America's Little Emperors? / Raking leaves

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yes, kind of a strange conglomerate title, sorry.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in late October in New England, meaning that all those leaves the leaf-peepers so love are now raining down from the trees and forming ankle deep (and higher!) mounds everywhere. Hubby and I were out raking, about the third time for most of the yard, will no doubt have to do it all another time or two before the leaves are finally all done with. No big deal. Leaves aren’t all that heavy, and it was a perfect day for raking: no wind, cool enough to make the exercise welcome, lots of sun.

As we looked around, we could see about a third of the neighborhood yards were being worked on. But the strange thing was, ALL of the rakers we saw were at least in their sixties and one couple I know are both in their eighties.

It’s not that this neighborhood is an old-age enclave or anything. The houses turn over slowly but regularly, and other couples on the street are in their early thirties and forties and fifties…but NONE of them were raking.

Even more suprising to me was that there were NO children, that is, teenagers helping out at all.

Which I guess shouldn’t really surprise us. It seems that expecting children to do chores or contribute to the running of a house is an idea that has gone away.

For example, there are three junior and high school aged boys in the house to our right. They’re all apparently healthy and normal mentally, at least, they attend the regular schools and play on soccer teams and one I know also plays basketball. But we have never seen them do any kind of yard work, period. They do not cut the grass, they do not shovel snow, they don’t rake. Heck, they don’t even walk the dogs, the parents do that. I remember one time last winter when we were clearing up after a snow, and both parents came hurrying out of their house and busily set about cleaning the snow off… their eldest son’s car!

I’m sorry. If you’re old enough to drive and own a car, you damn well should be able to brush the snow off your car yourself.

I’ve read news articles bemoaning a generation of “little emperors” in China, single children who are utterly pampered and indulged. Are we going the same way in America?

When I was growing up, children were simply expected to help out with household demands, starting as soon as they were physically/mentally able to handle them. Expecting your 15 year old son to push the lawn mower around wasn’t seen as child abuse or anything, it was just how things went. It was all part of growing up and contributing and learning how to be a competent adult who could some day manage his own life. Nowadays, people simply hire professional yard care to do all that, to leave more time for driving their kids to soccer practices and such, I guess?

Or is this just a quirk in our particular neighborhood? Do children help out where you are? If you have children, do they shovel snow or do the laundry or whatever?

2

My son normally helps out raking leaves. He did not do so today, because he is working on a major school project due on Monday. He’s been working on it today for 8 hours straight so far. He’s much rather be outside with us doing chores.

So I guess my neighbours are busy inside judging my family now.

3

Sorry sounds like confirmation bias on your part. I highly doubt you know the particular situations of every house around you, plus it sounds like you noticed this on a particular day at a given time. Younger people may have school projects or papers, people can be sick, again I reiterate I doubt you know particular situations.

Another example I had a Dad that used to work for a plant store and was a left-handed narcissist, he was also a control freak and one of those types that use to get on the ground with a magnifying glass and cut his grass with a little pair of scissors. He would give me a chore to do, I would start the chore, and then he would tell me how I was doing it wrong and take over.

4

There’s a kid on my street who makes some extras money by mowing quite a few lawns around here. He styled himself “The Teenager Who Likes to Work” in the flier he left on my door one day. Even after getting a part time job at a nearby pizza place he still picks up extra money money mowing lawns.

5

I’m a millennial as one of my friend’s dad told us in high school “you only think Lincoln freed the slaves” as he handed us an edger. Kids get to work as teenagers to pay back the hell they make as babies and we’re already getting my four year old to do chores around the house.

6

Nothing new here. In the 70s I hired fellow high school students to cut lawns in a couple of towns.

Once I sent a student to cut his parent’s law lawn.

7

Way back in the 20th Century while my poor middle-aged dad was out doing yardwork yes, I was inside - cooking dinner, cleaning house, doing laundry, and taking care of my invalid mother. I suppose I should have just let her lie neglected on the couch and do the lawn mowing instead?

