By the way, I love this quote from the article:
Because for the young men in the program now, a time machine to catch them when they are boys is such a practical solution. I don’t see anyone in the article saying “gee, we raised them perfectly and then this…!” and I think everyone would agree that engaging them younger would be a superior solution, but that doesn’t mean this set of young men needs to be Lost Boys.
When I was in college in the early 90s, everyone was going on and on about Gen X, the slacker generation–we were lazy entitled idiots who refused to get off our butts and get jobs. Well, I suppose some of us are still lazy, but most of us got our acts together, got jobs, fueled the tech boom, and are now vilified as helicopter parents. Just like every other generation, I suspect.
Only now, college costs twice as much as it did when I went–and that pricetag gave my parents sticker shock. My mom used to complain all the time, asking me why I had to ask her for money every few months–after all, she paid her own way through the same college! Then I did the math for her and showed her that, if you figured our paychecks as the same amount, my bills were twice as high–just for rent and tuition. A 20yo now would find those bills doubled again. It’s no longer possible to pay your own way through college, even at an ordinary state school.
My youngest sister just graduated last May with a great STEM degree in a useful field with plenty of demand (under normal circumstances)–but at the worst possible moment for finding a job. It took six long, depressing months.
That’s pretty off-topic for the OP; I don’t know how I feel about fancy “life skills” camp!
Is he in the US? A US citizen? Does he have a clean criminal record? Did he do drugs? Join the damned military. mrAru spent 20 years in the Navy, made a solid income, if he had loan for college he could have paid it off with no problem.
Honestly, if these dicks have a clean record and no drugs, military. Paycheck, never have to worry about what to wear the next day as someone will always be happy to let them know the uniform of the day a week ahead. Unless you seriously fuck up, you won’t be laid off or fired …
And people wonder why I favor universal service :dubious::dubious::smack:
Agreed. That should go without saying but as with any typed discussion goes, it’s hard to be specific on every point. I think as far as this thread goes though, we’re discussing children who live at home and play on the computer all day hoping to get a 6 figure income beta testing the next version of WOW.
That explains my brother’s strategy. He never moved out, waited for mom to die, and inherited most of the 47 for himself.
He’ll be 49 tomorrow.
They could join the military.
Works for some, I guess. I’ve not been in the situation described, but I can say with 100% certainty that being forced or coerced into the military would have destroyed my life, or at least seriously hampered it. Most of my time would have been spent in the brig (or wherever you get sent when you continually tell your superiors to fuck off and refuse to follow orders) so I guess I’d eventually have been kicked out. With whatever black mark you get from being kicked out of the military, and I’m sure it doesn’t look good on a resume.
It’s one of these things, isn’t it? Every time there’s an economic recession, the USA is suddenly full of lazy kids who aren’t interested in working. Make 'em join the Army.
The military in a recession isn’t necessarily a cure all. Might as well say “well, they can always go into a convent or a monastery.” Which was the "well, they can join the military of my grandmother’s (Catholic) generation - if you were a slacker or a woman who didn’t want to marry, teach or nurse, that was your career path. Not everyone has that calling.
Sure, but there’s always something that a child can reasonably do to contribute in a meaningful way, and at the same time learn useful skills.
If the parents are rich enough to hire a gardener, then maybe the kid can help with the landscape design. If Mom and Dad can afford a BMW for Junior, then he can still get an after school job to pay for gas and insurance. If they’re really so blessed that they have servants for every task, then it’s time to find a local charity that needs volunteers.
I would be willing to bet that if you have the choice of obeying orders or brig time, you probably would have benefitted from some discipline.
Look, it is your own damned problem for not being able to think it through - behave yourself, take orders and get a paycheck or get dumped into the brig and kicked out with a record that makes it probably you will not be able to get a decent job.
People frequently seem to need a boot to the head to come to the realization that you need to work with society not against it. They bitch and whine about the world being against them, or they are owed something but they are not willing to be a valued part of that society.
Sure. And sometimes that takes. And sometimes the kids develop a huge chip on their shoulder. Because you can treat two different kids the same, and one will develop a duty to public service and the discipline of a work ethic, and the other will wonder “why the hell do I have to…when Mom and Dad could just…” The first kids gets a nice resume to propel them toward the future, the second - the moment they become eighteen - and probably before - says “you can’t make me.” And the “boys” here are pretty much young adults.
One of the most frustrating things as a parent is that you can do everything “right” and still end up with a kid that is disappointing in their level of motivation. Or who is selfish.
Let’s add the complication of divorced parents - because we’ve seen it a few times in a few threads here recently…“I don’t know what to do with my kid - his Mom spoils him.” Or pushover grandparents that can be depended on for a soft landing. It sounds like a lot of these kids are WoW junkies - who probably don’t have a lot of friends in real life - but 45 - 50 years ago my in laws had a series of friends with failure to launch sleeping on their couches or drinking their coffee or getting fed (too early for Hippies, they were Beatniks - and one of those losers turned out to be Bob Dylan).
In late public school and throughout high school, I hired fellow students to cut lawns and maintain properties (I picked up the contracts through real estate brokers). One pair of parents could not get either of their sons to cut their lawn so they hired my outift. I then hired one of their sons to do the job. The parents were pissed off.
LOL I bet they were not paying the same as your company was … I know how much my brother was getting for mowing the lawn before he moved out to college, and I know how much they paid the replacement kid to do it.
One thing I will note is that most of the young people I know who have “failed to launch” are women, not men. I don’t think society sees this as such a crisis, though.
Bob Dylan left home at 18, to go to school. After his first year he went to New York to work on music full time, and spent more or less every evening playing gigs, finding gigs, or practicing. By the time he was 21, he had a manager and had travelled to England to perform and appear on TV. His first album was released when he was 22. I don’t think Bob failed to launch. He was one of the hardest working human beings your in laws ever met.
ETA: I should comment on the OP too. I agree with most of the posters who saw “depression” in between the lines of the article. I expected to read it and be infuriated at a bunch of lazy asses, but every specific case they talk about smells of people suffering from mild to moderate depression.
That’s a pretty big assumption about me.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear - I don’t doubt for a moment that some of these young men would indeed benefit from a spell in the military. I just see it routinely proposed as a “one size fits all” solution and I really don’t think it is.
Not according to my mother in law and her friends, who helped him scam out on his rent, watched him steal records from his friends parents, and would invite himself over for dinner because he didn’t have money to feed himself. This was pre-New York during his University of Minnesota days - 1959 and 1960.
He was truly dedicated to his music - and worked hard at that. But he didn’t work hard at feeding himself or paying his rent.
In addition to this, I’d say that if a young person really is lazy, incompetent, etc., then it’s better not to have them in the military where these traits could lead to someone being killed.
I didn’t say he was honest.
It is, however, a matter of absolute, documented historical fact that he went from being nobody at 18 to being a famous recording artist and millionaire in five years. If that’s a failure to launch, I wish I’d failed that badly. 
When he was 25, Bob Dylan was one of the ten most famous musicians on the planet. I don’t think he would have qualified to get into this Failure To Launch camp.
Which sort of is the point I’m trying to make. He was a “loser.” At 18 he was sitting in my mother in laws apartment, not holding a job, and drinking her coffee. And putting all his effort into a career that for 99% of people goes nowhere. At 18, he was where a lot of these 18 year olds are, doing nothing that, in the opinion of “average” people is mature or responsible.
One of my friends has a brother who lives in his parents basement at 40 - he’s a musician - classic long term failure to launch. The difference between him and Dylan - luck. (Yes, he went off to New York and played in clubs and tried to get a contract. He’s good, too. You know how many good musicians don’t make it?)