# Why are children asking me for money?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 29, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783 "2015-06-29T13:48:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783/41 "2015-06-30T19:07:54Z")
> [@Why\_Child](#):
>
> How did this “entitlement culture” start?
>
> I have known people that have spoiled their kids rotten, because they “went through a lot when we got divorced…” “S/he was raised without a father, so I gave them whatever they wanted.” So you turned them into a monster that screams and hollers when they don’t get what they want? You let them pout you into submission?
In my own personal life, I know enough about two men to know exactly how it happened:
The first one was a firstborn son in an Asian family. The entire family doted on him and gave him everything and anything he ever asked. This instilled in him a strong sense of narcissism and selfishness. When he grew up and realized the world wouldn’t treat him this way at all, he fell back into a severe depression and has never really recovered.
In the other one’s case, there was a divorce and mom got custody. Mom was a drunk and an alcoholic. The child started drinking at around age 11. When the dad finally got custody (age 13 I think) he went overboard in giving the child everything he could ever want, and still to this day hesitates to stand up to him, because of the horrible life he had in his first few years.
Both instances were occasioned by love. Both instances severely messed up the children.
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### Author:  [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783/42 "2015-07-01T18:05:48Z")
> [@Why\_Child](#):
>
> How did this “entitlement culture” start?
>
> I have known people that have spoiled their kids rotten, because they “went through a lot when we got divorced…” “S/he was raised without a father, so I gave them whatever they wanted.” So you turned them into a monster that screams and hollers when they don’t get what they want? You let them pout you into submission?
>
> While bartending, one guy told me that his electricity was going to be turned off, because he bought his son a video game with the money for the bill. I told him he was crazy, WTF?! When he told his son “No,” the boy screamed that he hated him, so he bought the game. Sounds to me like the kid was already “playing the game.” :rolleyes: And I know he’s not the only one. Just about everyone I know has a story of a situation like that.
>
> Was that the start of it? A factor in the start of it? 😕
Damn good question! Hard to say, exactly. To me it seems to have happened in lockstep with the increase in the number of parents who want to be friends with their kids instead of parenting them (and the resultant decline in discipline), as in your examples above. “Discipline” means not only the parent correcting the child, but also the parent holding firm in their duties and responsibilities.
It’s been going on to some extent forever, but seems to have gotten progressively worse over the last 2 generations.
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### Author:  [@Carryon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carryon)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2015, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783/43 "2015-07-01T18:37:14Z")
I actually worked with someone, a social worker with a master’s no less, who was like this. I recall we had to take a bus and I got out my bus card and he said something along the lines like, “Oh I left it back at the office.” I replied “OK, let’s go back and get it.” He calmly stated, “Too much trouble I’ll just ask someone for the money.” And sure enough when we got to the subway, he just asked a stranger who gave him the fare.
To him it was absolutely nothing to do this. He stated he not only does this a lot, but he always helps others who ask him.
So I am thinking that perhaps it is just a change in “style of thinking” over the years. I’m sure I do things my parents generation find rude or unacceptable are fine to me.
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### Author:  [@Why\_Child](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_Child)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783/44 "2015-07-02T07:19:01Z")
Possibly another factor in the “entitlement culture” is the amount of aid given to people who just **won’t** get a job. Not the ones that want to work and can’t for various reasons, I mean the ones that take advantage of the system.
Tonight a man came through my line with his four children, one of which was a little girl about 6 or 7 years old. He was pretty much covered with tattoos. I’d bet a good amount of my hard earned money that they were jailhouse tats. (He had “Fuck the police” on his right cheek. He also had a badly done set of “devil’s horns.”) Problems with authority? :dubious:
As he paid for the food portion of his order (with foodstamps,) the little girl is begging him for a temporary tattoo. He looked at me challengingly, and stated “She loves tattoos.” I just nodded and said, “I’ll bet,” which seemed to anger him slightly. :rolleyes:
I’m _ **not** _ saying I want his kids to starve, but this just pisses me off. He has purposely done something to himself that makes him unemployable. We have to support him.
As he is buying her a temporary tattoo, he asks her, “What’s the rule?” Immediately she responds, “I have to wait 'til I’m sixteen.”
We’ll probably support his children. ☹
> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> \
> (Then, there was the guy who hung out in front of the corner grocery store and begged for groceries. His kids preferred sweet cereal. He only begged at the end of the month, and I think he really was feeding his children.)
Without any further details, that’s just sad.
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### Author:  [@Why\_Child](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_Child)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783/45 "2015-07-02T07:21:12Z")
> [@elbows](#):
>
> It doesn’t sound like entitlement to me. It sounds like lack of requirement. As in, his mother isn’t going to require him to get a job, so he won’t.
>
> Try pointing out to him if he doesn’t learn to hold a job, earn pay and support himself, he’ll always be his Mama’s boy. \
**elbows,** I think it is a bit of entitlement. His mother is one of the ones that has told me she spoiled him as best as she could, since “he was raised without a father.” He does _ **no** _ chores. She does his laundry, she washes his dishes. When he comes to our house to visit, whatever he doesn’t eat of his dinner, he just leaves on the plate. He won’t even scrape it into the trash can, because that job belongs to someone else. :mad:
His senior year of high school, he was very politely dumped by his girlfriend of 6 months, because she was working a part-time job, and making plans to go to college. He was smoking weed, playing video games on his mother’s couch.
His last job, he was fired, basically for being a slacker. He made several comments afterwards to the effect that “if he couldn’t say whatever he wanted (cussing) and text his friends whenever he wanted, then he wasn’t going to have a job!!”
I’ve tried explaining to him that she can only take care of him while she’s alive and working. That by the time he’s 40+ and finds himself walking into McD’s with the explanation that his mother can’t take care of him anymore, so he’s decided to get a job… he’s not going to get the job. I’ve tried talking him into going to school, anything, learn a trade if you don’t want to go to college. Nothing.
(Sigh. ☹ )
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### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783/46 "2015-07-02T08:09:56Z")
> [@Why\_Child](#):
>
> (He had “Fuck the police” on his right cheek.
I’m guessing you mean his face and not his ass, but getting a curse word tattooed on your face?!
This guy is unemployable for life basically.
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### Author:  [@Why\_Child](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_Child)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783/47 "2015-07-02T08:54:01Z")
Yes, his face. :eek:
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783/48 "2015-07-02T11:20:06Z")
> [@Why\_Child](#):
>
> (He had “Fuck the police” on his right cheek. He also had a badly done set of “devil’s horns.”)
Not a Sting fan?
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### Author:  [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-children-asking-me-for-money/723783/49 "2015-07-02T13:27:22Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> I’m guessing you mean his face and not his ass, but getting a curse word tattooed on your face?!
>
> This guy is unemployable for life basically.
He could cover it with make up if he wanted to.
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