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We were told that we were free to live at home as long as we attended college. If we planned to work and not go to college, we would be allowed a few months to save up to move out but then were expected to leave. And you lived by their rules as long as you lived under their roof - being age 18 did not mean that you could do anything you wanted. A couple of siblings who out stayed their welcome were told to leave.
No one even in my extended family was ever "kicked out" except for one cousin who kept sneaking girls in after his parents went to bed. There weren't any rules requiring you to be on your own at 18, but it was a different economy then anyway, it was far easier to get out and live on your own. I graduated from High School in 1964, the kids I went to school with who didn't go to college got full time jobs and went out and rented their own apartment. Some of them shared with a friend but I knew plenty of kids who rented a place in their own name right after high school. But, that's because there were entry level jobs that paid enough to allow a person to pay rent and buy food, and landlords would rent to young people without a 700 FICO and a 10 year credit history. Try that now..send your 18 year old out and see who will rent to him.
Now, out of high school most jobs are 19 hours a week at minimum wage in fast food. In most parts of the country rent consumes so much of your pay check that even working 40 hours a week at minimum wage won't pay rent. How do you kick your own flesh and blood out in that kind of economy?
By the way, how did you get educated and why didn't they go for it as well?
I talk to the male cousin on Facebook some (never about anything personal) and I might run into the rest of them a few times a year. We certainly aren't close.
I just went to the regional state university. I was an economics major, so maybe I think about these things a little more deeply than most people. I stay current on news, read a lot, peruse C-D, read lots of demographic/"numbers" type stuff, etc., but it's not like I am Ivy League educated or something.
Quote:
Originally Posted by s1alker
Then the only option is for them to leave for a more economically viable area. Or they can just live off the dole (which often ends up being more lucrative than working a part time minimum wage job. In the small rust belt town in PA I grew up in practically everyone was on the dole in one form or another. When the only employment option is Pizza Hut or 7-Eleven can you blame them?
I don't disagree that maybe they should have moved, but especially for the male cousin, the time to do that was years ago before anchoring himself here with a couple of kids. He also lives about 45 minutes away in a much more remote area than I'm in and the immediate economy there is even worse - wife commutes back here to work. For a guy that's only doing temp paint work with a family member's business and a wife working at a nonprofit in a fairly low paying role, on top of soon to be two children, I don't think moving away from their families is smart.
That side of the family came from around Richmond, VA. I still have two great uncles back there whom I've only met once when I drove my grandparents over there, probably five or six years ago. Outside of the extended family in Richmond and two great aunts/uncles who moved to Florida from here back in the 1960s (grandmother has always had the FL bug and would love to go back - even in her 80s), no one on my dad's side of the family have lived outside of upper northeast TN or southwest VA.
I moved back here after a job crisis in Indiana, and now I have a good job and my finances have straightened out. With that said, there are plenty of other places I'd rather live than here, and I doubt I'll be in this area at 35, at the very latest. The rest of the family thinks I am insane for wanting to get to a healthier, more normal location, and thinks things are perfectly fine here.
Last edited by Serious Conversation; 04-04-2017 at 07:48 AM..
I talk to the male cousin on Facebook some (never about anything personal) and I might run into the rest of them a few times a year. We certainly aren't close.
I just went to the regional state university. I was an economics major, so maybe I think about these things a little more deeply than most people. I stay current on news, read a lot, etc., but it's not like I am Ivy League educated or something.
Well I've learned a lot from you by reading your posts. You have excellent insight. You've helped me to see the world outside my bubble.
I can understand why people who live in your area would be reluctant to move. Family bonds are important. It might be your only chance of getting help in life.
However, I think being able to support yourself and your family is also important. It's why I moved after finishing my education. You did the same.
Without an education that develops salable skills, those folks are doomed to $12 per hour jobs at wally world. That's a tough way to make a living.
