not really a meaningful sentiment. If I’m an out of work mechanical engineer with an automotive background (with very poor prospects 'cos the industry hit the ocean floor*,) telling me about a bunch of job openings for Java programmers on the other side of the country isn’t helpful. Skilled jobs aren’t “fungible.”
Please stay on topic. The OP is about two individuals who’d be lucky to get jobs at McDonald’s, who don’t have a standard of living to worry about maintaining, and who have never had a career. There are still plenty of jobs for people like this. With the economy picking up, there will be many more.
“They” can’t afford to do anything. It’s their parents money. Just because someone is a millionaire doesn’t mean they have to spend a single dime on their adult children.
And of course it takes an emotional toll on the family. Most parents want to see their kids turn into responsible, self sufficient productive adult members of society. Or at the very least they don’t want to have to continue dealing with the same nonsense you would expect from a 16 year old. Do you really think the OP or his wife want to be taking care of these idiots when their are in their 30s? And can the OP or his wife expect them to help out with any family problems?
I’ve met my fair share of screw-ups over the years. Old high school or college classmate. Family members or family of my SO. And I am consistently amazed at the ability of fuckups to rationalize their fuckupedness. It really comes down to a sense of entitlement. They feel they deserve a certain lifestyle and that it should just come to them. So instead of working to achieve it, they blame everyone and everything that tells them “no”.
I’ve also seen that very few of them ever actually achieved anything. The men either lived at home into their 40s and beyond or received some sort of subsidy from their parents while they pursued their “art”. The women typically married some guy and became his problem.
I know my fair share of idiots who went that route as well. It works great so long as some sucker (husband, parents, whoever) keeps “investing” money in their vanity business.
Starting and running a successful business requires hard work and discipline.
There needs to be someone other than you and mom talking to these “kids” because it sounds like both of you have been ineffective at helping them. Their mom has probably been too lenient of a caregiver over the course of their lives, but even the most spoiled, over indulged children crave independence and self-sufficiency by the time they reach drinking age. So there has to be more to this than just her parenting style.
Family therapy might be in order. That would mean you, mom, and them sitting together and talking about what is going on. To me, it sounds like both of them have major self esteem issues. They don’t have high expectations for themselves and therefore they’re not motivated to even try to succeed at something that involves the risk of failure. And maybe that risk is higher for them than it is for other people because for one reason, they lack proficiency at certain things? I dont know. It doesn’t sound like they have dreams about the future like adults their age usually have, and that is sad.
astro, are either of your kids naturally good at anything in particular? Perhaps their lack of self esteem stems from feeling, from a very young age, like they are mediocre at everything. When I reflect on my own childhood, I have to believe that being praised when I showed promised at certain things (like writing and drawing) was important to my development. Knowing I was skilled at certain things allowed me suck at others without it negatively affecting my self-image. I would not be surprised if for one reason or another, your two kids have never seen themselves as the person who is good at “X”, but rather they see themselves as fuckups and dopes.
Getting them out of their current lifestyles may require them to change how they see themselves, and therapy is the only thing I can think of that might help them.
I don’t really understand the advise to cut her off, or toss her out, or convince her Mom. Unless I’m mistaken he cannot control any of this as they reside with a mother who seems intent on crippling them with codependency. In very short order this dysfunction, and this location will be the only place they feel comfortable. And surely we must assume the mother just can’t follow through. I kind of think that’s a given. She made these children this way, they don’t just become this over night, after all.
Someone needs to point out they are being enslaved, and the drive to escape, will fade a little every year. shiver
They should be frightened.
I think everyone’s getting sidetracked on the “get a job and move out aspect.” What makes such children an issue is they continue to be a drain on family resources like immature dependents, rather than a benefit like mature adults. Lots of cultures have children stay home into their 30s, but it seems unique to the US that the offspring continue to act as if they never reached adulthood.
If they were home all day but doing the gardening, landscaping, maintenance, cleaning, cooking or otherwise contributing to the household with some of their copious free time, it would be less of an issue (as well as preparing them for the day they’ll need to do these task for themselves). It’s not just that they are contributing to society - they’re not contributing to the household either.
I really think that the current depression (30.5 million unemployed) will result in a whole “lost generation” college grads who have to take low level jobs, then trying to compete with recent grads with newer skills. There is also the matter of the enormous number of illegal aliens-those summer jobs cutting lawns and planting trees are now filled by illegal aliens. And as we evolve further into a service economy, only public employment jobs will have decent wages and benefits-there will be a large number of permanently unemployed people who will never make enough to fund a decent retirement.
