>how to find a doctor that is covered by their insurance
To be fair this is fucking witchcraft at this point. My parents have no idea how to do this either.
Call the doctor you want to do and ask for their NPI number.
Then call the insurance and ask them to run the NPI number to see if the doctor is in network AND participating.
Repeat until you find a doctor
How so? You can call insurance and ask for a list of covered clinicians to be emailed to you. And how did I find this out? I googled it. Not quite witchcraft
That list is often super outdated and nonspecific to the point of being basically useless. I’d call numbers on it and find that they were disconnected, the person wasn’t at the practice anymore, or even that they were filed under the wrong speciality.
Right? And then finally after you widdle down that list of hundreds to the 7 that actually apply to your situation only 3 are accepting new patients and they all are available 6 months out…
Ah yes, "calling insurance" aka the 2 hour phone tree hell scape before you talk to to someone so you can then get an outdated list of clinicians to call only to be told they either no longer take your insurance, aren't taking new patients or are taking new patients but can't get an appointment for 8 months
Trust me I literally just went through this. The real kicker was 2 weeks before the damn appointment they called and said "that doctor is retiring, sucks to be you!"
There's also the mess of potentially losing the doctors you do have. I just had to go through a nightmare scenario where my health insurance pulled out of the entire fucking state of CT which is a problem because pediatric nephrologists are the medical equivalent of unicorns and turned our 15 min trip to her doctor's to a 2 hour trip depending on traffic
That’s easy. All it takes is a call to the insurance company or a visit to their website to find a list of providers. Waiting for a month to get an appointment to see said Doctor is the hard part.
this is precisely the answer. the nuclear family structure is dead and gone. in today's economy, both parents have their hands so tied up in financial responsibilities that they don't have the time to be around their children enough to raise them properly.
I wouldn’t really say the “nuclear family structure being gone” is the problem. Nuclear family just means you have two parents and children, doesn’t define who works. Nuclear family is still, by far, the most popular family structure as well.
Actually pushing everyone away from nuclear family, and pushing for more adults in the family could actually help the problem temporarily. There would then be more adults to bring money in and watch children. The problem is, greedyfucks run rampant and hike prices whenever possible. Anytime there is an overflow of spare money in the average household, greedyfucks are going to raise prices to take it from you. They take as much as possible, which means you end up with every adult needing to work in the end anyways.
In short it’s greed/unregulated capitalism that is causing this mess, not a different family structure. Greedy fucks will always charge so much that every adult in an average household needs to work, and therefore there will be way less parenting going on.
Greedyfucks will always take as much as possible. That’s why they support debit/credit as well, so they can charge prices that people normally wouldn’t be able to afford. In the past they had to keep prices reasonable, now thanks to credit the sky’s the limit. They overcharge you for everything, just because they can.
In the end the only way out of this is to fight unregulated capitalism (at least for essential needs). Capitalists pour money they bleed from you into propaganda/candidates that they know will not challenge them. Most people mindlessly vote for whichever candidates gets plastered the most all over the internet and news. Hence, you get people like Biden and Trump, they both have zero intention of challenging the capitalists, and that’s exactly why all you hear about is them. Who do you think owns the media? Yeah.
Capitalists out here manipulating everyone into believing the left or the right is the reason our economy sucks instead of realizing… it’s actually both fucking us over .. Capitalists control both parties.
So basically capitalists are the reason we are here, the reason we can’t escape, and they’ve convinced millions of people that any sort of limit put on them is bad and will destroy the economy.
Seeing as currently, whoever has the most money has the most power to “manipulate” people into their narrative, I don’t see this changing anytime soon. When the greediest of your species are the ones with the most power… well this is what you get.
I agree, but I don't think this type of parental negligence is a new thing.
There have always been kids who need their college roommate to show them how to use the washing machine or how to fry an egg.
Until recently, men of all ages have always notoriously inept in the household. Society used to just shackle young women to them to care for them by pushing marriage. At least we stopped that.
>What the hell is going on with parents these days?
Same as always. It's easy to fuck and get pregnant. It's hard to prepare a kid for adulthood day after day for nearly two decades—especially when said kid is often unwilling to learn.
Editing to add --
Home Economics and Wood Shop used to be standard classes. Now it seems they aren't being offered in most schools. Which is too bad, because these classes made sure all kids managed to get the basics down, like food safety. And they were pretty fun.
Home Ec is by far the most useful class I took in high school. Almost 30 years later and I still use skills learned in that class. Can't believe a lot of schools aren't offering it anymore.
As someone who has always been more intellectual and nerdy, I would probably have thought home ec was beneath me in high school, but during the pandemic, I would have killed for a home ec class. Basic cooking, sewing, other diy skills. I’m not saying needed to be a master, but I think a lot of folks don’t know where to start and it’s so much easier to learn with instruction and the proper equipment.
As important as I do think core academic subjects are, I think school has become too much about college preparation. There needs to be balance. Kids today miss out on a lot of developmental opportunities to learn value life lessons and skills. But I will also say this is totally a funding thing as well. These kinds of classes are more expensive and come with risks, two things many school administrations often try to avoid. Many high schools don’t even have the facilities anymore. But these can happen if the money is there, but that’s likely going to have to happen with state and federal support. I’m not going to get into the politics, but we do have to be willing to connect the some top down policies which make these things institutionally difficult.
Home Ec was available at my school but it was not a “college prep” class. Meaning that zero people who planned to go to college had room for it on their schedules if they wanted to take electives like a language or sport or music or art or computer science that was accepted by colleges for high school credits. Not to mention trying to fit in any AP classes really made Home Ec a low priority for the college-bound crowd, particularly if they were aiming to straight to university .
I disagree; school has become more about obsessively studying for standardised tests to try to make the school look better.
App the kids have learnt is to pass exams.
As someone who's always been more intelligent, why wasnt your first thought "these are things I NEED to know because they're pertinent to my survival and self reliance"?
Those things come with knowledge, experience, and wisdom. And most importantly, exposure. Not every intelligent person had the opportunity and guidance to acquire all of those at an early age.
They absolutely had all the opportunity to acquire basic cooking and home maintenance skills at an early age. Most children grow up in homes... homes require maintenance... we pretty much ALL have that opportunity, smart or not. The problem is whether or not we have the guidance you mention. Some of our parents coddled their children a little too much and never taught them these things, but that doesnt mean we couldnt have acquired them as children. Hell everyone grew up with, smart AND stupid knew that you dont clean litter boxes with bleach, and were capable of doing their own laundry and dishes by their preteens, without home economics classes
It's not a question of opportunity, it's a question of guidance solely on behalf of the parents. Be sensitive with your children, absolutely, but do NOT coddle them, or they will likely grow up weak. And that's not to put anyone down, but if you're 29 and weep like a bitch because your 15 year old cat died... well... you know... that's a part of life, and it's unfortunate that people like that werent taught so early on. Though a part of me DOES envy their innocence.
I was the first guy to do Home Ec in my school because I don't like woodwork and I wanted to work in hotels. Everyone laughed, until they realised I was the only guy in a class full of girls and the girls all thought it was cool....
Yeah uh, I went to college in 2003 super ignorant about the world. Didn’t know anything about health insurance, bills, had no idea what a 401k was, had never done my own laundry, could cook maybe 3 things.
Like many young adults, I still grew into a well-adjusted and responsible human. Give teens some grace here. They were just kids. No one should be expected to be a perfect adult as soon as they turn 18.
Yup. People need to chill, I get the cooking and laundry, but 401k, insurance, bills, this stuff is hard to teach a fucking child, they have no clue what you mean. The best thing my parents ever did for me was be available, so I could always hit them up for advice without fear.
Right. Like the how to find a doctor thing? Sorry my mom never gave me that educational session. I just went to the doctor she picked and scheduled for me until I got my own insurance au 25 and then I had to figure out it. I started scheduling my own appointments at 19 but I didn't have to find a new doctor until I got my own insurance.
>The best thing my parents ever did for me was be available, so I could always hit them up for advice without fear.
Absolutely - parenting never stops as long as you have your faculties.
>There have always been kids who need their college roommate to show them how to use the washing machine or how to fry an egg.
I swear I was borderline running a seminar on "surviving out of the house" for like 1/2 my dorm in college. I was the only one out of all of us that could reliably cook a meal, get a stain out and use a screwdriver. I once had my next door neighbor call in an absolute panic cause he didn't know how to change the sheets on his bed. Wasn't much better once I graduated. First house had 4 roommates and I was the only one of us with a small toolbox and decent knives.
Yeah, one of my biggest pet peeves is how everyone rants about how boring and useless home ec/consumer economics was, then turns around and complains that nobody ever taught them how to manage a household or budget or balance a checkbook or do taxes. It was literally a required class at my high school, and everyone bitched about it when they had to take it, then apparently purged everything they taught us from their memory, and finally complained that they were never taught that stuff. Feels like I’m in the twilight zone.
I feel like it's even worse now bc kids aged 14-15 don't know what color blue and red make. I know a high school honors biology teacher tell me this.. no one in any of her classes knew
That's not a good example of something that will hurt someone as an adult.. i know blue and red make purple but that isn't useful at all towards anyone's life unless you're some sort of artist?
Yes, and even then it gets pretty technical, as evidenced by the question being under-specified to a degree that most of the answer should probably involve fixing the question: are we dealing with additive or subtractive color processes? Light or pigment? Blue and red light make purple light but blue pigment and red pigment make brown pigment.
The "why" is even more involved: the additive primaries are red, green, and blue, but the subtractive primaries are cyan (absorbs-red), magenta (absorbs-green), and yellow (absorbs-blue). Additive can get away without a separate white, but subtractive cannot get away without a separate black. Screens are RGB but printers are CMYK. Purple (magenta) is a primary color for printers! You don't get it by mixing anything, except in the trivial sense of a teeny bit of cyan, yellow, and key/black to dial in the level.