No one even in my extended family was ever "kicked out" except for one cousin who kept sneaking girls in after his parents went to bed. There weren't any rules requiring you to be on your own at 18, but it was a different economy then anyway, it was far easier to get out and live on your own. I graduated from High School in 1964, the kids I went to school with who didn't go to college got full time jobs and went out and rented their own apartment. Some of them shared with a friend but I knew plenty of kids who rented a place in their own name right after high school. But, that's because there were entry level jobs that paid enough to allow a person to pay rent and buy food, and landlords would rent to young people without a 700 FICO and a 10 year credit history. Try that now..send your 18 year old out and see who will rent to him.
Now, out of high school most jobs are 19 hours a week at minimum wage in fast food. In most parts of the country rent consumes so much of your pay check that even working 40 hours a week at minimum wage won't pay rent. How do you kick your own flesh and blood out in that kind of economy?
Agree - the "kick them out" and "parasite" line of thinking is problematic. I don't think the 18 year old granddaughter should be kicked out. Still, my cousins are not kids. If they need some help to bridge a crisis, that's one thing, but they ought to contribute to the extent they are able. That's my grandmother's concern that they won't and uncle will keep spending and spending on them to his own financial detriment, possibly having to delay retirement or my aunt may have to go back to work.
Uncle kicked out his daughter when she turned 18, then the next thing you know she got into partying and sleeping around, and the baby was born when she was 19 or 20. Kicking the granddaughter out is probably the quickest way to ensure she ends up in the same $12-$15/hr lifetime paycheck to paycheck carousel as the rest of the family. However, being in a family where no one is really doing well and kind of just muddling around some struggling financial/professional baseline, I doubt she'll do much better.
What I don't understand is that my cousin was in numerous metal bands and eventually got signed to a national record label. They put out a few albums. He was really talented, a lot more talented than most local bands. His wife (then girlfriend) have been together since high school and she is very religious. I don't know why he stopped playing music, maybe the girlfriend was too religious, whatever, but it's a shame all this was pretty much tabled and now he's doing temp work.
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Originally Posted by Vision67
Well I've learned a lot from you by reading your posts. You have excellent insight. You've helped me to see the world outside my bubble.
I can understand why people who live in your area would be reluctant to move. Family bonds are important. It might be your only chance of getting help in life.
However, I think being able to support yourself and your family is also important. It's why I moved after finishing my education. You did the same.
Without an education that develops salable skills, those folks are doomed to $12 per hour jobs at wally world. That's a tough way to make a living.
One thing I've noticed from watching probably a dozen great aunts and uncles in their final years, as well as numerous neighbors, family friends, co-congregants, etc., in this area, is that family ties run strong, perhaps too strong to the point that it causes the younger, caregiver family members to struggle.
I posted a thread recently about my grandmother's health and mobility issues. She spent last week with my aunt, who was on vacation for the week. However, grandmother expects my aunt to take her to the salon on Friday, to church on Sunday, and other less than critical tasks. Aunt obliges. What you end up with are seniors either needing or just plain demanding certain levels of services well beyond what the younger family member can often provide.
I don't want to say this is a uniquely local issue, as I'm sure people everywhere have the same problems, but it seems more acute in this area compared to the affluent suburban areas I've lived in. When I originally moved to Iowa five years ago, some of my coworkers in southwest VA coal country basically told me I was quitting on them, the area, and taking the "easy way out, like it was easy to pack everything from TN, haul it fifteen hours out to IA, by myself, and start anew knowing no one. In many situations, people would be proud of someone for doing better and "getting out," but here, the struggle is worn as a badge of honor and those who leave are seen as quitters.
I think you have a responsibility to aid your family to the point that it is reasonable, but an older relative can't sacrifice their own retirement and younger relatives can't sacrifice their careers, on the basis of helping some obstinate relative.
Last edited by Serious Conversation; 04-04-2017 at 08:18 AM..
