Are parents who don't push their teenagers to get jobs doing bad by them?

In My Humble Opinion
81

Examples of some mystical “real world experience” psychological fanwank used to justify waiting tables as some grand value. If a paycheck is that educational, someone already goofed. “It produces value”? So does skipping a semester of college. So does building straw bale adobe houses for poor people with the families who are going to live in them. Getting an academic scholarship. Becoming procient enough in an instrument to earn money off it. Getting into a better school. Refereeing a kids’ soccer league. Or in classmates’ cases, getting sports scholarships. Sure, just telling the kid to get a job is “efficient” in that you can pretend it’s teaching things that should have been taught all along.

We already live in the real world.

82

You ducked the question earlier, but you really don’t have children, do you?

83

You provided some excellent examples of instilling a good work ethic from an early age. Thank you.

84

Thank you, Ruken, for pointing out the error of my ways. Why should anyone practice anything in a lower stakes situation before having to do it for real? Why do athletes waste all that time practicing and scrimmaging before games? Why do actors and musicians rehearse before performances? Why waste time writing a rough draft? No reason to develop and hone your abilities doing less demanding versions of your ultimate activity.

And gardeners - don’t worry about gradually moving those hothouse plants outside this spring. So long as they’ve been viewing the world through the windows, they’ll be fine!

Sure, a young person can spend their youth and young adulthood simply “existing with their eyes and ears open,” being chaperoned and subsidized by mommy and daddy from one enrichment activity to another. Without question, that person develop a certain set of experiences and qualities which might be tremendously valuable for some very limited set of creative occupations/avocations - or might contribute to a fulfilling life for someone who is independently wealthy. I don’t think anyone here is advocating depriving any young person of such experiences. But IMO&E, such a person will be poorly prepared in many respects for many aspects of what MOST people encounter when the join the competitive full-time workforce.

(Anyone else wondering whether Ruken truly believes what they say, or whether they are pulling our collective leg?)

85

I’d be very curious to see how Ruken’s kids do in their professional jobs. I am sure Ruken will say they are doing wonderfully, blah blah. But my guess is that they are total nightmares to deal with.

86

JohnT, I am curious if you would take a different approach with your daughter if she didn’t care about going to Princeton or any of the other schools you listed. What if she was a solid B/C student who liked hanging out with friends and instagraming more than studying?

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87

:slight_smile:

And thank you.

So, some things:

  1. Children, while from you, are not of you*.
  2. Many (most? (all?)) of them will take diametric opinions from you precisely because they are your opinions.
  3. Because of #2, merely “telling” them will not work. Can, in fact, lead to the opposite behavior.
  4. To counter #3, you have to live the life. And you have to make them participate.

Saying that the lack of experience is of no consequence because you can merely “tell” the kids the lesson ignores (or is oblivious to) the many complexities which arise in a parent-child relationship. They will fight your lessons because they can fight their lessons.

My daughter - smart, beautiful, popular, just would not comb her hair regardless of how much we begged, pleaded, insisted, demanded, paid for, yelled, etc. This went on for 2, 3 years, from about 7-9 years of age or so. I quit early, realizing this was a point with her and there wasn’t anything I was going to do (and, honestly, she looked kind of cute in her hippy-curly long hair), but her mom… her mom just fought with her like Betty Draper fighting with Sally about posture. And I told Laura to stop it, saying “Here’s what’s going to happen - she’s going to be at school and some kid will say something so cutting, or the wrong kid will laugh about her hair. And Sophia will come home, head straight to the bathroom, and spend the rest of the night working on her hair, and this will never be an issue again.”

And it literally went down just like that: We picked her up from school, she’s all quiet and moody, goes straight into the bathroom and comes out later with her hair all brushed out (bye-bye Sophia’s “Stevie Nicks” phase :frowning: ), mutters “don’t ask”.

So experience matters. Merely telling your children can be counter-productive as they may reject the lesson solely because it came from you. And you would only know this though, you know, experience**.

*Yes, adoptions, marrying into children, etc. I didn’t want to destroy the line, dammit!
** Or an amazing memory and a capacity for self-reflection 97% of people don’t bother to use (on themselves, at least.)

88

Well, she’s a sold A+ student who prefers hanging out with her friends and being on Insta more than studying, so not much of a difference than your hypothetical kid, tbh. :wink:

So… understanding that you’re talking about a hypothetical kid, while I’m talking about the real thing… if Sophia were a B, C student who was looking at going to, say, UTSA (U of Texas, San Antonio) instead of aiming for a top-tier school (and remember, the important thing is working for the goal, knowing that even if you miss it, you’re going to be far better off than if you never tried, so there’s no “YOU GOTTA GET INTO PRINCETON” drama going on in our house*), even then the approach would be the same: your job is your education.