He can’t control his ex-wife. And to be frank, why should they leave? They’ve got it made right where they are.
You can only control your own behavior, OP. I left home at 20 even though my parents expected me to stay home until marriage because I was so miserable. And I certainly believe full maturity did not come until my twenties or later. But if home is comfortable and not miserable, why leave?
I don’t think so. As difficult as college grads have had it, they still have it better than high school grads.
But even if that were the case. At some point you need to grow up, face the world and live the life that you created for yourself. It sucks that the economy is bad, but do they expect to sit at home doing nothing until the economy is such that high school dropouts can earn $90k a year with no experience? And if someone choses to drop out of jr college and has no skills, why should aging parents continue to bust their ass to ensure their kids continue to live a middle to upper middle class lifestyle? It’s not their fault their kids couldn’t pick a major or stick to a program.
Maybe some time sharing a 6th floor 2 BR walkup with 4 people and eating Raman noodles every night will give them some appreciation for working some “boring corporate job” that actually pays the bills?
Thanks to Adam Sandler, Will Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Ryan Reynolds, Ashton Kutcher, Owen and Luke Wilson, Russel Brand, Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Seth Rogan, the late Chris Farley, the entire cast of Entourage, Charlie Sheen and probably a dozen other actors I can’t think of off the top of my head, our culture has a facination with idiot man-boys who refuse to or are otherwise incapable of growing up.
I think this has to do a LOT with the fact that the cost of living has risen so much faster and further than the average entry level wages.
I had the moment you described when I moved to New York City from a mid-sized city in North Carolina. In my world back then you either graduated from high school and went AWAY to college or you graduated from high school and got a job and an apartment with a few friends. There was a handful of kids that lived at home while attending college or working, but this was usually due to their family’s finances and if they worked they contributed heavily to the family coffers.
I remember my first day at work in NYC, when I realized that virtually EVERY SINGLE ONE of my peers, 90% whom were college educated, lived at home with their parents. I was like WTF…what is WRONG with you people??? Of course, rents in NYC where incredibly high and I was packed like a sardine into an apartment with too many roommates but it was worth it to be independent. My coworkers preferred the extra money that came with free room and board.
As an aside, we got a choice between being paid by check or cash ( both fully “on the books” ) and I was the ONLY employee in the entire place that elected to be paid by check.
But I figure the entry level wages for a similar job in NYC are at most twice as much as I was making then but an “entry level” apartment rents for 4 or 5 times as much. This changes the equation
My sister was supported by my parents since her early twenties. She got pregnant, married the guy (against my parents wishes), got pregnant again, at which point he left. She lived at home for years with the two kids, and my parents ended up buying her a house (which she trashed and didn’t maintain). She would work sporadically and lose her job “through no fault of her own”.
My parents supported her until my father’s death when my sister was 40. Then my mother told my sister she couldn’t keep paying her way. It’s hard to grow up at 20, and twice as hard to grow up at 40. My sister got a job that she held for a few years until quitting saying she’d rather work at McDonald’s than stay there. Of course, she didn’t go to work at McDonald’s or anywhere else. She got herself on disability (morbidly obese with a variety of ailments both real and imagined) and lives with her son in a cheap apartment subsisting on Medicaid and foodstamps (our tax dollars at work).
After our mother died, she got a part of the estate for 5 years. This is the last year she gets a distribution. That little extra safety net she’s had is now gone. It will be interesting to see how she supports herself when push comes to shove. My sister’s daughter, OTOH, has at times worked 3 jobs to support herself and get away from her mother.
StG
It doesn’t sound like home is really comfortable if the mom has them living under a tight curfew and grounds them when they break it. Most adults would find this kind of thing so insufferable they would do what they could to move out. But it sounds like they would rather complain about the rules of the house than do the more practical thing and become independent.
I think it’s easy to point fingers at the mother because they are living with her. Her way of affecting negative consequences definitely comes across as infantalizing, but that is basically the case anytime an adult has to create consequences as punishment for another adult who is mooching off them. The OP has the luxury of judging her negatively because as the non-custodial parent, he hasn’t had to put up with what she has. So he can blame her for what his kids become without taking any responsibility for it.
I do wonder if these two were living with the OP, would he be putting them out on the street tomorrow? What would he be doing differently?