to be getting irate at friends with adult DC who do not work?

[goldenteapot]

My DC are in their mid-late 20s and all in work - but are the exception among family and friends. They have around 12 cousins - none of whom have ever worked in so much as a local pub or shop, and all live in their parents' naice houses gaming all day. Lots have one or two degrees, so are not stupid by any means! I think statistically about 50% of young adults of this age that are not working - but among my family and friends it's very much higher.

It's a similar story with friends: every adult child is depressed or anxious and/or autistic so cannot work. The assumption seems to be that the jobs market is too difficult and their children can't cope. Conversation when we meet is all about how frustrated everyone is because they can't get their DC to work or do anything around the house.

I just want to shake them all! They are providing no tough love or reasons that these children will ever work and live independently.

AIBU to be losing my patience with everyone, or am I a bit of a bitch and working life really is too tough these days for young people?

The thing that makes me think YANBU is that these are bright kids/adults that have succeeded academically but yet they aren't even pitching in around the house.

I have an adult child with complex disabilities who never achieved academically but yet even he pitches in around the house and always has done as I've raised him to!

If these young people have been raised to not even contribute and pitch in with their own home family unit then it's not surprising that they're not fussed about working, or contributing to their parents bills and wider society with a job or volunteer work.

I think I'd find this maddening too. My eldest will likely never work due to his conditions but he has a sense of care and responsibility and sees his contribution of pitching in around the house as a bare minimum that he doesn't even question.

I completely agree with this. I couldn't wait to leave home. As soon as I got my first job at 18 I moved into a rented house with two friends. That was in the mid-80s though, when 3 x 18 year olds were able to afford rent and bills and a bit of social life on very low salaries.
I'm doing all I can to encourage my 16yo to get a part time job - any job - while he's doing his A levels because the experience is just priceless. I want him to grow up understanding that the default position is being in work.

I employ a reasonable number of graduates within my wider team. The ones I employ are bright, smart, hard working, creative and a real asset to our business. We always have one or two who do not fit well- think they are fabulous and should be running the world, do not communicate well etc, but I have not noticed an increase in recent times. If anything today's generation is more focused than the previous one (and a surprising number do not drink). Graduate unemployment I am aware is quite high and I can see this through the number of applicants but I think UABU on general performance.

I agree. I think the rise in influencers etc. has not helped in the slightest when it comes to that generation. Fewer and fewer young people seem prepared to take any job going these days whereas back in my generation (and I’m a millennial so only the generation above) we all started off in pretty shit jobs when we left uni (I graduated smack bang into the recession job market!) I worked in retail and hospitality for years while studying and building up my CV - it was just par for the course for us. It seems to not be good enough now.

Having shitty jobs, living in shitty flat shares etc. are a rite of passage as far as I’m concerned - they teach you so many skills and put the fire under you to want more and be more. Being provided with rent-free accommodation plus food, entertainment, car etc. makes for very lazy adults.

I wonder if the parents have modelled working hard? I think kids take in what they see.

Their parents need to tell them to get a job, any job, or sling their hook.

My son's A level teacher said that A levels were a full time job so they shouldn't be working at weekends really 🙄. I told me son in no uncertain terms ' A levels will not teach you work/life skills, you need to learn to work, show up on time, be told what to do, manage crappy customers, clean up mushed up peas in the carpet, deal with tricky colleagues- A levels cannot & will not teach you that'. His pub job from the age of 16 absolutely helped him secure his current apprenticeship, working is very, very important. Glad you son is doing well.

Plenty of people with depression or other mental health issues have held down a job for years, including me.

I think it's fair to say that yes, all the parents have modelled working really hard. But it clearly wasn't enough. And now the parents will have to work longer to keep their DC at home as well!

Many more adults work from home

This can’t help either

Not just the get up early for a commute when it’s cold and wet but fewer experienced seniors in the workplace to help guide the newbies.

So wanting to work from home and complaining there are no opportunities for youngsters is a tad hypocritical.

Having shitty jobs, living in shitty flat shares etc. are a rite of passage as far as I’m concerned - they teach you so many skills and put the fire under you to want more and be more.