*Uh, no. The drama is coming from a completely unexpected source. I’ll let y’all know later.

89

If she weren’t interested in any college, would her job still be her (formal) education? I am trying to figure out at what point you’d be okay with coming up with a different slogan.

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90

Gotcha.

Then she would work a lot more, probably with her dad, and she would get more advice about how to deal with your boss and less advice about time management and studying techniques. I think (hell, I know because I’ve seen it) that Sophia would be a fantastic sales person and even if she didn’t go to school, she still has competencies which would, as developed by experience, lead her to a six-figure career even without a college degree.

91

It sounds terrible, but it was fairly eye-opening for me, having grown up in a middle-class bubble where everyone’s parents were white collar, with a very few exceptions. I actually SAW first hand what not going to college looked like relative to what my parents’ and friends parents’ lifestyles looked like, e.g. the parents all worked 9-5 jobs with salaries, while the adults who worked at my summer jobs worked weird hours, weird schedules, and in the case of the hourly ones, didn’t have as much of a guarantee of constant income. In other words, based on the vagaries of scheduling, they might have substantial swings from paycheck to paycheck.

I also got to see first-hand the rather shitty treatment that a lot of hourly people get- shenanigans like working you for 10 hour days, then running you off 2 hours early twice in the same week, lest they have to pay overtime.

And I saw some inspiring things as well; there was a guy working at the Chili’s with me who was probably one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen. He was from El Salvador, and was working as a dishwasher and food-prep person. He’d bust ass in the mornings chopping produce and doing a lot of food prep, and then when the actual lunch shift started, he’d start washing dishes like a demon. Afterward, he’d go home, chill out for a bit, and then to go English classes and citizenship classes. He was totally excited about the opportunity he’d been afforded to immigrate here, and to work in a Chili’s as a food prep guy/dishwasher.

It was both a sort of object lesson, and a humbling experience. Getting out of one’s bubble is a good thing, IMO, and doing it at high school age is probably best, as you’re old enough to understand, but not old enough to have formed all your opinions yet.

92

I’m pretty sure we said similar things to our kids. Altho I think we phrased it in terms of the ultimate goal of their being independent at the end of college. And that required certain experience in seeking work, being employed, managing money, and even saving up an initial stake to fund their work wardrobe/first apartment, etc. And - of course - they had to contribute around the house - not only in terms of chores, but also being a pleasant member of the family.

Not questioning your parenting - sounds like you are doing as well as any of us could expect. I acknowledge that different factors might apply to someone seeking entrance to Princeton than most less competitive schools. Neither I, my wife, nor my kids ever applied to such schools. Do they value work experience as one of many attributes in a prospective student?

Also, you say your dtr has worked and saved despite her lofty goals. Kudos on encouraging such a balanced approach.

I dunno if I could have pushed/encouraged my kids to do anything differently, to aspire to anything other than the state schools they attended. They were all in top 5-10% of high school classes, band and extracurrics, and high school jobs. They all worked summers during college, and some during school. And now, all are financially independent, 2 married/1 engaged, etc.

They might have ended up in as successful positions had we taken a more hands off approach. I KNOW that we had to regularly encourage them to get good grades, practice their instruments, and yes - work jobs. At different times, each of them have accused us of having been too “demanding” WRT some aspect of their raising.

My thoughts are that if we had not encouraged/pushed the kids as we did, they would have had a rockier/more expensive start to their careers/adulthood. Maybe someone would want to argue that there are valuable life lessons to be learned from that. I think I would disagree.

93

The teen next door said something similar when working his 1st job at the local grocery. In a HS econ class he had to look up the prices of homes in our area, and he said something like, “No one working at the store - other than possibly the manager - could come close to affording to buy a house in the area.” Sure, a youth can learn such lessons other ways, but I was impressed at how efficiently the kid next door learned it from working.

94

I am always hesitant to label any particular experience as essential or vital. There are many, many paths that can get you to the same place, and my vital life-changing experience (which a McJob certainly was) isn’t the only vital-life changing experience.

I have taught high school for nearly 20 years in diverse environments. I’ve seen kids that worked because they had to because mom needed rent money, I’ve seen kids that worked because they wanted to, I’ve seen kids that didn’t have jobs. I would not say it seems like an absolutely critical experience that must be had at all costs. I do think it’s often an awesome and rewarding experience. I guess I’d compare it to becoming a parent: becoming a parent has been, predictably, the most transformative and enlightening thing that’s ever happened to me. It has changed me in profound ways and taught me lessons about myself and others that I would never have learned otherwise. But it’s not an experience I would presume to think other people “required” to develop properly. I’m very comfortable with the idea that there are many other ways to learn things, and that while parenthood may have taught my things I never would have learned any other way, there are probably valuable things I will never learn, realizations I will never have, because I was over here doing the mom thing instead. And that’s okay.