My personal pet peeve is when people complain about a situation and you start offering possible solutions and each and every suggestion is met with a "reason" why they can't do that, or why that won't work. This thread is sort of starting to go that way. There are many possible solutions to being jobless or underemployed, but all of them require EFFORT and LOTS of it on the part of the un- (or under-) employed individual, and a willingness of their spouse to go along with and support their efforts. This might mean someone working 2 jobs for a time, or one spouse moving temporarily to a place where higher paying jobs are available while living in a rented room, or motor home even, and saving up enough to bring the rest of the family when they have saved enough for rent and a security deposit. The only real answer to the problem, as stated by the OP, is for the individuals to go way out of their comfort zone and find work that pays, wherever that may lead them. My sister-in-law's sister (retired) had a crisis when they needed cash for an operation, she started cleaning homes in a high-end suburb. The suburb was 30 miles from her home, but she knew they were the kind of people that would have the money to pay for her to clean. Eventually that turned into house-sitting too. She loves her "retirement job" and her clients pay her MORE than she charges. She created a job where none existed.
I'm sure all of us on this thread have had times when we found ourselves under the gun financially, and most were able to survive without picking up our family and moving back to our parents' home. If we did have to borrow cash, or share our parents' place for a short time, we were sufficiently embarrassed and motivated to rectify the situation pretty quickly.
Last edited by TheShadow; 04-04-2017 at 08:40 AM..
At age 73 there are quite a number of things I would have done differently if I could go back and re-do them, but reading this thread has made me realize once again that I am so glad I never had children. It's one decision I got right. (And it was a conscious decision; after my ex-wife had been on the pill for five and a half years, I got a vasectomy.)
So why am I reading this thread, you may ask? Because I know other folks, mostly cousins, who are in the position of having to step up to one degree or another to rescue their adult children, including having the children live with them full-time. (Yes, I know most children turn out fine, but even if only one out of 20 is seriously mentally ill it can make the parents' life a living nightmare. I've seen it with one cousin. I don't like the odds. And of course failure to thrive, or failure to launch, falls short of mental illness in most cases.)
My sister's younger daughter, now age 31 or 32, lives at home and last I knew was not working. I go for long periods of time not asking what's up with that daughter because it's such a painful and embarrassing question for my sister to answer. Likewise, my sister rarely mentions that daughter. I can't help but wonder what the situation will be ten or twenty years down the road - my sister is now 70. Perhaps she and her husband are financially able to set up some sort of trust that will support their daughter; they are fairly comfortable but not rich by any means.
This adult daughter is highly educated - two master's degrees, one in art history and one in international relations - but she just can't seem to get any career type job and refuses to settle for less, apparently. I don't think the girl is very bright despite her formal education. If she were my daughter I think I would require working at a fast food joint if that's the best she can do, as the price for living at home. Oh well, not my problem, but I sure feel for my sister andher husband. They have another daughter who is fine - an attorney with stable employment.
Agreed. I'll be 31 in two weeks and have no desire to have children. None. Family doesn't like that decision, but it's not theirs to make.
One of my best friends growing up was a guy whose mother worked for a time as some sort of biologist/naturalist and western NC, and his dad was an engineer who ended up owning a fairly sizable stake in a factory - they ended up multimillionaires. Both of his children were very smart (the daughter has a PhD from Carnegie Mellon), but had numerous DUIs and other legal issues. The son was mentally ill, ultimately committing suicide, and had to have cost them a small fortune. Daughter is a drunk with numerous DUIs, who finally sobered up and straightened up in her early 30s.
The son had numerous legal issues, multiple suicide attempts, hospital stays, psychiatric stays, etc. One child like this can not only break your heart, but financially sink you. That's not even counting other medical issues that are no fault of your own.
I don't want to say this is a uniquely local issue, as I'm sure people everywhere have the same problems, but it seems more acute in this area compared to the affluent suburban areas I've lived in. When I originally moved to Iowa five years ago, some of my coworkers in southwest VA coal country basically told me I was quitting on them, the area, and taking the "easy way out, like it was easy to pack everything from TN, haul it fifteen hours out to IA, by myself, and start anew knowing no one. In many situations, people would be proud of someone for doing better and "getting out," but here, the struggle is worn as a badge of honor and those who leave are seen as quitters.