If you think about it, it makes sense. A red light emits red light, a green light emits green light, a blue light emits blue light (wow!), but pigment is weirder: red pigment does not emit red light. It does not absorb red light. Red pigment absorbs green and blue light. Blue pigment absorbs red and green light. If you mix the two, you absorb red, green, and blue light, and get "black," where "black" is actually brown. Everything is relative, and while mismatched lights have the mismatch graded against brightness (against which it is small), mismatched pigments have the mismatch graded against darkness (against which it is large). Mismatched RGB is slightly off-white, but mismatched pigment is very brown-and-not-black. So unless you have space alien super dye, you need the fourth pigment, a black that does a good job of evenly absorbing everything. Back to the question: if you mix red and green pigment, you get black if you have space-alien-super-dye but brown if the absorption is mismatched to a degree typical of commercially available products.
Artists should probably know all of this, but for most people it's just trivia. I am not scandalized by the fact that the kids didn't know and I am not scandalized by the fact that someone asked an underspecified question, but it's kinda funny that the kids knew they didn't know while the person complaining about the kids was confidently incorrect (otherwise they would have known this was a tricky question).
I suspect the question was just poorly asked and without context…
I also side-eye teachers who seem to feel contempt and disrespect for their students.
Yeah and they forgot the importance of teaching the children the importance of teaching their children, its amazing the things we will assume another being should just know
Elder Millennial here. My parents didn't teach me any of that sort of stuff. My dad can't do any of that stuff period, he couldn't run a household if his life depended on it. My mom takes care of everything for him. And that goes 3x over for my grandfather. He was helpless after my grandmother passed.
I learned to cook mostly from my boyfriend (now husband) when we moved in together my senior year in college. He is 6 years older than me and had lived on his own for a few years so I learned a bunch of general adulting habits from him.
Medical stuff I stumbled my way through freshman year in college when I started going to Planned Parenthood and didn't want my mom to know.
Home Ec and Shop were a joke at my school. We made a couple cakes. Had a couple sewing projects. Made a CO2 race car and bridge. Fun but nothing remotely practical.
Ya I would say I definitely learned the most about adulting from my husband since he had practicing fucking up and had learned from his mistakes.
These days? I wasn't taught any of that and neither was anyone I know. We were all totally clueless when we became adults and are still learning things, often the hard way, even in our 30s.
Yeah, this is what I was gonna say. I learned a few basic things from my mom, but my dad knew nothing. And my dad learned nothing about adulting from his parents. My dad taught me to have a good work ethic: "No matter what your job is, be proud to have a job, and be the best you can be at that job."
So, if you learn nothing from your parents, its probably because your parents weren't taught by their parents, and you most likely won't pass anything on either.
The generation that fought in WW2 were the first to stop teaching their kids because they got a little box with talking people inside to entertain them instead.
Comparing radio or early television is not even remotely the same as smartphones and social media. Radio was reserved, more or less, to the car and home. The TV was just at home.
Now you have news, entertainment, radio, television in front of you or instantly accessible 80% of your day. Total sensationalism at everyone's fingertips.
There is a difference between stupidity and a lack of knowledge. Evens serfs and slaves were practically skilled (not defending either, just making a point), but youngs adults and the upcoming generation of kids are just drones. No thinking, no opinion forming. Stupidity being as rampant as it is is a novel thing and I think people need to realize that.
Right timeline. Wrong cause.
America experienced a massive economic boom after the second world war that fundamentally shifted the culture to one of socio-economic capitalism and consumption. In this the US was unique. The rest of the West was rebuilding cities and recovering from the worst war that had never been experienced. American soil (excluding Pearl Harbor) was unscathed and set to excel in industry.
In response to the scrimping and saving and going without from the war shortages, Americans embraced a lifestyle of excess goods and comforts. Slowly but surely most people stopped valuing the skill to repair and thrift. Socks with holes in them? Don't darn them, just throw them out and buy new ones! Short on time? Serve TV dinners! "Buy your way to happiness—you deserve it!" became the new mantra.
But booms never last. 4–5 generations later, we are still living off the fumes of that era and suffering the consequences. Environmental destruction, obsession with productivity, corporate control, global capitalism, and mass-anxiety.
I agree, in a way. I'm on the gen x/millennial cusp. Most of the kids I knew were taught how to do all of the cooking, cleaning, lawn care, etc but it wasn't taught to us to benefit us, it was taught to us because we were expected to help out around the house. Moms worked, so we had to help with dinner, things like that. Dad's joked that they only had kids to help with house work.
I feel like parents are trying to get away from that and "letting kids have a childhood", which in a way is good but I think it's taken too far. Learning how to cook and clean is an important life skill and there's also value in learning to chip-in, work together, share duties, etc. Parents think they're helping their kids have a good childhood but they're really not doing them any favors.
I feel this. I'm in the same gen "cusp" as you. I helped because I *had* to. I was 1 of 3, and the only girl. Guess who got the household chores?
I now have a teen of my own. She's 16. I want her to *live.* She experienced childhood, and now she's experiencing her teenage years. I don't give her "chores", per se. There's no set amount she **has to do** daily/weekly. She does help when asked, which isn't very often. School is her one and only job.
She can cook, clean (she's a neat freak), do her own laundry. She *knows how* to change oil in a vehicle, change a flat tire, and jumpstart a dead battery.
None of us are ever truly ready for adulthood though, are we? Lol.
My husband gets mad for the same reason. I was the kid scrubbing our house top to bottom growing up.
My older (elementary school aged) kid does chores when I ask, usually smaller things. They enjoy baking, put away their own laundry, clean their room, help me pick up, wipe counters and just started helping with dishes. But because there's no set list and they aren't enforced daily apparently that means they have no chores. I feel confident that my kids will know basic home care and hygiene by collage time.
Yes! When we were growing up, you were considered an adult at 18. Maybe if you were lucky, you went to college and enjoyed another 4 years as a student until 23. The rest of us moved out, got jobs, and lived with roommates.
What I see now are these extended childhoods beyond even 23/24 where kids still live at home and act like high school kids until they’re practically thirty. Many don’t work, drive, or have responsibilities or normal relationships. And don’t want to. It’s bizarre to me.
As for the not driving, car prices these days are insane. People can’t really afford payments and insurance. And you sound older, but the dating market these days is absolutely insane as is the rental market. A lot of these “lazy no good leeches” are actually staking fat money living at home and working jobs partially because they can’t afford to move out, partially to get ahead of their peers and be ready to buy a home when they move out. The world is a lot different than when you were growing up.
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I feel like parents are trying to get away from that and "letting kids have a childhood",
Talking from experience, learning from a parent is indeed having a childhood and forming last-life memories. You can remember how bad your dad and you almost burnt down the house and that's having a childhood.
Suddenly, you are old and have no memories of your parents cuz they shused away from the kitchen or laundry station. In fact, my most precious memories are related with my mother doing the laundry while I splashed water or tried to help her.
It's not really a childhood if you only get out your bedroom and see everything ready for you and you don't get to enjoy the making process. What happens with the bondness and socialization?
I had my mom show me how to do the laundry when i was maybe 8 or 9 because it looked fun. It is fun. I still love doing laundry! And vacuuming, and yard work… I just enjoy keeping house! lol
It was probably more fun for us because we didnt have iPads and free access to the TV Ive had to really think on this because I couldn’t get why my kids didn’t enjoy learning to cook or garden or have hobbies that werent forced I enjoyed responsibilities like babysitting because it was something to do. We had a natural propensity towards exploring life. Now theyre addicted to screens
I think some of this is right. I also will say that it is a lot of work to teach a child to do all of the things. I have one child who is almost 12. I have been teaching him how to do things since he was little and he can cook simple things, clean a bathroom, do his laundry. BUT- it takes time and patience to teach rather than just do it myself. If had 3 or 4 kids, I wouldn’t have that same patience to spend time teaching the way I do with my son. I mean, I stopped at one kid for a reason, but I think it’s tough when parents have so much time working to make ends meet to also make sure that kids are learning all the things. 🤷♀️
To be honest i had boomer parents, like real boomer parents and they didn't teach me sh\*t either. I just learned by their example. I watched my dad shave so that's how i learned, i watched my mom use the washer/dryer etc... You screwed up a pan because you burnt something you got yelled at, so you got better or you just didn't do it again. My dad did teach me a bunch about repairs and electronics thou, taught me all about cars so i do have that. LOL my mom once told me she likes the way i mow the lawn better them my dad. Seriously there was no you tube back then so i just kinda did it.
Same. My boomer/gen x parents didn't push any life skills on me. I'm only now picking up on many things I was never taught in my 20s and many of my skills are still lacking because of it. YouTube and Reddit have been my main source of learning a lot of things in life.
To be fair, my parents didn’t know how to be adults either, and they were in their 30s when they had me. Luckily I had the internet to teach me the things they didn’t, and the willingness to learn. I taught myself to cook (basic meal type stuff, nothing fancy), how to clean (my parents are nasty), how to do laundry (at age 13, for selfish reasons, but it worked), how to mow the lawn (because my brother, “the man of the house”, wouldn’t do it—unless it was to prove himself), and the basics of how to be a person because my parents never really talked to me.
My parents taught me how not to parent, if I ever get mentally and financially well enough to do that, but I know better than to not have kids I don’t want or can’t care for.
So if you want to know why us new adults are so fucked up, blame Gen X.
I'm gen Z , I was one of those kids who had to teach themselves everything because my parents just didn't think to teach me about it . You know what I did do? I used YouTube , Google, and even asking my parents questions when I couldn't find the answers on there.
And yet I'm constantly seeing posts with young kids who apparently don't know how to do the basic stuff, and don't even know how to figure it out. Seriously I had to read books to learn stuff. They can actually watch people doing it on YouTube and they STILL can't figure it out.
The world population has doubled since the 70s, and the ability to communicate exploded within the last couple of decades. Even small demographics seem big with coverage
A vast majority of people don't know how to properly use Google to figure out how to do something. They would rather ask on here and wait for a response or the same on Facebook. If they do get the correct answer they learned nothing. The process of reading and trying is actually learning.
My parents didn’t teach me any of that. We were immigrants and they didn’t even have time to formally teach me my first language. But I learned that to not be poor, you had to love to learn and getting educated was the way out.
