My stepson is bone idle

[stargazer2030]

As the title says I think he is bone idle yet he thinks Iabu. He is 20 in November & just finished his 1st year at uni. He has no career plan, has totally changed most of his course to the easiest options he could.
He goes in another city and we are not wealthy by any means (not poverty stricken either but have 4 kids). He gets an accommodation loan and we give him £40 per week plus pay phone, contact lenses n other bits n bobs that adds up to about £200 a month
We discussed the fact that he would most likely have to get a pt job as we really struggle with that. He only does 16 hours z week at uni n is in Manchester so could have got something but hasn't!
He is back home for the summer and got the odd days cash in hand work here n there - nothing he can put on a cv or get a reference from.
He is the eldest and very bright so really wanted to give him the chance to go to uni but I feel he is taking the piss. He has got a 2/2 at the end of the 1st year which if he continues, coupled with no work experience is just a total waste of 3 years.
He has already said he doesn't want to be a grease monkey (like his qualified tradesman Dad ) or sit behind a desk (me)!
He just infuriates me (and dh too). Told him that we will feed n house him over the summer but if he wants a social life he needs a job.
Apparently I am a total bitch! Although dh gets really annoyed with him he gives in and gives him spending money or he taps his Nan! All his friends here are loaded according to him ( they all work) and all his friends at uni get their rent paid by their parents and live of their loan.
AIBU? Its not a step parenting issue as brought him up for over 10 years and would feel like this if he was mine. He grinds me down do be honest - how have we raised someone who is so lazy and got zero get up and go with no work ethic !

Your DH is doing him no favours allowing him to live in this way,
16 hours a week !!!!!! at uni, I find it hard to believe that he is studying the rest of the time as a previous poster suggested .
He looks down his nose at the way your DH and you earn the money , but is more than willing to take it!
It won't be pretty , but your husband has to stop enabling his son to live like this.

YANBU.
Is he likely to quit uni?
Student loans only fund for 4 years so perhaps he should stop whilst he can and go back when he's more motivated? Otherwise if he gives up halfway or does a halfhearted dissertation it will be a waste.

Doesn't he have any interest in anything? Pretty much anything has employability if you look widely.

I've not read the whole thread, but anyone saying a 2:2 is good enough needs a reality check, not for any decent jobs these days it isn't. I'm sorry, but it's not.

I'm sure there will be plenty of anecdotal evidence eg 'my DD got a 2:2 and is now an investment banker' etc etc, and I'm not disputing sometimes it happens, but it will be the exception rather than the rule.

Anyone bright enough to get into uni should be getting 2:1 or above really.

All useful comments - helps to see other perspectives. Have 2 other teenagers (dsd and dd), both girls who are completely different. Am from a family of girls, all wanted money from an early age so all worked.
We haven't just arrived at this place either. Lots of incidents building up over last year or so. To give some brief background - he didn't do anything from May until September last year (after finishing college) and didn't help around the house which caused issues. Seemed to spend 4 months laying horizontal. My sis, whose job involves getting young people into work, training etc offered loads of help with job search, cv etc. We living in a big city, tons of retail, bar, part time casual work available although agree you still have to work hard to get somethingsomething.

When he is at home all we ask is he takes the dog's out (to save dh coming home at dinner) and just straightens round (pots in dishwasher, kitchen sides wiped etc). Rarely did this. Loads of times I have come home from work at 3 and he has been up, eaten, left pots and mess and gone straight back to bed - dogs not walked.
At the moment he staying at his Nans while she is here (through illness) so dh is just giving him money for food although he is coming up and getting money off his Nan (she let it slip the other day) which is where I think his socialising money comes from.

Think the final straw is - my sister has got our dsd (16 year old school leaver) a part time job working match days at the local football ground. She was all for it as she wanted the money but he has completely put her off and she doesn't want to do it now. He worked there briefly and hated it so has told her its really hard work, badly organised and she will hate it (know several people whose kids work there and love it). Am really angry with him!

Dh feels the same - he tends to let it slide for a bit and then has a massive blow out whereas I let it wind me up more.

The sneering at our jobs is annoying but probably just a way to insult us. Dh is an electrician and most of our friends seem to be in and around building trade, several with very well establish and lucrative businesses - hardly grease monkeys (whatever that actually means).
Need to stop comparing him to other people. Am going to back off and let him find his own way.

There's nothing wrong with a 2:2. No-one ever asks what degree you got - not even what subject for some jobs, just "graduate"

Unfortunately, that is just complet bollocks.

He's a lazy fucker.

On working during term time - it is quite hard for most courses during the week. I probably only had 16h or less of contact time, but with a 10am lecture and then a 3pm lecture on Monday, 9am, 1pm and 6pm Tuesday etc it's hard to find a job where you can pop in for the odd hour!

