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?

I don’t have enough money to enable my children to sit around doing fuck all because they feel ‘anxious’ I can’t work any more hours than I do and I would be the one feeling anxious if I became homeless when I had ADULTS living at home who refused to contribute.
I realise it’s very hard to get a job even with qualifications but playing Xbox until 3am, eating junk food and spending 10 hours a day on snap chat without ever going outside is the reason that so many young people have mental health problems.
I worked for a big company for years. We had teenagers with no additional needs who were useless at work and had no life skills, most of them would only work 1 day a week as they got ‘tired’.
Yes, maybe I am old and crabby but this next generation aren’t resilient at all. They won’t be able to cope with anything life throws at them.

No doubt I will be torn to pieces on here for my opinion but oh well 🤷🏽‍♀️

The statistics in the OP are not accurate.

I have 2 children , both of whom had jobs in their teenage years pot washing at a local pub. My youngest has now been diagnosed with depression and doesn’t leave their room (they are in their year at uni and isn’t currently attending lectures)A lot of me really wants to push them and tell them they need to just get on with it but I really don’t see how that is going to help then. And I really can’t see how they are going to get a job when they leaves uni (possibly without even a degree seeing as they aren’t engaging with tutors or lecturers at the moment). This is the hardest time of being a parent that I have ever had and the stress I feel is like nothing I’ve felt before. Reading the OP and her views just makes me want to cry as I don’t know what I can do and makes me feel like a shit parent. I don’t feel I have enabled my children and I have encouraged a work ethic both by example and ensuring they have had jobs. So what have I done wrong??

Couldn't agree more. Well said.

My daughter worked at McDonalds at the weekends as soon as she turned 16. She took a short break while revising for her ALevels then worked every holiday at the same job through the first 2 years of uni. Since she decided to stay in her uni city for the summer between 2nd and 3rd year she got a job at a Wetherspoons. She stayed there for the whole summer then did 8 to 16 hours a week until she came home for Xmas. Since the last part of the 3rd year is so important she quit but her savings have carried her through much of this last semester (we'll give her the odd bit of money if needed). She got A*AA for ALevels while working and is on course for a high 2:1 (1st if she is lucky) for her degree. I know other kids her age who worked at McDonalds although I was surprised how many parents turned their nose up at it and said their kids wouldn't be working there. Mental. Their kids then did sweet FA. The summer and particularly uni holidays are long. I would always be encouraging my kids to work during them - yes it can be harder to find work but anyone I know who applied to lots of things got a job in the end.

If you have young adults capable of getting a degree but then come home and even if they are looking for work don’t help around the house then it’s a you and them relationship problem.

Say ours tried to pull this trick I would be bombarding them with the large body of undisputed evidence that doing anything is better than online gaming and screening all day and all night.

They might think they have won life’s lottery living the leisure life whilst mummy and daddy pander to them but they are getting left behind against their peers as each year goes by.

I would invent DIY jobs for them, they would be scrubbing grout.

Or..
Even with a job they can't afford to do the things we could, so they struggle for motivation.
I moved out at 18, paid 200/month to live in a 3 bed house with friends and could afford to pay bills and have a life. That opportunity just isn't there any more.
I'm not saying not working is the way to go, but I do understand why a lot of young people struggle to find the motivation to work hard now.. there isn't a lot in it for them is there?

The job market is very tough ATM.Sadly lots of well educated young people ill equipped for work it seems.Some are snowflakes but many have worked hard at Uni for a decent degree ,not the same opportunities around now .Its the way of the workforce .Just be grateful yours have done well .My DS is in a good job from Uni .DD finds work hard and struggled a lot at School as well

I think parents need to be proactive from an early age. My Mum used to look out for me a part-time job from 14 (the norm in the 70's). She was still cutting things out of the paper for me when I was older. Like others on here I worked through uni and did lots of random jobs until I got a graduate job. Our son is 24 and we pushed the idea of work from 16 and helped him get jobs. He was 18 at the start of Covid and his dad walked with him to Sainsbury's (at the time they were desperate for people to pack online orders) so he worked throughout the pandemic (we wanted to keep him out of the bedroom all day). He's kept going, keen to keep moving forward. Uni, work, buying his first home. We are always here for him - his bedroom is here - because you don't know what might happen. His sister has additional needs but she volunteers (with her support worker) with animals - she's out everyday and has purpose. Wev'e had some dreadful times as a family, life isn't easy but you move your children forward as much as you can and start young. You don't have the same influence as they get older.

I have DC in early 20s. One is close to finishing uni and he’s keen to work when he graduates. He’s worked in and off since he was 17 but he does actually have quite severe anxiety (and gets medical help for it). He’ll live at home and if he can’t get a grad job I’d expect him to get ‘a’ job even if it’s part time. he can claim UC while he’s applying etc.
Eldest has graduated but hasn’t picked an easy career route so is doing extra courses to help, also working p/t and is currently at home.
They’re def not ‘entitled’ but definitely benefit from living in a nice house with good food on the table, usually a cooked dinner courtesy of myself (I lm the one with health issues so am at home a lot and work p:t from home).
I do know some of my DCs’ peers who are doing really well but others aren’t. It also depends on what degree/career you’ve done or want to get in to.