You’re making assumptions. You don’t know what’s going on with those families. Maybe the older adults have been advised to walk for exercise and doing it with the family dog is more enjoyable. Making they want the kids to focus on school, yes, even including school athletics. Maybe the kids aren’t mowing the lawn because they have a part-time job in addition to school. Maybe they’re taking care of young sibling or older relatives. Or, yeah, maybe they’re a lazy parasite playing Fortnite while mom and dad slave away.

You just don’t know.

8

I’m Gex-X and I can honestly say I never had a job in my teens as tough as some of the things my boomer parents had when they were teens. In the 50s and 60s, my father picked cotton, worked in an ice house, and he combed the desert looking for live rattlesnakes to sell while in the 60s and 70s my mother picked strawberries, mucked stables, and took care of horses.

9

Both our kids started helping us to shovel snow when they were 7 or 8. They’re 19 and 22 now. If they’re home from college during a snowstorm they’ll take a turn with shoveling. Our son will help with raking and mowing (though my husband does the bulk of it) while our daughter helps with indoor chores (loading dishwasher, cleaning the cat litter box). Both of them take a turn vacuuming.

10

If you talk to teenagers, you will be surprised how much more schoolwork they do and how much harder it is than our generations. I have coworkers whose middle school students are taking calculus classes. Then consider how AP classes and early college admissions are much more common these days and how common it is to do SAT prep courses and it’s surprising how teenagers have any free time at all.
And sports are even worse. It’s ridiculous how much travel is required these days for AAU/Little League/American Legion ball even for elementary school kids. Take a wild guess who forced kids to take up huge chunks of their time that used to be leisure or chores. Not them, but people of our generations.

11

Among other things, the amount of homework and organized activities for kids has increased tremendously since I was a kid. We did the yardwork, including mowing the lawn, racking leaves and shoveling the snow, as well as the housework, including washing the dishes and cleaning the bathroom, but I didn’t have any music lessons or organized sports and very minimal homework.

My kids, in upper elementary school, have ten time the time commitments that I had at that age. I often don’t have them wash dishes and such simply because the are so bogged down in music practice and homework in addition to kendo and soccer practice.

12

Another element of confirmation bias could be that you’re more likely to see old folks out doing yard work because older folk prioritise having a nice yard.

You’ll never see any of my kids out weeding the garden or washing the car (though come to think of it, that was that one time…) but you’re very unlikely to see me doing it either, because weeds and a clean car are way down on my CBF list. They do each cook us a meal every week, do the dishes and laundry, and look after the cat

13

There are lots of kids in my neighborhood, as evidenced by all the trash they drop on their way home from school. But I have NEVER seen one of them mowing the lawn, raking leaves, shoveling/blowing snow, walking the dog, etc.

When I was a kid, we had to do everything. And no power mowers, leaf blowers or snow blowers back then. And that’s in addition to lots of homework and music lessons.

14

Why is it surprising that children aren’t doing a make-work chore that their parents obviously don’t care about?

15

As an opposing data point, our neighbor’s kids next door and across the street have been doing yard work, and our own MilliCal insists on helping. But I usually do the bulk of the leaf work with my Yard Machine.

16

Younger generations are also more likely to be aware of environmental issues and ecological damage resulting from various human activities.

Allowing leaves to decompose where they fall is beneficial, while raking them up and then either burning them, or adding yet more bulk to landfills (e.g. trash piles & garbage dumps) is detrimental.

17

In my neighborhood, we’ve had kids who won’t bring in newspapers from the driveway apron, bring in the mail, or take the empty garbage cans back to the garage after pickup. :rolleyes:

And no, “I have band practice” is no excuse for driving OVER the newspaper and not picking it up.

18

Right: why do you think “I’m old—get off my lawn!” is such a cliche?

19

Rake leaves??? I bought a combo blower/vacuum from Harbor Freight. I just walk around sucking up the leaves and they get mulched and deposit it in a bag. Took me about 45 minutes to do the front and back yards.

20

What’s a driveway apron?