Plus I actually did do loads of time in the library for my essays or doing group work and stuff. Got a first too

Holiday job is another matter though, I had three months off in the summer so that was plenty of time to work, although it can be tricky getting a holiday job unless you have an 'in' somewhere as everyone is after the same thing!

YANBU - employers expect to see work experience, or at the very least involvement in clubs and societies. Unless he pulls his finger out, he's going to finish with an OK degree that doesn't set him apart and no work experience that marks him down against the other hundreds of graduate candidates that he's competing against.

If it's not sorted now, by getting him off his arse and doing something, he'll be back in your house once he's finished his degree carrying on doing fuck all with you and your DH supporting him as that what he expects.

It's not that uncommon, unfortunately. The difference here is that you're recognising it's a problem, when some parents see it as just normal behaviour but then are shocked when their kids don't get very far after uni.

He needs to understand that even grease monkeys and office workers got there by working hard and no one does anything by lying in bed. Unless he wants to be scraping around for any job he can find he still has chance to turn it around in the next 2 years at uni. This is only going to happen if your DH and his Nan stop lining his pockets for doing cock all.

Just to clarify - neither myself or dh are uneducated! Just didn't go to uni. Both have reasonably well paid, decent jobs we enjoy.

4 months lying horizontal rings alarm bells to me. Does he have friends? Social life? How many hours a day is he sleeping?

Depression is high risk for this age group. They have a huge weight on them to succeed and get the 2:1 or be a 'failure'.

In my town (a two uni town) it's sadly not uncommon for students to take their lives. It's nearly always young men in the early uni years.

I do hope your dss is JUST lazy, op and that he'll mature his way out of it. But bear in mind, laziness can be a symptom of a mental health problem.

He looks down his nose at the way your DH and you earn the money , but is more than willing to take it!
^this!

I certainly don't agree with some on here especially Dora's post back at the beginning. He sounds like a bone idle lazy so and so (sorry stargazer). He's had his first year and backing off didn't work.

If he says he has a lot of free time and not many lectures, he has! There is no reason why he can't get a job - if he wants to do well, tell him that when he goes for a graduate trainee scheme or any worthwhile job after Uni, he will get absolutely nowhere if he can't answer the competency questions that lead back to work experience. (Tell me about a time you had to take a decision that was unpopular at work. Tell me about a time you had to work against a deadline. Tell me about a time you made a decision on some work you were doing that was the right decision even though it was different. Tell me about your role working within a team. And on and on) All those sort of questios can be applied to any sort of job. One of my DCs worked in McDonalds and moved up from behind the scenes to on the till. Then she worked front of house at a hugely busy town restaurant (right through her degree) so she could apply those questions to her experience. At this point, she only worked one busy weekend shift, good money, manageable alongside her studies.

My DCs worked before Uni, during Uni and then they had the tools to actually go forward and get good jobs (it helped that I couldn't/wouldn't fund them). Yes Uni does count but degrees are two a penny. A prospective employee might look at the degree and what he did there but they will really home in on what he has done with his life to show leadership qualities, work ethic, potential etc.

Just google what do employees want from a graduate and it is always work experience. They don't waste their time with someone who hasn't proved themselves at 21 in some sort of role somewhere.

OP get your son to start looking at this. If he doesn't want to be a grease monkey (how bloody rude) let him look at what he can be then. The process for getting any of these jobs will be hard. There are often 5 stages to an interview process spanning weeks. He won't get past the first stage if he doesn't start working towards something by doing something with his life that doesn't involve dossing around!

?
We can all choose to be lazy if that's how we like to roll, but you reap what you sow...unless you can persuade some other suckers to let you free ride on their hard work ?

I rather suspect this thread has been manufactured according to the time honoured tradition of taking some very easily perceived injustice, such as sponging off despised parents, and loading it up onto mumsnet, whereby public indignation naturally follows. I find it very difficult to believe that such outrageous qualities all exist in the same human being, some of them, yes, in each and every one of us. But, unlikely to be all of them at the same time!

And, even if they did exist in some miraculous monster of a step child, what's to be done about it, other than fill a whole thread with self righteous indignation?

Haven't read all the posts but he sounds normal enough. My ds 20 just finished first year this June. Got a 2/2 but to be honest l was delighted as most of his friends failed one subject or another. In lreland first year doesn't count towards degree. It's his first time away from home so getting through exams and not going totally cracked can be an achievement for some lads. I hope you didn't criticise his results as that can be demoralising a.nd make him determined not to cooperate with your expectations. Cut him some slack. Leave off all discussion for now and enjoy having him around. Remember if you persist he will resist. So leave it. Step back. I find with my ds that it's kindness that works. He is yere first. I can guarantee you that by the time you go down the line you will have learnt just to step back and they will be the better for it. Same advice step parent or not. Chill and enjoy the summer. If you don't worry he will have to. If he says what will l do just in one sentence say lm sure you'll work it out and NO MORE. He will be soon gone. Enjoy him now.