When the local people demean the young people who leave for a better future, I call that the "crab pot" mentality.
Watch what happens when one crab tries to pull himself out of the pot. The other crabs grab him to pull him back into the pot.
My personal pet peeve is when people complain about a situation and you start offering possible solutions and each and every suggestion is met with a "reason" why they can't do that, or why that won't work. This thread is sort of starting to go that way. There are many possible solutions to being jobless or underemployed, but all of them require EFFORT and LOTS of it on the part of the un- (or under-) employed individual, and a willingness of their spouse to go along with and support their efforts. This might mean someone working 2 jobs for a time, or one spouse moving temporarily to a place where higher paying jobs are available while living in a rented room, or motor home even, and saving up enough to bring the rest of the family when they have saved enough for rent and a security deposit. The only real answer to the problem, as stated by the OP, is for the individuals to go way out of their comfort zone and find work that pays wherever that may lead them.
I'm sure all of us on this thread have had times when we found ourselves under the gun financially, and most were able to survive without picking up our family and moving back to our parents' home. If we did have to borrow cash, or share our parents' place for a short time, we were sufficiently embarrassed and motivated to rectify the situation pretty quickly.
Do I think the male cousin and wife could do better? Absolutely. I think in the four or so months since he's basically been unemployed and doing a little temping that he could have found something permanent. He used to do some desktop support work too. I know SAIC in Oak Ridge is pretty much always hiring anyone with a call center/IT support background for $15-$17/hr. It's not great money, but it beats puttering around here in Kingsport making <$10/hr painting part-time. My guess is that the wife is making under $30,000/yr. She seems to get a lot of emotional fulfillment from her job at the nonprofit, but with a baby and another on the way, they need to earn more income.
The thing is that they (she more than he probably) are deeply tied into the community here. She's well-known at this nonprofit and is frequently on TV when the local stations do stories on it, kind of works as a bit of a face for it, etc. She does charity work for other nonprofits. Her grandfather was a pastor and a public person at the same church they now attend, which is large and has hundreds, if not well over a thousand, members. When they post baby pictures on Facebook, they're almost always getting 500+ likes. That kind of a network is hard to pull yourself from to basically start over at 35.
Ultimately, I think over the next ten years they'd be better served by moving somewhere else that has a healthier economy or getting into higher paying career fields, but I think the short-term pain and inconvenience means it probably won't happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vision67
When the local people demean the young people who leave for a better future, I call that the "crab pot" mentality.
Watch what happens when one crab tries to pull himself out of the pot. The other crabs grab him to pull him back into the pot.
Leaving is the right thing to do.
Definitely.
My peers who grew up in a middle class and above background here haven't seemed to face the same problems. They were expected to achieve, whether here or elsewhere. The uncle who employs the uncle in the OP is a 1%er for the area - his daughters were expected to go to the state flagship, participate in extracurricular stuff in high school that would prep them for college, get useful degrees and a good job, etc. Neither one of his daughters are intellectually gifted, but that uncle, in spite of all of his other problems, did sort of "change the family culture" to where his daughters are unlikely to end up on $12/hr Wally World carousel.
Those of us from a more working class background have been expected to put "family first," regardless of what that does to our own situation. My parents are pushing 60 and are disappointed that I don't like living in this area. I've told them I will likely not stay here for my entire life, and that I may not always be able to come back and help them if they choose to remain here and start having issues down the line. I will do what I reasonably can, but cannot come back here and make $10/hr if they refuse to move and get to where they can't take care of themselves down the line.
I am friends with probably a dozen people around my parents' age or older from the affluent community I lived in outside of Indianapolis. All of them are white collar professionals. Many are in the private sector and affluent. Some are in the public sector or lower earning industries. The majority have graduate degrees. The majority seem reasonably financially secure. Most of their children are grown, productive, in professional jobs or in good colleges, and well-adjusted.