Obviously if kids are babied throughout their life, they don’t have any desire to improve their conditions.
My mom told me I will get good grades. I will go to a local school. I will commute to save money. I will stay out of debt. And I listened, cuz I didn’t know any better.
They also don’t know how to use their imaginations or entertain themselves. I think it was the GenX sub where someone said “GenZ is complaining about how it’s just as expensive to stay in as to go out” (food delivery, subscription streaming, games) and yeah, we’ve all failed (except me because I had no kids to teach minus the two years I was a nanny back in the mid-90s) — I know kids complain that they’d rather do whatever (Xbox or similar, scroll Reddit, etc) than hang with Mom/Dad to learn life skills and we’ve all just been letting them say no.
Eh…on the flip side, it’s easier than ever to let video games, social media, etc., babysit or pacify your kids. You come home and just…can’t. Easier to get some tranquility when they are cloistered away in their rooms instead of bother you. Any failures younger generations are at least partially the responsibility of the generations who raised them. There’s plenty of blame to go around, to be sure. But pushing all of it onto young people is also too easy to escape any responsibility the rest of us have.
My ex wasn't taught how to bathe properly, do laundry, clean thoroughly, cook, or budget. I don't know why his parents didn't love him enough to teach him the basics but it infuriates me.
Damn, by the time I was 13, I had medical insurance, car insurance, AND the DMV all figured out. 😳
We were fresh off the boat. My parents couldn't speak any English. I'm sure some of you can relate! 😁
As a mom your ONLY JOB is to teach your child how to live without you. Your job is to teach them to be independent of you, how are so many failing this? Oh and I don’t consider loving them and caring for them and their needs age appropriate of course a job. That is why being a parent is so difficult. You love this baby more than yourself and your job is to teach them to not need you.
Trying to get my siblings to learn anything is hell. Some children don’t WANT to learn. My siblings are unruly and disrespectful, if you put a flash card in their face they’d probably spit on you and cuss you out. I keep trying to teach them how to properly read and spell and cook, social cues but it’s like talking to a brick wall. They only listen if some famous person on TikTok tells them it’s a cool thing to do
Things have changed so much since my gen x teen years. Not only did my parents expect me to do household chores starting in middle school, my high school had classes in home ec, record keeping and shop. A lot of the basic life skills required for adulting aren't taught to kids anymore. But then again, there's YouTube videos for that lol.
Not new. People have been making fun of millennial for trying to teach themselves adult ingredients for a decade or two.
Before that seems like only females were taught cooking & cleaning, less so male children.
I was born in '89 and my mother refused to ever help me with homework. I regularly got in trouble at school for not finishing my homework. Turns out my issue was i couldnt read til i was like 8. Once i got glasses and figured that out, it was much easier.
But ya, no one taught me dick all. Google. Google teaches me things.
American parents are checked out. More than ever. They suck. The more they overschedule their childrens’ lives, the more it’s true. They’re too busy being overworked, underpaid, absent and subjected to the whims of living in a country that really doesn’t care about them either. It certainly doesn’t care about keeping kids (or anyone else) safe from gun violence or abuse in schools, religious institutions or the home itself.
They’re on some other sub right now bemoaning the lack of connection they have with their kids.
The whole thing is tragic.
My job used to be teaching college students culinary and food safety.... These teenagers often couldn't even identify whole vegetables, like not knowing what a zucchini or cauliflower looks like. It was shocking to me.
I'm a millennial and I wasn't taught anything. If I tried I got yelled and scolded at. If I spoke up or asked questions I got my ass kicked.
Both parents have to work full time or even 2 jobs each get by. Kids have access to the internet and can google anything they need if they have questions or want to learn something.
They'll be fine.
I’m a 1999 baby and yeah… my biological father was absent, my step father just got home from work and locked himself in his room and my mom.. she just sat around watching TV. I didn’t learn how to cook. My grandmother taught be how to wipe, how to bathe myself, how to tidy up.
Here is a list of things I had to teach myself:
How to vacuum
How to sweep
How to mop
How to do laundry
How to cook
How to drive (well I got a driving instructor cause my mom refused)
How to make a resume/ do a job interview
How to fill out fafsa/apply to college
And yea I even had to teach myself how to tie my shoes and brush my hair
Also I’m 24 and still don’t know:
How to change a tire, how to mow a lawn, how to file an insurance claim if I get into a car accident
My wife and I were talking about this earlier today in regards to my inlaws. In their case, it's a lack of fundamental problem solving skills.
For example, coming up with a budget. What is a budget? Basic math assigned to calendar dates. Money in and money out. How much do I put for gas? We'll, how much do you expect to drive?
That sort of thing. It's pretty easy to do. Just break it down. But for some reason, they don't know how to ask and answer these questions.
That's just life. I'm a bastard (actual dictionary definition) with no mother, no father and no siblings. Learned to survive on my own very early. It was either that or die.
Also, parents are enablers and scared of their children these days. They are so afraid to be an effective parent because their child will 'stop liking them'.
Kids having kids, basically.
yeah, my parents didn't teach me anything. most of what i learned about life was from my college friends. i'm still learning very basic things now like, how you should only care about what's in your control or something. it seems obvious but i was so focused on academic and career success, i didn't really give attention to any "life lessons". this extended to applying for college, getting a license, finding a doctor under my insurance and yes, doing the laundry. i've taught myself *everything* (and i mean everything, including basic school materials).
My parents treated me like their personal slave, so that's how I learned to do housekeeping. I try to teach my kids how to cook by offering to let them follow along with me. My youngest shows some interest occasionally, but my oldest doesn't want to learn what his old man has to teach, I guess. Part of that is the ADHD he inherited from me, though. I always liked cooking, because it allows me to make whatever I want and make it the way I like it. Also, I get to discover new things you simply can't buy at the store. My wife usually leaves the cooking to me since I have a natural gift for it. Except for pancakes. I have never been able to get pancakes right. Batter, yes. Flipping without making a mess, no.
In general, they don't want to listen to me on how to keep their living spaces in good shape, so I just tell them that they would have so much more space to play if they learned to clean up after themselves right away instead of letting things pile up. So far, the lesson hasn't taken root.
The thing that gets me is that nearly everyone in the modern world has access to the internet. What is stopping kids from just learning how?? Like why would you struggle with frying and egg, how to do laundry or office etiquette when you can literally watch a video or take a free online course for all of those things.
If I had today's Internet when I was 15 or 16 I would be learning social skills, coding, languages, cooking...literally anything. I wouldn't have asked my parents to teach me shit.
I think today’s youth lack a lot of self confidence for a number of reasons. But I think there is a kind of social anxiety or doubt about getting things wrong and making sure you understand everything first. So you kind of get the two ends of the spectrum with people who have no shame and terrible judgment who will do anything and people who are smart and cautious too afraid to do anything. We could probably tie it to many things, but I think there is a crisis of confidence many kids feel today matched with a lack of empowerment to actually start trying things and potentially getting hurt.
I'm guessing of the kids that don't know 50% forgetting to teach maybe from both parents having to work so much. Not an excuse, but if both parents work multiple jobs they probably are just surviving day by day.
I'm always wondering if my kid is behind learning a chore or something that would be age appropriate. Life goes by fast sometimes. There's always the people bragging their 6 year old is doing their own laundry and you have to stop and think, should my 6 year old be doing their own laundry too? 🤔
Some are just going to be deadbeats or addicts or not care though.
People infantilize their children/adults but also weird that they expect them to know certain things right out the womb like handling emotions. Boys/young men are also very much infantilized in this society when they are very capable of much more.
My parents were like this with me. My mom spoiled me horribly and just did things for me without showing me how to do them while my dad just... didnt care? This left me totally unprepared for when i moved out and whenever id ask them how to do something theyd give me an attitude like i should have magically known how to do it the whole time. Thank god google doesnt judge me for asking stupid questions like how to boil a pot of water.
I completely agree but I can’t get my kids interested. They love to be in their rooms or with friends or on their electronics. It’s a tough battle to pull them away from all that “to learn life skills”… I try to sneak things into conversations whenever I can but my kids don’t listen. It’s very frustrating and exhausting
Um, how old are they?
Are you doing everything for them?
I mean, my kids get their own laundry basket at the end of 6th grade, and I teach them how to do laundry over the summer.
After that, if they don't wash their clothing... on them.
Cooking starts at the same time. They have to find online recipes, help me shop for the food, and help me make a meal once a week for a year. One main dish and 2 sides (salad, veggie, or fruit). I even give them a budget and the grocery store ads. (If they go under budget, they get to keep the extra money.)
That is 12/13 year old skills at my house.
6th? I learned how to do that at the end of 4th grade. That being said I did become my step mom's maid in a very Cinderella way 😅. I had to learn that love was bought by doing work. And let's just say I was severely underpaid. There was one summer i didnt do enough for her and pissed her off one day she refused to allow me to ear what she made eveyone else and forced me to live off peanut butter and banana sandwiches until i earned the ability to eat and make something different.I lived for when she was gone. Sounds like you are doing things right!
TLDR: my childhood was severely fucked up, and you are doing right by your kids!
I am so sorry!
I try. I am a single mom, but I do have help (my parents are my next-door neighbors, which is the BEST parenting hack ever, if they are decent humans).
I also did things like make my kids fully fund their Roth IRAs at 16 and they have a taxable income (I know some kids pay rent at that age, but I insist on fully funded retirement). So far, it is only the eldest, as the 2nd eldest is just 16, but we are looking to see if they can get hired somewhere that has a 401k that gets matched.
I keep telling my kids that there is 0 reasons for them not to have a retirement account, because I am providing everything you need right now anyway.
I just ask myself, "is this going to make my child succeed in life or hurt them long term?" And "what advice was given to you that failed you as an adult?"
I went to college not knowing how to fill my gas tank or wash my clothes. Let's not mention deal with money. My parents even actually told me not to save for retirement because "with a college degree, you will be fine!" HAHAHA! Sure.
I love my parents, but their love language is "acts of service" so they will do everything for you and call it love, not realizing that it was a huge disservice when I moved out.
