwing off. In the summer if I wanted a cold pop I would take off walking to the store picking up pop bottles. By the time I got there I always had enough bottles to cash in to buy a bottle of pop.
My point is, today’s generation is spoiled. They have way too much.
Every generation has more than the previous generation.
Th difficult part as a parent is how to dal with the reality that times have changed.
My daughter attended HS not too many years ago. She whined about being the only kid without a cellphone. In her junior year we gave her a cell phone, a month to month cll that required recharging each month. No internet, just text and talk.
She wanted a smart phone. The deal, grades are everything. Her last semester as a junior she had a 4.0 for all hr classes. That summer we gave her a smart phone 4s and the deal was maintain your grades or the phone is gone. She aced her senior year locking in a merit based scholarship.
She wanted a car in her junior year, the same rules applied. Sh had a car as a senior. She graduated with highest honors 2 years ago and is in grad school.
It’s not that she has too much but what it takes to maintaining it.
My parents would not buy me a car. I had to earn the money. By the time I was 10 I was cutting grass and doing odd jobs for just about every neighbor in the neighborhood. I pumped gas at the local gas station my Uncle owned on the weekends.
When I turned 16 my father took me to the Plymouth dealer and I bought a brand new Plymouth Cuda and paid cash. Back then the car cost a whopping $3,400 my dad talked them down to $3,100.
My two sons also bought their first car on their own. They know the value of a dollar as I did and still do.
Yeah… when my daughter graduated, she got a new car. Got her another one after that too.
When you guys are talking about people who do their child a disservice by giving them too much, feel free to use my name as an example. No excuses other than my parents always gave me whatever they could. I’ll pay for my poor financial management skill when I retire later this year but quite honestly my other Father has always provided for me too.
I have been blessed in life to not worry about the financial issues many factors. Excellent opportunities to save plus investment skills. W should have few worries when we reach retirement and the daughter if careful will be fine with what’s left when we pass.
Is she spoiled, probably but in a different way as she has what she needs not necessarily what she wants.
I have to think one the biggest factors causing this generation problems is they think they need it now. And a lot of them never learned the difference between want and need.
“This TV costs 400 dollars (1996 money). If you have a credit card with a 10,000 dollar limit, would you buy this TV?”
Yes, Grandma! I would!
“Now, if you don’t have a credit card, but you have 400 dollars cash in your pocket right now, will you spend every last cent you have on this TV?”
No, Grandma! Then I’d be broke!
“Then why would you get the TV in the first place? Stick with what you need, and forget about what you want, because you’ll always get bored with a want, but never a need.”
Of all the lessons a 15 year old boy could ignore, this is one that instantly stuck. I would be blessed to be half as wise as her some day.