I do think kids should be busy, and have agency. It’s bad to simply be a passive lump, doing what is assigned to you and no more, never having the ambition to accomplish anything. But if I had a kid who wanted to spend the summer volunteering on a passion project or doing a cool internship rather than working a shitty job, I wouldn’t make them. I mean, if a kid wants to be, say, a lawyer, and they can intern in a law office to see if they really like it, it seems dumb to be like “No, I want you working a shitty job where people will be mean to you and your feet will hurt”.

I also think there are a few dangers in jobs. Conscientious kids, especially, are easily exploited by shitty retail places. They think they have to do what they are told and work crazy hours and they really need someone–a parent–to watch out for them. It’s touchy, because the whole point of a job is that you can’t have your parents talk to your manager, but if a kid tells you they “have” to work all the hours they are scheduled and freaks out at the idea of establishing their own boundaries, you have to teach them/support them. Too much money can also be a bad thing–it can fund bad habits–and it’s hard to control someone’s money when they earned it. Finally, some work cultures at shitty jobs can be super toxic–sexual harassment, casual drug use, stupid drama.

95

I wonder if kids are more likely to have more compelling/interesting/distinguishing personal essays for college apps if they have work experience, assuming there is nothing already especially compelling/interesting/distinguishing about them.

Certainly an insightful kid with top-notch writing abilities can find a way to turn the most mundane “this one time at band camp” story into a profound treatise. But I bet for the average kid there is more fodder for a solid “personal growth” narrative in employment experiences rather than band camp tales.
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96

In my experience, that’s like “which shade of beige is less neutral?”. If you are a person who gets things out of experiences, you will get something out of band camp or carhopping or being a nanny for the neighbor. Reflective people find fodder for growth everywhere. On the other hand, if you aren’t reflective, it won’t matter. I’ve had kids have nothing interesting to say after some pretty amazing experiences, and others with tons to say about pretty mundane things.

This year, the best essays I saw about summer experiences were about:
[ul]
[li]Volunteering on a come-from-behind upset congressional candidate’s campaign[/li][li]An extensive research/design project that started out as a science project[/li][li]Running[/li][li]Taking a class in advanced math and being blown away[/li]
[/ul]

I don’t know if I’ve ever read a really good essay about a bullshit job. The kids writing about working in the trades, with their dads, come the closest. One of my favorite essays ever was a kid talking about working with his dad installing HVAC, and how awful and miserable it was, and then, in the next paragraph, pivoting to “and I guess that’s why he drinks so much”. Another really good one talked about going with his dad when he was a kid to help pour cement, and falling in love with overpasses, and that’s why he wanted to be a civil engineer. A kid this year wrote about learning to plant trees with his dad and brothers when his dad lost his sight and had to quit–that was a really good essay, but it’s not a typical job story. There have been good essays about the fact of a job, about the difficulty struggling to stay involved at school when required to work. But literally none I can remember about the job itself (or band camp, honestly).

I mean, if a kid doesn’t have anything going on and nothing inspires them, then a job is a good thing to try. But I can’t see ripping a kid out of something that DOES inspire them, just so they can get crapped on appropriately.

97

IMO yes.

98

I appreciate the reply, Manda JO. I hope you don’t think I am advocating “crapping on” kids, though. I don’t there is inherent value in being crapped on, and I don’t think anyone in this thread has expressed that view.

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99

I apologize for over-simplifying, but I do think people are being quick to discount that there are lots of ways to learn the same lesson, and holding up one’s own defining experiences as uniquely essential does seem really short sighted to me.

100

There are a number of attributes an Ivy League school looks for, and they are all different in what they look for in the candidates. I don’t know if Sophia is IL-level - I could see her more at Brown or Cornell, if she wants to do that - but the point, as we’ve been clear, is that she needs to make the effort because her purpose is education.

I think my main point here isn’t so much the value of work over education, or vice versa, but more that children do well… in my experience… when they have a sense of being focused on productive behaviors, on work, education, their band, volunteer efforts, sports, whatever works best for the child. For my gparents, they defined “productive behavior” as “work”. For my daughter, I defined it as “education + some work”. Others have different kids, different experiences, different goals, and will therefore have different productive behaviors.

Or none, to the detriment of the child.