If they could manage school or college or university, they should be able to manage a job. They certainly shouldn't be claiming benefits.

If their MH is poor, maybe they can't start off with the professions they might have hoped for, but working in a warehouse or supermarket, or being a postie or a labourer or a cleaner, are all perfectly respectable jobs.

Autism is not an excuse not to work but it's often a reason. My son went to college and then signed on with the jobcentre to look for work. He wasn't given so much as an interview and I worried that he wouldn't cope with a job anyway. He had struggled in education even with 1:1 support. He had a bit of a breakdown during this time and said if he wasn't such a coward he would kill himself. Since then he's been on meds and yes, he does spend his time gaming. He's not interested in socialising, getting a girl or boyfriend, TV or anything apart from gaming whether it's playing himself or watching gamers livestream. He also reads a lot on the internet and his general knowledge is astonishing. When we have been in situations where he can't game his depression comes back, albeit less severe.I take him swimming three times a week to keep him healthy but that's all I can do.

I think it’s who you know , not so much what you know that gives people a leg up when it comes to jobs . A likeable Personality goes a long way too , but often these people end up getting over promoted . I think every young person , if they are healthy and functioning , have a reasonably functioning brain , should be doing some work of some sort . Gaming in their bedrooms is going to create a gap in their CVs that isn’t going to be explained away .

NCS doesn’t exist anymore. My DD did it and loved it but it was so badly organised (and it was fot post-GCSE students).

It's a shame it doesn't run, although it probably did just benefit the children who already had a leg-up with these things.

I agree it was badly organised - I think the organisations running it were a bit shite. Shame though as it was a good way of filling the final two summer holiday periods.

Exactly this. We just did it, no thought required, no questions asked. I don't understand why you would expect to just finish school and not work unless you have some sort of serious disability. It wad common to have part time jobs while studying, then full time job when studying finished.
I have seen young dcs working, although I have also noticed a lot more older workers too, who maybe cannot retire, or don't want to. I realise this may be area dependent.

Could any of the cousins be working from home op? A lot do now.

You can’t claim UC indefinitely these days. They stop your payments if you can’t prove you have been looking for work. So which is it: they are layabouts with zero interest in working or they are actively applying for jobs while claiming benefits?

Side note.
My parents gen (boomers) have been confused for the last 20 years that millennials with graduate level qualifications couldn’t just walk into high paying 9-5 jobs with good pensions. It had become a completely different landscape. The introduction of student loans, a global financial crash and recession, plus American companies moving into the U.K. market with their zero hours contracts.

Gen Z have their faults but I still feel sorry for them because: student loans are even worse, Covid and its economic consequences are equivalent to the financial crash, (not to mention the mental health consequences) they can’t afford to go out and socialise, growing up entirely online with no educational guidance on how to ‘read the media’ means many have been over exposed to negative ideologies, and unlimited access to porn makes it difficult to have meaningful relationships. It must be very lonely to be Gen Z.

There was never a state level plan for after Covid for any of us and, really, that should have been a priority.

I can’t understand why a young person wouldn’t want to work. There’s so much life to experience and you need the funds to do it. A lot depends on the peer group. My adult sons and their friends are all ambitious plus dh and myself wouldn’t have countenanced grown men not working. Bizarre

I agree , a lot of ( not all ) kids have been wrapped up in cotton wool . Often parents bail them out financially, and fight their battles for them . I also think some youngsters feel that certain jobs are beneath them and put zero effort in . I’ve worked with young people who have planned their lives out and genuinely believe it’s all going to fall their way and fall into their laps , because they were brought up in a certain area or went to a certain school / uni.

I really don't think you are a shit parent, it sounds very tough. x

I think OP that you are falling into the trap of thinking that your children’s achievements are due to your superior parenting, and thinking: why can’t o there parents be as good/struct as me?

instead of thanking your lucky stars 😁😅

i don’t mean this unkindly, it’s just so easy to attribute good fortune to your own efforts, and to attribute bad fortune to fate. That is human nature

But lots of young people that age have been seriously affected by Covid and lockdown and there is a genuine issue with mental health for a lot of people this age. Sadly. The pandemic hit them just at the crucial stage in social and emotional development when normally teens cut loose from their parents and mix mostly with peers, that cohort missed a huge crucial step in their psychological development 😔

I could have written this 4 years ago. My DC came through the other side and is now working and studying successfully. There was no way I could “force” her to “knuckle down”. In the end she realised she had to do something to break out of her stuck life so she went to work abroad, literally found her old self and is now happy and healthy.

Not a parent but when I was younger it was full time education (and a Saturday job) or full time work. No ifs, no buts. And claiming benefits was a no no. That’s for the elderly/disabled/ill only. I’ve got to nearly 60 without claiming benefits.

Absolutely true

How dramatic and completely misrepresenting what the OP said!