I completely agree with this. But to play devil's advocate, it was much easier to do those things a generation or so ago. I left uni in 1995, didn't manage to find a "proper job" for about 6 months so got a pub job. Literally just walked in and asked and started the next day. Paid enough to rent a room in a shared house and cover bills. No student debt. Then got my first proper job. Salary £10k. Needed to drive to get there, was able to buy and run a cheap car. After a couple of years I bought a 2 bed flat for 45k (in the south east). I was quite hard up but it was all possible. Most young folk haven't got a hope in hell of managing those things these days.

Do you think no one is working on that? Do you want to offer yourself up as a Parenting Tsar holding our generation to account, on the basis of your success? Rather than getting irate, look into the practicalities of what you're suggesting and see what you could actually constructively do to achieve that. Pretty sure it'll be a hell of a lot harder than you're making it sound and already going on from grassroots work in education, charities, health etc to government think tanks etc. Plus plenty of threads on here and idle chatter which is what this will amount to ultimately. Maybe you could write to the Daily Mail - or even the Express.

Parents make home life too comfortable, often letting their kids have partners stay over. This wasn't tolerated by earlier generations and guess what, the kids were keen to leave the nest. Sex was factor.

Someone mentioned bus drivers - bus and truck drivers are in demand in the UK, so if you cannot find a job, in my opinion that is absolutely worth thinking about - even as a stop gap while you are looking for graduate jobs. I think training is paid for, the job is reasonably paid, shift work and part-time work is available, and you get a qualification you can fall back on again later if you need to. What's not to like?

This approach is largely why your DC are in work. My parents, Dad especially, made it clear he would not house or fund us after tertiary education and so we knew we had to stand on our own two feet and earn. We both got Saturday and after school jobs and I've never not worked. DSis went through a freeloading attempt when her first marriage went wrong but Dad wouldn't give her any money at all as he knew she would never leave home if he did. There were some mighty rows at the time but she soon picked up some work.

I'm grateful for my Dad and his 'Victorian' ways. My bestie at school had a Dad with the exact same views. We were both adults way earlier than a lot of our peers.

It’s not high brow enough for some parents!

Agree with this. Before, schools were harder, and you knew more on leaving school. You didn't need uni. Now uni's need to dumb down more and more I've seen it with extra foundation lectures for the 1st years. It's like the desire to get everyone on the same level has just resulted in everyone slowing down - that's a lot of years wasted for most people. What we should concede is that not everyone is academic, and there's nothing wrong with that, there should be more non-academic routes into employment. Not to mention kids coming out of uni have no idea what it takes to make a good worker... and think some abstract maths will help, whereas what is really needed is a will to learn the job.

Surely it's more high brow that being sat at home gaming all night and sleeping all day? Some parents need to get over themselves and stop with all the snobbery. A job is a job.

I think it’s fine and important to talk about what is happening to the young people in our society. When it comes to scoring points over your friends and family, whose kids are not doing as amazingly as yours, that makes me cringe.

Bringing up kids is full of ups and downs. Mine are young adults and I’ve have had good times and bad times with them. The danger is, if you take credit for all their successes, then you have to take the blame for their failures. I think it is a mistake to attribute everything good to parenting. So much is involved in growing up to be a young adult these days. Parenting is just one (important) part of it.

Lol talk about self-important.

What are you going to do?

Education Secretary or the new Supernanny?

I personally don't think other peoples lives are your business unless it impacts you directly.

I don't understand that mindset, @frozendaisy - I think all jobs have value. After all, if no-one can get to work, because there are no bus drivers, the MDs and CEOs are not going to be able to keep their companies running on their own. I think that, as a society, we need to value all workers (including those doing unpaid work, such as caring/childcare and voluntary jobs).

OP, there are currently 1.88 million people unemployed in the UK and there are 726 thousand job vacancies and the situation is probably at the worst it has ever been.

It was easier in some ways, for sure. But the attitude to muck in and do anything I think has changed. Perhaps from parents? My parents had a strict rule of full time education or job or they are out rule. No way would they have tolerated any of us staying at home gaming and we went through a huge recession where jobs were lost and unemployment high. One of my brothers lost his job and left the house every day, pretending to go to work for months!

Also, necessity should be the mother of inventions. Like sharing. 2 of my brothers bought a flat together because neither of them could afford on their own. Some people are doing that with friends now, it's a way to get onto the property ladder. It seems though that for too many it's easier to give up, give into the anxiety and stay at home, while not being very happy.

It does impact us all directly if the younger gen don't want to work.