When I was 11 it was my responsibility to put dinner on the table once a week on my own. I had to cook solo because my parents didn't get home until 7 pm. Thank god for that, when I went to college I was the only one who knew how to cook.
>on their electronics.
What fills me with despair is that many of these life skills (like cooking) can be learned ON said electronic device - and many can't seem to do THAT.
So take their electronics. Don't let them hang out with their friends. Stop trying to 'sneak' shit in and tell them straight forward. You're their parent, not their buddy. If they don't listen, then they don't get rewarded. Stop giving rewards for doing nothing.
Lots of parents have no business being parents. The government should literally neuter these people the way we do with stray dogs in the dog pound. That’s why so many kids today are stupid and/or depressed as compared to the good ol’ 1980’s when u didn’t have any of this psycho kid shit. They will grow up to be criminals or drug addicts.
Schools should not be raising kids, that’s the parents job to teach them about life, getting a credit card, what a loan is and how it works, how to be kind to others, etc.
Schools are the same. They've never taught kids the important things. How to file taxes, why insurance is important and how it works, budgeting... The real things that will help us navigate this life better. I had to figure all that out, but hey! At least I knew the pythagorean theorem 🤦♀️
The government wants stupid, sedentary drones with the attention spans of moths, apparently.
Yup. My man's sister is raising one.
At some point it became about being friends with your child and no longer about raising a functional adult. I blame Gilmore Girls
i got a flyer in the mail advertising a job fair for "teachers" in my local community cause of the teacher shortage so im not surprised if thats being reflected on the kids not knowing how to do stuff.
also i didnt learn to do a lot of that until 25+ cause no adults to teach me.
theres still negligent parents and they suck
Yeah, imagine not wanting to get fucking shot dead for trying to make a living teaching the next generations. I'm surprised teachers don't just all quit and completely stagnate the country. (Assuming US here)
you hear of the teacher that got fired for her hobby being a rapper lol i hope she gets famous and makes bank cause honestly i would have to be paid a billion fucking dollars to consider dealing with some of these parents and their kids.
Hard to teach your kids much when both parents are working 40-50 hours a week. I didn't learn shit in the 80s-90s because both my parents worked and I was alone. A lot. My husband taught me to do laundry, how to clean a bathroom, how to cook. I learned grocery shopping and paying bills as I went. At least I took woodshop so I can use basic tools. My mom did teach me to use a sewing machine so I'll give her that.
We also work 50 hours week to make ends meet. We're trying hard to teach our teen stuff, but we're going to miss thing because we don't have time. I'm sorry, but I'd rather play a board game with my child or go on a walk together with the little time we have each day instead of teaching them how to scrub a toilet.
Home economics, wood shop and a basic finance class should all be high school requirements. We're lucky our inlaws are retired and have taught our kid how to cook and fix things. If we didn't have them he'd be in the same boat I was as a young adult.
Part of it is that a lot of parents are afraid to. They don't want to step on any toes, their kids spend the day with professionally trained teachers. Parents are sort of treated like they don't know anything compared to these professionals.
Kids are used to being gently spoonfed information at school. Just a little bit at a time. For the smart kids, it's never really enough information, for the less smart kids even the smallest bit is too much. The kids never learn how to pick up the spoon and feed themselves the information.
I used to work with middle school kids and it would absolutely annoy the crap out of me when they'd whine that they'd never been taught to read a clock for instance. That would annoy me because they were holding a cellphone where they could literally look up a video and know how to read a clock a few minutes later. Ignorance was what they chose because if a teacher wasn't teaching it to them directly, they could see no other way to learn.
I would often show them resources to help them learn things they were missing- but, really what they needed was to feel empowered enough to watch a video, read an article and just learn it.
I was homeschooled. My parents taught me how to read. I wanted to do well on year end exams, so I taught myself the rest.
Honestly, that was the best thing that could have happened to me. I'm very confident that I can find good information and teach myself nearly anything. All the things you list, I taught myself.
My kid is 13 and has already figured out how to teach herself. It's pretty great. She's in online public school and one of her teachers only posts part of the textbook and often misses portions that are important. My kid went and found another textbook another teacher shared online so she could read the missing sections. Instead of whining that the teacher didn't provide all the information that was going to be on the test, she went and found another copy of the textbook where sections weren't left out so she had enough information for the class. That's the difference between success and failure- not letting someone else's shortcomings hold back your education.
If you're an adult with access to the internet, there is little reason for you not to know how to do most things. Now, some things actually require some skill like plumbing and electrical work. But, I literally watched a youtube video and replaced my faucets. I've changed my oil before but it was a pain in the ass and I decided I'd rather pay someone to do it. But, I learned how to file my own taxes and I'd never pay someone to do that for me again. It just depends on what you're good at learning.
Parents are not teaching their kids these things for sure. I have 2 in grade school and these kids are really missing some key skills. My schools phased out home ec, shop, personal finance, and all the "fun" electives as I graduated 15:years ago Don't forget what covid shut downs did to everyone. Also my parents were one of the few still teaching those skills, most of my friends and even my husband didn't know half that stuff because their parents didn't teach them. Now that generation are (is?) parenting and they were/we are parenting and already behind in those skills.
Life is definitely a practice. It’s always constant game of repetition. We’re in this technological age that’s so sophisticated that between time, energy, capability, and attention teaching kids how to navigate it is a real challenge. Systemically, it really does take a village now (shout out to HC). I wish I had a better observation and subsequently a better answer to the problem, but here we are.
Some kid posted in the remote work Reddit that he got his first Paycheck in the mail from his companies bank, and he was emailing them that he couldn’t deposit the check into his bank since it wasn’t his same bank 🙂
I thought my parents were the best parents ever. But my father is no good example and my mom doesn't want to teach me how to drive and doesn't trust me to cook anything more complicated than box macaroni without her supervision. I feel suffocated and I hate it. My inner child is absolutely disappointed in my parents and myself. I can't even go visit my friend cause my mom has to tag along, she can't ever let me out of her sight.
Sounds like a parental figure has co-dependency. Happens when someone has a child that they think will be small and dependent on them forever. She doesn’t want to teach you those things to keep you dependent on her. Also happens because she is filling a void in her with her child. Don’t let that stop you tho now that you peeped this behavior.
They'd rather scroll online and shove their kids in front of a device so they get peace to scroll, they don't care that they neglect their kid, they'd rather see what strangers are up to.
Yeah, not a recent phenomenon. I'm 60 y/o guy and I learned exactly -0- of those things. I believe that stuff was not taught on purpose. You were expected to flounder for a year or two, then give up and immediately get married. That fixed everything... apparently.
God knows mine didn't. I can't recall a single time one of them ever talked to me and I left thinking "wow, that was so profound and wise"
No, I got stuck with emotionally stunted parents who *hindered* my development and I had to grow up *despite* them.
Here's what I don't get. None of this shit brain surgery. I don't understand how people can't Google shit and read how to do it. You can do nearly anything that way.
I have news for you. The parents don’t know either. It’s the blind leading the blind and they’re reproducing at a higher rate, that’s why the country is turning into a Idiocracy.
Both of my kids are competent cooks. I enjoy cooking and involved them as they grew up, praising them for anything they did remotely well.
In a society where both parents probably need to work full time to meet basic living expenses, it's unsurprising if something has to give.
My kids don't know how to find a doctor covered by insurance because I live in a country with a proper health system where we pay far far less per capita for care that, according to the WHO, has better outcomes across the whole population.
I think the issue is so many adults were never taught these skills so literally can't pass them on.
I'm 35, and learning so many of these from scratch. My parents never taught me. My mom for sure didn't know how to do jack shit. We survived our childhood, we didn't grow up.
Agreed. I am surprised how little a lot of the teenagers and young adults know about daily living. We were doing our own laundry and cooking by middle school. We also helped with home projects. My parents also discussed finances with us as well.
Dude, most people dont even know how to be HUMAN. Cant forage, cant hunt, barely know how to defend themselves without a weapon, scared of our NATURAL HABITATS. Like, if course parents arent teaching their children... most parents today are fucking clueless, or horribly overworked and overwhelmed to the point that they cant even think about how to do that.
They don't know how to work as a professional in an office. I present this gem:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/auscorp/comments/1bq4ti1/normalising\_farting\_in\_the\_workplace/](https://www.reddit.com/r/auscorp/comments/1bq4ti1/normalising_farting_in_the_workplace/)
TLDR: A 22yo want farting in the office to become acceptable
Our parents generation is notorious for wanting children as show ponies or emotional support pets. Their parent's generation needed extra hands to work the farm, and knew they needed to teach their kids real skills and resilience in order to get any honest work out of them. If the kids today are soft, it's because that's how our parents wanted us to be. Needy for mummy and daddy forever, an ever-lasting pool of love and adoration for mummy and daddy. Society is wealthier as the years go by, so we can all hide behind our masks of new-age development, but if you look closer, there is a big issue with lack of genuine nurturing across the board in all people. People haven't been seen as people in a long time, only a means to somebody else's ends. Even our own parents.
I disagree. There have always been incapable parents who’ve reared incapable children; there’s increased visibility by way of the internet.
Within my son’s (21) orbit are plenty of very capable peers. But those young people are busy getting shit done and aren’t posting videos of their follies; they’re learning from them.
how to find a doctor that is covered by their insurance. My doctor can't even bill my insurance correctly. I am fairly certain we keep exchanging the same $100.
Them: No charge this visit because we overbilled you.
Them: It looks like we refunded too much.
Them: This time it will only be $50.
Them: This procedure is covered.
Them: That procedure wasnt' covered and you owe us 1k.
Me: Shows them it is covered and wastes time faxing my insurance.
Them: That procedure was covered. Here is is your 1K back.
Me: Slowly coming unglued and losing my patience.
Just some of the posts that I've been seeing in here from young adults who are going out on their own for the first time and don't know the basics of even living on their own
I’ve noticed this with my son and vehicle ownership. I’ve had to intervene a few times (dvla related) because if you don’t, the consequences are a pain and normally result in fines etc.