I'm not saying you can't find that here, but it seems to be rare. It's certainly nowhere near as visible. Instead of the local Chamber of Commerce meeting or the newest company moving in, the local headlines are about who got busted for opoids last night or what stupid crime some low life got caught for.
It truly is a different world here and I have to be careful not to fall into the same patterns that have screwed up a lot of my family and fellow townspeople.
Last edited by Serious Conversation; 04-04-2017 at 09:42 AM..
My kids moved to the San Francisco area because of the tremendous opportunities there in high tech. They make enough to afford the housing. They would never consider moving back here in spite of the fact that Colorado Springs is a beautiful place to live and we do have many jobs available. Each generation ought to be free to do their own thing.
My solution is a $200 round trip plane ticket from Denver to San Fran. We can still see them whenever they want us to come and that way we both can live our own lives. My 3 year old grand daughter know how to use facetime to see us whenever she wants.
Do I think the male cousin and wife could do better? Absolutely. I think in the four or so months since he's basically been unemployed and doing a little temping that he could have found something permanent. He used to do some desktop support work too. I know SAIC in Oak Ridge is pretty much always hiring anyone with a call center/IT support background for $15-$17/hr. It's not great money, but it beats puttering around here in Kingsport making <$10/hr painting part-time. My guess is that the wife is making under $30,000/yr. She seems to get a lot of emotional fulfillment from her job at the nonprofit, but with a baby and another on the way, they need to earn more income.
...
Ultimately, I think over the next ten years they'd be better served by moving somewhere else that has a healthier economy or getting into higher paying career fields, but I think the short-term pain and inconvenience means it probably won't happen.
My peers who grew up in a middle class and above background here haven't seemed to face the same problems. They were expected to achieve, whether here or elsewhere. The uncle who employs the uncle in the OP is a 1%er for the area - his daughters were expected to go to the state flagship, participate in extracurricular stuff in high school that would prep them for college, get useful degrees and a good job, etc. Neither one of his daughters are intellectually gifted, but that uncle, in spite of all of his other problems, did sort of "change the family culture" to where his daughters are unlikely to end up on $12/hr Wally World carousel.
Those of us from a more working class background have been expected to put "family first," regardless of what that does to our own situation. My parents are pushing 60 and are disappointed that I don't like living in this area. I've told them I will likely not stay here for my entire life, and that I may not always be able to come back and help them if they choose to remain here and start having issues down the line. I will do what I reasonably can, but cannot come back here and make $10/hr if they refuse to move and get to where they can't take care of themselves down the line.
I am friends with probably a dozen people around my parents' age or older from the affluent community I lived in outside of Indianapolis. All of them are white collar professionals. Many are in the private sector and affluent. Some are in the public sector or lower earning industries. The majority have graduate degrees. The majority seem reasonably financially secure. Most of their children are grown, productive, in professional jobs or in good colleges, and well-adjusted.
I'm not saying you can't find that here, but it seems to be rare. It's certainly nowhere near as visible. Instead of the local Chamber of Commerce meeting or the newest company moving in, the local headlines are about who got busted for opoids last night or what stupid crime some low life got caught for.
It truly is a different world here and I have to be careful not to fall into the same patterns that have screwed up a lot of my family and fellow townspeople.
Charles Murray's latest book "Coming Apart" addresses some of these concerns. Well maybe "identifies" is the more appropriate verb rather than "addresses."
Anyhow, my hometown of Kansas City has both of these demographics at work -- the northern and southwestern suburbs and the Plaza area (in the city proper) tend to produce high-achieving, college-bound, white collar children. The southeastern and some of the eastern suburbs tend to produce the "want fries with that" kids. It's been that way for decades.
The impact of high-achieving high schools versus middling or poor high schools is IMHO a huge factor. Some people assert it is the effect not the cause, but I see the local education options as a reflection of the adult culture.
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