Good grief! People are making such excuses for this (grown up) man! During the summer he has zero reason to not pull his weight while his parents are at work - if not working then doing housework, gardening, decorating all the things I did when at home during the summers at uni, on top of the full time placement work I was doing. If he is struggling with studies it could be quite unlikely that he'd admit that now. If he's bored, he's not doing enough studying - sounds like he's actually quite capable just not motivated to do some work outside the lecture hall.

Hmm. I would be livid about the talking his sister out of getting a job! What degree did he choose? It doesn't sound like he's very interested in it. Has he ever expressed great enthusiasm for something? What hobbies has he had in the past? How hard did he work for his A-levels?

Hi random question (and not really related to the question, sorry op) but for those of you saying you need work experience, does unpaid/voluntary count? I've volunteered during sixth form, I'm in my second year of uni now and my timetable can be erratic (in uni 2-5 for eg), meaning that it's been easier to get voluntary placements as they are more understanding/accommodating in regard to hours you can do. I volunteered at a nursery 2 days a week, 9-5 in first year for 6 months and have been volunteering in a women's refuge 2 days a week 9-5 in second year for around 5 months. Spending 4 days a week volunteering at a refuge over the summer break, and I could answer the work experience questions easily with volunteering experience. However, do employers count voluntary experience or would paid work be better? I'm planning on volunteering at the refuge in uni town from September, but would employers view paid work more?

My uni contact time was 16 hours per week too. I also worked 30 hpw during term time and full time during holidays as a purchase ledger clerk. I worked very hard in my degree and got good marks for my essays. So it is possible to combine study and work.

Though I was aged 22-25 when I did my degree so whilst I was still living at home couldn't have not worked because I was used to earning money. Further, my job was the one I had before I went to uni and they were prepared to be flexible for me to work around my lectures so I was very lucky.

hstar oh yes, unpaid or voluntary counts I think. One of my DCs went off on an unpaid voluntary thing abroad for 3 months and what she gained from that really helped to draw on when she needed to. It doesn't have to be paid work. She did say that not answering every competency question with the same experience in the same job (even thought it was voluntary) helped. But she had worked in a pub too so could draw on that. Really really doesn't have to be paid. It's just showing get up and go isn't it.

hstar I don't think employers would care if work were paid or unpaid. It's the commitment they want to see.

That said, I would not get hung up about term time work of any sort. Both Oxbridge and Cambridge pretty much ban it. And lots of science degrees are so contact time heavy, work isn't doable during term time.

Graduates of such courses don't struggle for work in comparison to their peers who have worked during term time.

hstar

Voluntary work counts.

Employers want to see that you're not just some little trust funded special snowflake. Anything that involves getting your hands dirty, turning up on time and dealing with the realities of the workplace, funded or not, is absolutely fine. A paid job, no matter how menial, shows you the candidate isn't in possession of a raging ego, can turn up on time, work hard, get on with others and function in the workplace. If you can work related to your degree, even better.

Sounds basic, but you'd be amazed and dispirited at how many graduates cannot do this I have interviewed graduates who can barely spell, or comport themselves in interviews.

Thank you roussette just wondering. I do agree that he should be able to do something - if not during term time then definitely over the holidays. I'd be bored if I wasn't doing anything all summer - most of my friends work so I'd just be stuck in the house all day anyway

I can imagine being annoyed if he was my son. However a shock to the system may turn him around...

A good friend of mine was a lazy sod at uni. Did law (8hours a week) but did a lot of boozing and dope. He failed 2nd year and was only just allowed to complete 3rd year (not law) and graduated with a 2:2. He is now a household name in retail, and by far and away the most successful of any of my school friends.

Fingers crossed, but tough love may be required.

hstar you sound like you've got it totally right. If you can't fit in paid work because of random lectures etc, you are going for voluntary work and that's perfect. As skipton says, it's all about being able to get on with others and being prepared to have a go, try something, commit to a regular start time and TBH if I was an employer I wouldn't look at anyone who couldnt prove all of that.

An acquaintance of mine has a DS3 who wants to go in at the top, he won't even contemplate anything menial or beneath him, he comes across very poncey and full of himself and thinks his belief in himself should be enough. He has never worked except for a paper round that lasted about a week! He wants to be a hedge fund trader, he wouldn't consider an internship - far too demeaning. So he has a degree from a mediocre Uni, he is 23 (lots of gap years!), he's never done any sort of work experience or job and he wants to walk into the London Stock Exchange on £200K plus bonus a year, this should be interesting!