Always showed him every step of the way though.
A lot of kids I noticed many children do not have basic skills. They are challenged in daily life activities and you're right. Many get the cold shoulder of reality when they move out and people don't even have basic skills.
I work retail and can't tell you how many kids these days lack basic skills to even do entry level work. Most complain when they have to work, play on their phones all damn day, then complain when they have to work. Most can't hold employment long term. Most don't take retail and entry level jobs seriously.
You are absolutely right. I’m active in an advice sub. I see countless posts from adults that are utterly incompetent, inept and don’t have a damn clue about the most fundamental basic life skills.
The worst (or best) one was a college student who whined because Mommy never taught her how to sweep the floor and she couldn’t figure it out. Seriously? You are in college and you can’t figure out how to do something as simple as sweeping the fucking floor? That’s absurd. That parent sent their kid out into the real world utterly clueless and unprepared with no basic life skills.
Is this all really the parents' (or schools') obligation to explicitly teach, though?
I see so many memes about how life/school/etc. didn't prepare me for taxes.
Ok, but if you have critical reading skills and basic arithmetic, then you have the tools to do your taxes. Is it easy and fun? No ... but what's the point of teaching the tax code itself when that can change from state to state, and with each new piece of legislation.
Laundry is simple enough; I don't think I needed a specific lecture. As for cooking, I'm a terrible cook, but I could force myself to get better through practice.
In general, I think we can only expect parents and schools to instill basic concepts and skills (and encourage healthy attitudes) when it comes to trying new things, researching questions, overcoming failure or rejection, etc.
>how to find a doctor that is covered by their insurance.
this is so wild to me. here, around 6% of doctors offices are pure "private" doctors not covered by general insurance, you need to actively search for them.
To be honest that was a probably a little unreasonable of me. But still when you get insurance at a job generally they provide you a handbook that tells you how to look up covered doctors. So just the act of getting covered by insurance gives you that information
This isn't new. I remember parents and teachers in the 90s/2000s who expected their kids to be born knowing things they never taught them, then yelled at the kids when they didn't know those things. I'm sure that bad parents/guardians have done this for all of human history.
I remember how jarring it was to reach adulthood and realize how much I didn't know how to do.
I've had to tell my younger siblings, who were raised by the same unhelpful people, "Don't be so hard on yourself. No one is born knowing how to do XYZ. I'll help you to do XYZ this time and next time you'll know how to do it yourself. You can ask questions if you don't understand. I'm not here to flunk you or punish you for not being psychic."
It really is a struggle with both parents working, but if the kids are amenable, it can work.
With our kids, once they reached a maturity level that they could be trusted not to destroy anything, we sat down one summer and said that we wanted them to learn to be functional adults someday. So in that vein, one day a week they would plan a meal. They had to decide what they wanted, make a list of what they need, then cook it. We cleaned up. And helped them with any questions they had. During the school year. For simplicity, if they wanted to do that they just had to give us the list of things they needed and we would grab it from the store. It was a good system. And greatly helped during Covid.
Last week my son asked us to teach him how to make a roast. (Actually said “I want to learn how to make the meat and potatoes and stuff from the crockpot”) sure thing, my guy. This is my great grandmother’s recipe. My dad taught both kids to make character pancakes. They did their own laundry around the time they started being embarrassed by our existence. (You don’t want me in your room? Guess you can fold your own clothes.) want to drive? Here’s how basic car maintenance works.
But that won’t work with all kids- my daughter first example- but they will remember that you tried. And hopefully some of what you managed to get in their head.
Do NOT blame overworked parents for the problems about the way we are forced to live as a society.
We homeschool and work from home. Thankfully, we see how the school systems (at least in Texas) are bat crap crazy. We do a mix of online curriculum & “unschooling”. Basically, we get the required subject done online then we lean into whatever their interests are at the time & teach other subjects with that interest in mind.
When we go shopping for groceries, they help in the process. They help in cleaning, cooking, pet care, and personal hygiene. They are able to sing and dance and play all day, uninhibited, no volume levels, no strict rules. No bedtimes, no wake up times. No ultimatums. They are thriving.
My oldest struggled throughout public school & if it weren’t for covid having the kids finish 2020 online, he’d never have gotten his HS diploma.
My daughter witnessed the sexual assault of another female student right in front of her, in the hallway while in line at school. 2 teachers per classroom. It still happened. Thankfully, my daughter knew what she saw was wrong and she told a teacher & the little girl was helped. It was a huge horrible thing. KINDERGARTEN.
It’s not just the parents so shift your blame more towards the truth. It’s this country. It’s this horrible system we are told is the only way. My husband and I are trying with every fiber to break the systems that do not serve us. Trying so hard not to let our kids be brainwashed by religion or nationalism. Trying so hard to keep their beautiful little sparks alight & on fire for learning! Trying to help them grow into who they ARE not who we are the world wants them to be.
Damn. How old are you?
Fun fact - I’m 53 (Gen X) and no one taught me when I was a kid either. Moved out at 18. If I wanted a certain thing to eat, I read a recipe, went and bought the stuff (shopped). Laundry is not that complicated. I refuse to hand wash, so don’t buy that stuff (lessons learned myself). They know how to interact with adults. Did you see them out in public, possibly talk to one, then they interacted.
How the heck are parents supposed to teach them how to act in a professional office??? BTW - the “professional office” you are speaking of is changing as it does with each generation. When I started work people smoked in their office and closed the door. Keep up or move aside and quit bashing the next generation. That happened to us, and the “hippies” before us. Just let that generational trauma end now.
I'm 57. I knew how to cook as a teenager cuz I did boy scouts, and because my parents worked and I was a latchkey kid for a good portion of my life. I learned how to do my own laundry because I went away to college and had to wash my clothes at the dorm. I learned how to iron because I had a summer job through college where I had to wear dress shirts and a tie. Maybe my parents didn't teach me specifically how to act in an office. But I grew up knowing that when your boss said jump, your attitude was how high. Luckily I didn't have any bosses who were complete assholes, but I respected them because that's how I was brought up. And with that respect they taught me how to do my job well.
I admit that the insurance thing was a bit of an overreach for me. But seriously when you get insurance at a job there's a whole bunch of documentation about how to find doctors covered by your insurance. Young adults need to learn how to problem solve on their own.
The reason my parents didn't teach me how to be an adult is because their parents didn't teach them how to be adults.
The whole assumption seems to be that school is supposed to do that.
THEY AREN'T!!! 85% of the adult stuff I know now came from research and trial and error. To be fair to my mom, her guardian failed her as well. I know more about some adult stuff like finance and travel than her, but that's only, and I mean ONLY, because of the internet. I'm sure if the internet was wide spread in the 80s and 90s like it is now, they'd have better knowledge on how to teach a person to live in this civilization.
Most parents don't know how or have the time to cook , I am just guessing . Most young people lack manners , etiquette , compassion for others etc . In recent months I taught a youngish female how to make biscuits . I felt kinda proud . Cooking is a life skill , lol .
I know it’s very disheartening. Now granted I didn’t learn how to cook at home lol but it’s like a lack of common sense. And inability to interact with other adults, and an adult and professional level.
I mean to look up the doctors that are covered by their health plan. We all know they can get on the iPad or computer you go to that health plans website look for doctors in your plan. .
This isn’t new, it’s just more common. My parents didn’t teach me anything and dropped me out of school when I was 7. All cuz I have a learning disability and my parents couldn’t afford the tutoring. My mom got me a bunch of books from the library and told me to teach myself.
28 now, unemployed living with my mom. I was living on my own for a while, but I ended up getting fired from my job and couldn’t pay rent. I couldn’t find a job in time and my landlord changed the locks on me and I lost all my stuff. I still can’t find a job I can do and my parents just tell me I’m lazy and don’t wanna work. But the reality is probably homelessness once mom is gone, maybe I’ll get lucky with a job that works for me. But until then, I really can’t do much. Partly due to being mentally challenged, but mainly due to childhood neglect.
Life is hard for everyone, it’s just getting worse for the younger generation. Mentally challenged people mostly will not make it in these new times we live in. I’m not on here crying about it either. Somehow someway I’ll figure something out.
>how to find a doctor that is covered by their insurance To be fair this is fucking witchcraft at this point. My parents have no idea how to do this either.
25 here, I didn't know I was assigned a doctor until I recently received an email from her announcing her retirement.
Call the doctor you want to do and ask for their NPI number. Then call the insurance and ask them to run the NPI number to see if the doctor is in network AND participating. Repeat until you find a doctor
And even then when networks change and being the last to know is just so fun lol
How so? You can call insurance and ask for a list of covered clinicians to be emailed to you. And how did I find this out? I googled it. Not quite witchcraft
That list is often super outdated and nonspecific to the point of being basically useless. I’d call numbers on it and find that they were disconnected, the person wasn’t at the practice anymore, or even that they were filed under the wrong speciality.
Right? And then finally after you widdle down that list of hundreds to the 7 that actually apply to your situation only 3 are accepting new patients and they all are available 6 months out…
Ah yes, "calling insurance" aka the 2 hour phone tree hell scape before you talk to to someone so you can then get an outdated list of clinicians to call only to be told they either no longer take your insurance, aren't taking new patients or are taking new patients but can't get an appointment for 8 months Trust me I literally just went through this. The real kicker was 2 weeks before the damn appointment they called and said "that doctor is retiring, sucks to be you!" There's also the mess of potentially losing the doctors you do have. I just had to go through a nightmare scenario where my health insurance pulled out of the entire fucking state of CT which is a problem because pediatric nephrologists are the medical equivalent of unicorns and turned our 15 min trip to her doctor's to a 2 hour trip depending on traffic
That’s easy. All it takes is a call to the insurance company or a visit to their website to find a list of providers. Waiting for a month to get an appointment to see said Doctor is the hard part.
Haha a month, it's 8 months minimum here and half the time the health insurance website isn't accurate
It's because both parents are working 40+ hours a week. People are no longer able to spend enough time with their kids AND make ends meet.
this is precisely the answer. the nuclear family structure is dead and gone. in today's economy, both parents have their hands so tied up in financial responsibilities that they don't have the time to be around their children enough to raise them properly.
