When Opportunity (and the recession) Knocks

Chuckle #411 | June 30th, 2010
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I can no longer ignore the possibility that my children are spoiled. There is way too much evidence. Teenagers have it easy these days. Aside from occasionally mowing the lawn, they do little actual manual labor. What will happen to them when they enter the “real” world?

My friends and I are worried that we are raising a lost generation of ne’er-do-well freeloaders. We commiserate over organic Foie Gras and Dom Perignon. (Just kidding.) Funny, our parents worried about the same thing. Nor were they shy about telling us exactly what they endured on our behalf.

It goes something like this…

I walked to school all winter, 5 miles each way, BAREFOOT.
I worked five summer jobs to pay for college, because my parents couldn’t spare a dime once the cow died.
I had to clean the rabbits and squirrels that my dad shot for our dinner.

As a child of the 70s, I did none of that. In fact, I suffered very little.

No, when I was a teenager, I selflessly bought myself a convertible with my hard earned summer job money. The fact that my house was peeling was not my concern. In my mother’s day, that money would have gone for college tuition or to put food on the table. By those standards “teenager me” was spoiled, and by those standards, my kids are spoiled rotten.

I think the rising standard of living, new technologies, and John Maynard Keynes are all equally at fault for the current situation. (Ok, maybe I bear SOME responsibility.) Luckily there is hope, but only because we are in a recession. History tells us that there is nothing like a GREAT DEPRESSION, to teach a kid the value of a buck (and of child labor laws.)

The current economic downturn is a blessing in disguise. A new generation of Americans will have lower expectations of economic success and social mobility. A new generation of Americans will be happier with less.

Our kids could learn to live without internet access on their cell phones and without HBO. They could learn to appreciate having a roof over their heads, and food on their plates, and not say things like, pasta? Again?

Then again, thanks to the recession, there aren’t many jobs for teenagers. It’s hard to learn about how to work hard when you can’t get work. No problem. We’ll simply teach our kids the value of hard work the old fashioned way, (no, not by telling them stories of our youth) but by giving them rewarding tasks like painting the house, chopping wood, and cleaning crusty bird poop off the car.

Come to think of it, I’ve got a major “to do” list that will cost me hundreds if not thousands of dollars to complete – IF I hired professionals. But lucky for me, I have unemployed teenagers. Aka FREE labor. (The only hard labor they’ve ever seen is when I gave birth to them.) They owe me.

I will assign them menial tasks and sweaty nasty jobs that I don’t want to do. They will learn about hard work and hard times. They will become better people. They will despise me at first (but thank me when they are 25 and no have to live at home.) I will reward them with home cooked meals. Which they will not eat because they’d rather have Chinese. (Some things will never change.) But I will not shirk from my duty.

Enough with the pampering, coddling, and indulging. This depression (aka recession) is an opportunity that I will not…no…I cannot waste. And once I clue my friends into the free labor lurking on their couch and eating their Fritos, neither will they.

We take our parenting duties seriously. And the house really does need painting.
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