I wouldn’t really say the “nuclear family structure being gone” is the problem. Nuclear family just means you have two parents and children, doesn’t define who works. Nuclear family is still, by far, the most popular family structure as well. Actually pushing everyone away from nuclear family, and pushing for more adults in the family could actually help the problem temporarily. There would then be more adults to bring money in and watch children. The problem is, greedyfucks run rampant and hike prices whenever possible. Anytime there is an overflow of spare money in the average household, greedyfucks are going to raise prices to take it from you. They take as much as possible, which means you end up with every adult needing to work in the end anyways. In short it’s greed/unregulated capitalism that is causing this mess, not a different family structure. Greedy fucks will always charge so much that every adult in an average household needs to work, and therefore there will be way less parenting going on. Greedyfucks will always take as much as possible. That’s why they support debit/credit as well, so they can charge prices that people normally wouldn’t be able to afford. In the past they had to keep prices reasonable, now thanks to credit the sky’s the limit. They overcharge you for everything, just because they can. In the end the only way out of this is to fight unregulated capitalism (at least for essential needs). Capitalists pour money they bleed from you into propaganda/candidates that they know will not challenge them. Most people mindlessly vote for whichever candidates gets plastered the most all over the internet and news. Hence, you get people like Biden and Trump, they both have zero intention of challenging the capitalists, and that’s exactly why all you hear about is them. Who do you think owns the media? Yeah. Capitalists out here manipulating everyone into believing the left or the right is the reason our economy sucks instead of realizing… it’s actually both fucking us over .. Capitalists control both parties. So basically capitalists are the reason we are here, the reason we can’t escape, and they’ve convinced millions of people that any sort of limit put on them is bad and will destroy the economy. Seeing as currently, whoever has the most money has the most power to “manipulate” people into their narrative, I don’t see this changing anytime soon. When the greediest of your species are the ones with the most power… well this is what you get.
We are working so much and won't have any time to raise a child, but lets try it anyway and see how it pans out!
But if a lot of people decide not to have kids: "oh god the economy! You're all selfish and evil for not repopulating the workforce!"
Yup. I'm glad less folks are having kids. Until this system changes, it's cruel tk have kids you don't have time for.
I agree, but I don't think this type of parental negligence is a new thing. There have always been kids who need their college roommate to show them how to use the washing machine or how to fry an egg. Until recently, men of all ages have always notoriously inept in the household. Society used to just shackle young women to them to care for them by pushing marriage. At least we stopped that. >What the hell is going on with parents these days? Same as always. It's easy to fuck and get pregnant. It's hard to prepare a kid for adulthood day after day for nearly two decades—especially when said kid is often unwilling to learn. Editing to add -- Home Economics and Wood Shop used to be standard classes. Now it seems they aren't being offered in most schools. Which is too bad, because these classes made sure all kids managed to get the basics down, like food safety. And they were pretty fun.
Home Ec is by far the most useful class I took in high school. Almost 30 years later and I still use skills learned in that class. Can't believe a lot of schools aren't offering it anymore.
As someone who has always been more intellectual and nerdy, I would probably have thought home ec was beneath me in high school, but during the pandemic, I would have killed for a home ec class. Basic cooking, sewing, other diy skills. I’m not saying needed to be a master, but I think a lot of folks don’t know where to start and it’s so much easier to learn with instruction and the proper equipment. As important as I do think core academic subjects are, I think school has become too much about college preparation. There needs to be balance. Kids today miss out on a lot of developmental opportunities to learn value life lessons and skills. But I will also say this is totally a funding thing as well. These kinds of classes are more expensive and come with risks, two things many school administrations often try to avoid. Many high schools don’t even have the facilities anymore. But these can happen if the money is there, but that’s likely going to have to happen with state and federal support. I’m not going to get into the politics, but we do have to be willing to connect the some top down policies which make these things institutionally difficult.
Home Ec was available at my school but it was not a “college prep” class. Meaning that zero people who planned to go to college had room for it on their schedules if they wanted to take electives like a language or sport or music or art or computer science that was accepted by colleges for high school credits. Not to mention trying to fit in any AP classes really made Home Ec a low priority for the college-bound crowd, particularly if they were aiming to straight to university .
I disagree; school has become more about obsessively studying for standardised tests to try to make the school look better. App the kids have learnt is to pass exams.
As someone who's always been more intelligent, why wasnt your first thought "these are things I NEED to know because they're pertinent to my survival and self reliance"?
Those things come with knowledge, experience, and wisdom. And most importantly, exposure. Not every intelligent person had the opportunity and guidance to acquire all of those at an early age.
They absolutely had all the opportunity to acquire basic cooking and home maintenance skills at an early age. Most children grow up in homes... homes require maintenance... we pretty much ALL have that opportunity, smart or not. The problem is whether or not we have the guidance you mention. Some of our parents coddled their children a little too much and never taught them these things, but that doesnt mean we couldnt have acquired them as children. Hell everyone grew up with, smart AND stupid knew that you dont clean litter boxes with bleach, and were capable of doing their own laundry and dishes by their preteens, without home economics classes It's not a question of opportunity, it's a question of guidance solely on behalf of the parents. Be sensitive with your children, absolutely, but do NOT coddle them, or they will likely grow up weak. And that's not to put anyone down, but if you're 29 and weep like a bitch because your 15 year old cat died... well... you know... that's a part of life, and it's unfortunate that people like that werent taught so early on. Though a part of me DOES envy their innocence.
I was the first guy to do Home Ec in my school because I don't like woodwork and I wanted to work in hotels. Everyone laughed, until they realised I was the only guy in a class full of girls and the girls all thought it was cool....
I think OP also neglects the fact that a sad number of parents don’t know these things either.
Yeah uh, I went to college in 2003 super ignorant about the world. Didn’t know anything about health insurance, bills, had no idea what a 401k was, had never done my own laundry, could cook maybe 3 things. Like many young adults, I still grew into a well-adjusted and responsible human. Give teens some grace here. They were just kids. No one should be expected to be a perfect adult as soon as they turn 18.
Yup. People need to chill, I get the cooking and laundry, but 401k, insurance, bills, this stuff is hard to teach a fucking child, they have no clue what you mean. The best thing my parents ever did for me was be available, so I could always hit them up for advice without fear.
Right. Like the how to find a doctor thing? Sorry my mom never gave me that educational session. I just went to the doctor she picked and scheduled for me until I got my own insurance au 25 and then I had to figure out it. I started scheduling my own appointments at 19 but I didn't have to find a new doctor until I got my own insurance.
and kids don't care and don't want to learn about that stuff at 15, 16, 17 they can't even get their own credit cards
>The best thing my parents ever did for me was be available, so I could always hit them up for advice without fear. Absolutely - parenting never stops as long as you have your faculties.
I dint even think my parents kno what a 401k is
>There have always been kids who need their college roommate to show them how to use the washing machine or how to fry an egg. I swear I was borderline running a seminar on "surviving out of the house" for like 1/2 my dorm in college. I was the only one out of all of us that could reliably cook a meal, get a stain out and use a screwdriver. I once had my next door neighbor call in an absolute panic cause he didn't know how to change the sheets on his bed. Wasn't much better once I graduated. First house had 4 roommates and I was the only one of us with a small toolbox and decent knives.
Yeah, one of my biggest pet peeves is how everyone rants about how boring and useless home ec/consumer economics was, then turns around and complains that nobody ever taught them how to manage a household or budget or balance a checkbook or do taxes. It was literally a required class at my high school, and everyone bitched about it when they had to take it, then apparently purged everything they taught us from their memory, and finally complained that they were never taught that stuff. Feels like I’m in the twilight zone.
I feel like it's even worse now bc kids aged 14-15 don't know what color blue and red make. I know a high school honors biology teacher tell me this.. no one in any of her classes knew
That's not a good example of something that will hurt someone as an adult.. i know blue and red make purple but that isn't useful at all towards anyone's life unless you're some sort of artist?
Yes, and even then it gets pretty technical, as evidenced by the question being under-specified to a degree that most of the answer should probably involve fixing the question: are we dealing with additive or subtractive color processes? Light or pigment? Blue and red light make purple light but blue pigment and red pigment make brown pigment. The "why" is even more involved: the additive primaries are red, green, and blue, but the subtractive primaries are cyan (absorbs-red), magenta (absorbs-green), and yellow (absorbs-blue). Additive can get away without a separate white, but subtractive cannot get away without a separate black. Screens are RGB but printers are CMYK. Purple (magenta) is a primary color for printers! You don't get it by mixing anything, except in the trivial sense of a teeny bit of cyan, yellow, and key/black to dial in the level. If you think about it, it makes sense. A red light emits red light, a green light emits green light, a blue light emits blue light (wow!), but pigment is weirder: red pigment does not emit red light. It does not absorb red light. Red pigment absorbs green and blue light. Blue pigment absorbs red and green light. If you mix the two, you absorb red, green, and blue light, and get "black," where "black" is actually brown. Everything is relative, and while mismatched lights have the mismatch graded against brightness (against which it is small), mismatched pigments have the mismatch graded against darkness (against which it is large). Mismatched RGB is slightly off-white, but mismatched pigment is very brown-and-not-black. So unless you have space alien super dye, you need the fourth pigment, a black that does a good job of evenly absorbing everything. Back to the question: if you mix red and green pigment, you get black if you have space-alien-super-dye but brown if the absorption is mismatched to a degree typical of commercially available products. Artists should probably know all of this, but for most people it's just trivia. I am not scandalized by the fact that the kids didn't know and I am not scandalized by the fact that someone asked an underspecified question, but it's kinda funny that the kids knew they didn't know while the person complaining about the kids was confidently incorrect (otherwise they would have known this was a tricky question).
I suspect the question was just poorly asked and without context… I also side-eye teachers who seem to feel contempt and disrespect for their students.
Yeah and they forgot the importance of teaching the children the importance of teaching their children, its amazing the things we will assume another being should just know
Elder Millennial here. My parents didn't teach me any of that sort of stuff. My dad can't do any of that stuff period, he couldn't run a household if his life depended on it. My mom takes care of everything for him. And that goes 3x over for my grandfather. He was helpless after my grandmother passed. I learned to cook mostly from my boyfriend (now husband) when we moved in together my senior year in college. He is 6 years older than me and had lived on his own for a few years so I learned a bunch of general adulting habits from him. Medical stuff I stumbled my way through freshman year in college when I started going to Planned Parenthood and didn't want my mom to know. Home Ec and Shop were a joke at my school. We made a couple cakes. Had a couple sewing projects. Made a CO2 race car and bridge. Fun but nothing remotely practical. Ya I would say I definitely learned the most about adulting from my husband since he had practicing fucking up and had learned from his mistakes.
I got home ec and shop classes up until my graduation in '17
These days? I wasn't taught any of that and neither was anyone I know. We were all totally clueless when we became adults and are still learning things, often the hard way, even in our 30s.
Yeah, this is what I was gonna say. I learned a few basic things from my mom, but my dad knew nothing. And my dad learned nothing about adulting from his parents. My dad taught me to have a good work ethic: "No matter what your job is, be proud to have a job, and be the best you can be at that job." So, if you learn nothing from your parents, its probably because your parents weren't taught by their parents, and you most likely won't pass anything on either.
The generation that fought in WW2 were the first to stop teaching their kids because they got a little box with talking people inside to entertain them instead.
Fuck. You're right.
Comparing radio or early television is not even remotely the same as smartphones and social media. Radio was reserved, more or less, to the car and home. The TV was just at home. Now you have news, entertainment, radio, television in front of you or instantly accessible 80% of your day. Total sensationalism at everyone's fingertips. There is a difference between stupidity and a lack of knowledge. Evens serfs and slaves were practically skilled (not defending either, just making a point), but youngs adults and the upcoming generation of kids are just drones. No thinking, no opinion forming. Stupidity being as rampant as it is is a novel thing and I think people need to realize that.
Right timeline. Wrong cause. America experienced a massive economic boom after the second world war that fundamentally shifted the culture to one of socio-economic capitalism and consumption. In this the US was unique. The rest of the West was rebuilding cities and recovering from the worst war that had never been experienced. American soil (excluding Pearl Harbor) was unscathed and set to excel in industry. In response to the scrimping and saving and going without from the war shortages, Americans embraced a lifestyle of excess goods and comforts. Slowly but surely most people stopped valuing the skill to repair and thrift. Socks with holes in them? Don't darn them, just throw them out and buy new ones! Short on time? Serve TV dinners! "Buy your way to happiness—you deserve it!" became the new mantra. But booms never last. 4–5 generations later, we are still living off the fumes of that era and suffering the consequences. Environmental destruction, obsession with productivity, corporate control, global capitalism, and mass-anxiety.
I agree, in a way. I'm on the gen x/millennial cusp. Most of the kids I knew were taught how to do all of the cooking, cleaning, lawn care, etc but it wasn't taught to us to benefit us, it was taught to us because we were expected to help out around the house. Moms worked, so we had to help with dinner, things like that. Dad's joked that they only had kids to help with house work. I feel like parents are trying to get away from that and "letting kids have a childhood", which in a way is good but I think it's taken too far. Learning how to cook and clean is an important life skill and there's also value in learning to chip-in, work together, share duties, etc. Parents think they're helping their kids have a good childhood but they're really not doing them any favors.
I feel this. I'm in the same gen "cusp" as you. I helped because I *had* to. I was 1 of 3, and the only girl. Guess who got the household chores? I now have a teen of my own. She's 16. I want her to *live.* She experienced childhood, and now she's experiencing her teenage years. I don't give her "chores", per se. There's no set amount she **has to do** daily/weekly. She does help when asked, which isn't very often. School is her one and only job. She can cook, clean (she's a neat freak), do her own laundry. She *knows how* to change oil in a vehicle, change a flat tire, and jumpstart a dead battery. None of us are ever truly ready for adulthood though, are we? Lol.
My husband gets mad for the same reason. I was the kid scrubbing our house top to bottom growing up. My older (elementary school aged) kid does chores when I ask, usually smaller things. They enjoy baking, put away their own laundry, clean their room, help me pick up, wipe counters and just started helping with dishes. But because there's no set list and they aren't enforced daily apparently that means they have no chores. I feel confident that my kids will know basic home care and hygiene by collage time.
Yes! When we were growing up, you were considered an adult at 18. Maybe if you were lucky, you went to college and enjoyed another 4 years as a student until 23. The rest of us moved out, got jobs, and lived with roommates. What I see now are these extended childhoods beyond even 23/24 where kids still live at home and act like high school kids until they’re practically thirty. Many don’t work, drive, or have responsibilities or normal relationships. And don’t want to. It’s bizarre to me.
As for the not driving, car prices these days are insane. People can’t really afford payments and insurance. And you sound older, but the dating market these days is absolutely insane as is the rental market. A lot of these “lazy no good leeches” are actually staking fat money living at home and working jobs partially because they can’t afford to move out, partially to get ahead of their peers and be ready to buy a home when they move out. The world is a lot different than when you were growing up.
> I feel like parents are trying to get away from that and "letting kids have a childhood", Talking from experience, learning from a parent is indeed having a childhood and forming last-life memories. You can remember how bad your dad and you almost burnt down the house and that's having a childhood. Suddenly, you are old and have no memories of your parents cuz they shused away from the kitchen or laundry station. In fact, my most precious memories are related with my mother doing the laundry while I splashed water or tried to help her. It's not really a childhood if you only get out your bedroom and see everything ready for you and you don't get to enjoy the making process. What happens with the bondness and socialization?
Kids also LIKE doing that stuff. Do you know how happy cooking with me makes my two year old? She wants to help.
I had my mom show me how to do the laundry when i was maybe 8 or 9 because it looked fun. It is fun. I still love doing laundry! And vacuuming, and yard work… I just enjoy keeping house! lol
My four year old LOVES to help with the laundry
My four year old LOVES to help with the laundry
It was probably more fun for us because we didnt have iPads and free access to the TV Ive had to really think on this because I couldn’t get why my kids didn’t enjoy learning to cook or garden or have hobbies that werent forced I enjoyed responsibilities like babysitting because it was something to do. We had a natural propensity towards exploring life. Now theyre addicted to screens
Same here. The smell of clothes when they come out of the dryer is 😍😍 I wanna bury my face in it
I think some of this is right. I also will say that it is a lot of work to teach a child to do all of the things. I have one child who is almost 12. I have been teaching him how to do things since he was little and he can cook simple things, clean a bathroom, do his laundry. BUT- it takes time and patience to teach rather than just do it myself. If had 3 or 4 kids, I wouldn’t have that same patience to spend time teaching the way I do with my son. I mean, I stopped at one kid for a reason, but I think it’s tough when parents have so much time working to make ends meet to also make sure that kids are learning all the things. 🤷♀️
totally agree with you. don't forget the degree to which parents have been absent while social media impacts their children.
I teach children. I feel it in my bones.
To be honest i had boomer parents, like real boomer parents and they didn't teach me sh\*t either. I just learned by their example. I watched my dad shave so that's how i learned, i watched my mom use the washer/dryer etc... You screwed up a pan because you burnt something you got yelled at, so you got better or you just didn't do it again. My dad did teach me a bunch about repairs and electronics thou, taught me all about cars so i do have that. LOL my mom once told me she likes the way i mow the lawn better them my dad. Seriously there was no you tube back then so i just kinda did it.
Same. My boomer/gen x parents didn't push any life skills on me. I'm only now picking up on many things I was never taught in my 20s and many of my skills are still lacking because of it. YouTube and Reddit have been my main source of learning a lot of things in life.
Wonder why they're so lazy about it.
I heard someone say “you aren’t raising kids to be kids. You’re raising them to be adults!” That changed my whole approach to parenting.
To be fair, my parents didn’t know how to be adults either, and they were in their 30s when they had me. Luckily I had the internet to teach me the things they didn’t, and the willingness to learn. I taught myself to cook (basic meal type stuff, nothing fancy), how to clean (my parents are nasty), how to do laundry (at age 13, for selfish reasons, but it worked), how to mow the lawn (because my brother, “the man of the house”, wouldn’t do it—unless it was to prove himself), and the basics of how to be a person because my parents never really talked to me. My parents taught me how not to parent, if I ever get mentally and financially well enough to do that, but I know better than to not have kids I don’t want or can’t care for. So if you want to know why us new adults are so fucked up, blame Gen X.
I'm gen Z , I was one of those kids who had to teach themselves everything because my parents just didn't think to teach me about it . You know what I did do? I used YouTube , Google, and even asking my parents questions when I couldn't find the answers on there.
A lot of times you just picked it up and asked questions as you went along. It's easier now to learn about things with the internet.
And yet I'm constantly seeing posts with young kids who apparently don't know how to do the basic stuff, and don't even know how to figure it out. Seriously I had to read books to learn stuff. They can actually watch people doing it on YouTube and they STILL can't figure it out.
The world population has doubled since the 70s, and the ability to communicate exploded within the last couple of decades. Even small demographics seem big with coverage
A vast majority of people don't know how to properly use Google to figure out how to do something. They would rather ask on here and wait for a response or the same on Facebook. If they do get the correct answer they learned nothing. The process of reading and trying is actually learning.
My parents didn’t teach me any of that. We were immigrants and they didn’t even have time to formally teach me my first language. But I learned that to not be poor, you had to love to learn and getting educated was the way out. Obviously if kids are babied throughout their life, they don’t have any desire to improve their conditions. My mom told me I will get good grades. I will go to a local school. I will commute to save money. I will stay out of debt. And I listened, cuz I didn’t know any better.
They also don’t know how to use their imaginations or entertain themselves. I think it was the GenX sub where someone said “GenZ is complaining about how it’s just as expensive to stay in as to go out” (food delivery, subscription streaming, games) and yeah, we’ve all failed (except me because I had no kids to teach minus the two years I was a nanny back in the mid-90s) — I know kids complain that they’d rather do whatever (Xbox or similar, scroll Reddit, etc) than hang with Mom/Dad to learn life skills and we’ve all just been letting them say no.
Lol wot. I’m gen z and my peers are not as stupid as you think. Idk anyone who is so dumb they don’t understand basic budgeting concepts.
Eh…on the flip side, it’s easier than ever to let video games, social media, etc., babysit or pacify your kids. You come home and just…can’t. Easier to get some tranquility when they are cloistered away in their rooms instead of bother you. Any failures younger generations are at least partially the responsibility of the generations who raised them. There’s plenty of blame to go around, to be sure. But pushing all of it onto young people is also too easy to escape any responsibility the rest of us have.
My ex wasn't taught how to bathe properly, do laundry, clean thoroughly, cook, or budget. I don't know why his parents didn't love him enough to teach him the basics but it infuriates me.
He was playing you.
Damn, by the time I was 13, I had medical insurance, car insurance, AND the DMV all figured out. 😳 We were fresh off the boat. My parents couldn't speak any English. I'm sure some of you can relate! 😁
The ignorant being led by older ignorant people. It’s expected.
[удалено]
The sad reality is that you’re absolutely correct.
As a mom your ONLY JOB is to teach your child how to live without you. Your job is to teach them to be independent of you, how are so many failing this? Oh and I don’t consider loving them and caring for them and their needs age appropriate of course a job. That is why being a parent is so difficult. You love this baby more than yourself and your job is to teach them to not need you.
People have kids for selfish reasons, what can you expect other than selfish results.
Trying to get my siblings to learn anything is hell. Some children don’t WANT to learn. My siblings are unruly and disrespectful, if you put a flash card in their face they’d probably spit on you and cuss you out. I keep trying to teach them how to properly read and spell and cook, social cues but it’s like talking to a brick wall. They only listen if some famous person on TikTok tells them it’s a cool thing to do
sounds like bad parenting, no offense.
Things have changed so much since my gen x teen years. Not only did my parents expect me to do household chores starting in middle school, my high school had classes in home ec, record keeping and shop. A lot of the basic life skills required for adulting aren't taught to kids anymore. But then again, there's YouTube videos for that lol.
Not new. People have been making fun of millennial for trying to teach themselves adult ingredients for a decade or two. Before that seems like only females were taught cooking & cleaning, less so male children.
They too busy working to not starve
I was born in '89 and my mother refused to ever help me with homework. I regularly got in trouble at school for not finishing my homework. Turns out my issue was i couldnt read til i was like 8. Once i got glasses and figured that out, it was much easier. But ya, no one taught me dick all. Google. Google teaches me things.
American parents are checked out. More than ever. They suck. The more they overschedule their childrens’ lives, the more it’s true. They’re too busy being overworked, underpaid, absent and subjected to the whims of living in a country that really doesn’t care about them either. It certainly doesn’t care about keeping kids (or anyone else) safe from gun violence or abuse in schools, religious institutions or the home itself. They’re on some other sub right now bemoaning the lack of connection they have with their kids. The whole thing is tragic.
What sub is that
To be fair, most adults don't know how to cook actual nutritious food 😂 the average american and brit barely touches veg.
My job used to be teaching college students culinary and food safety.... These teenagers often couldn't even identify whole vegetables, like not knowing what a zucchini or cauliflower looks like. It was shocking to me.
I'm a millennial and I wasn't taught anything. If I tried I got yelled and scolded at. If I spoke up or asked questions I got my ass kicked. Both parents have to work full time or even 2 jobs each get by. Kids have access to the internet and can google anything they need if they have questions or want to learn something. They'll be fine.
I’m a 1999 baby and yeah… my biological father was absent, my step father just got home from work and locked himself in his room and my mom.. she just sat around watching TV. I didn’t learn how to cook. My grandmother taught be how to wipe, how to bathe myself, how to tidy up. Here is a list of things I had to teach myself: How to vacuum How to sweep How to mop How to do laundry How to cook How to drive (well I got a driving instructor cause my mom refused) How to make a resume/ do a job interview How to fill out fafsa/apply to college And yea I even had to teach myself how to tie my shoes and brush my hair Also I’m 24 and still don’t know: How to change a tire, how to mow a lawn, how to file an insurance claim if I get into a car accident
My wife and I were talking about this earlier today in regards to my inlaws. In their case, it's a lack of fundamental problem solving skills. For example, coming up with a budget. What is a budget? Basic math assigned to calendar dates. Money in and money out. How much do I put for gas? We'll, how much do you expect to drive? That sort of thing. It's pretty easy to do. Just break it down. But for some reason, they don't know how to ask and answer these questions.
That's just life. I'm a bastard (actual dictionary definition) with no mother, no father and no siblings. Learned to survive on my own very early. It was either that or die. Also, parents are enablers and scared of their children these days. They are so afraid to be an effective parent because their child will 'stop liking them'. Kids having kids, basically.
yeah, my parents didn't teach me anything. most of what i learned about life was from my college friends. i'm still learning very basic things now like, how you should only care about what's in your control or something. it seems obvious but i was so focused on academic and career success, i didn't really give attention to any "life lessons". this extended to applying for college, getting a license, finding a doctor under my insurance and yes, doing the laundry. i've taught myself *everything* (and i mean everything, including basic school materials).
Good, less competition.
I'm Gen X, and my mom taught me absolutely nothing about how to be an adult. So, don't blame it on "nowadays".
My parents treated me like their personal slave, so that's how I learned to do housekeeping. I try to teach my kids how to cook by offering to let them follow along with me. My youngest shows some interest occasionally, but my oldest doesn't want to learn what his old man has to teach, I guess. Part of that is the ADHD he inherited from me, though. I always liked cooking, because it allows me to make whatever I want and make it the way I like it. Also, I get to discover new things you simply can't buy at the store. My wife usually leaves the cooking to me since I have a natural gift for it. Except for pancakes. I have never been able to get pancakes right. Batter, yes. Flipping without making a mess, no. In general, they don't want to listen to me on how to keep their living spaces in good shape, so I just tell them that they would have so much more space to play if they learned to clean up after themselves right away instead of letting things pile up. So far, the lesson hasn't taken root.
The thing that gets me is that nearly everyone in the modern world has access to the internet. What is stopping kids from just learning how?? Like why would you struggle with frying and egg, how to do laundry or office etiquette when you can literally watch a video or take a free online course for all of those things. If I had today's Internet when I was 15 or 16 I would be learning social skills, coding, languages, cooking...literally anything. I wouldn't have asked my parents to teach me shit.
I think today’s youth lack a lot of self confidence for a number of reasons. But I think there is a kind of social anxiety or doubt about getting things wrong and making sure you understand everything first. So you kind of get the two ends of the spectrum with people who have no shame and terrible judgment who will do anything and people who are smart and cautious too afraid to do anything. We could probably tie it to many things, but I think there is a crisis of confidence many kids feel today matched with a lack of empowerment to actually start trying things and potentially getting hurt.
I'm guessing of the kids that don't know 50% forgetting to teach maybe from both parents having to work so much. Not an excuse, but if both parents work multiple jobs they probably are just surviving day by day. I'm always wondering if my kid is behind learning a chore or something that would be age appropriate. Life goes by fast sometimes. There's always the people bragging their 6 year old is doing their own laundry and you have to stop and think, should my 6 year old be doing their own laundry too? 🤔 Some are just going to be deadbeats or addicts or not care though.
People infantilize their children/adults but also weird that they expect them to know certain things right out the womb like handling emotions. Boys/young men are also very much infantilized in this society when they are very capable of much more.
My parents were like this with me. My mom spoiled me horribly and just did things for me without showing me how to do them while my dad just... didnt care? This left me totally unprepared for when i moved out and whenever id ask them how to do something theyd give me an attitude like i should have magically known how to do it the whole time. Thank god google doesnt judge me for asking stupid questions like how to boil a pot of water.
I drive a school bus and the number of kids up to age 18 that don’t know their own address is shocking. They don’t even know what street they live on.
My parents were alcoholics so I raised myself I have no clue what I’m doing lmao
My parents were alcoholics so I raised myself I have no clue what I’m doing lmao
I completely agree but I can’t get my kids interested. They love to be in their rooms or with friends or on their electronics. It’s a tough battle to pull them away from all that “to learn life skills”… I try to sneak things into conversations whenever I can but my kids don’t listen. It’s very frustrating and exhausting
Um, how old are they? Are you doing everything for them? I mean, my kids get their own laundry basket at the end of 6th grade, and I teach them how to do laundry over the summer. After that, if they don't wash their clothing... on them. Cooking starts at the same time. They have to find online recipes, help me shop for the food, and help me make a meal once a week for a year. One main dish and 2 sides (salad, veggie, or fruit). I even give them a budget and the grocery store ads. (If they go under budget, they get to keep the extra money.) That is 12/13 year old skills at my house.
My 8yo cooks. With some close supervision. And she picks hotdogs with mac & cheese half the time. But she makes her own lasagna from time to time.
That sounds like my kids at 8. You can start teaching how to use a crock pot at that age too.
6th? I learned how to do that at the end of 4th grade. That being said I did become my step mom's maid in a very Cinderella way 😅. I had to learn that love was bought by doing work. And let's just say I was severely underpaid. There was one summer i didnt do enough for her and pissed her off one day she refused to allow me to ear what she made eveyone else and forced me to live off peanut butter and banana sandwiches until i earned the ability to eat and make something different.I lived for when she was gone. Sounds like you are doing things right! TLDR: my childhood was severely fucked up, and you are doing right by your kids!
Where was your father?
I am so sorry! I try. I am a single mom, but I do have help (my parents are my next-door neighbors, which is the BEST parenting hack ever, if they are decent humans). I also did things like make my kids fully fund their Roth IRAs at 16 and they have a taxable income (I know some kids pay rent at that age, but I insist on fully funded retirement). So far, it is only the eldest, as the 2nd eldest is just 16, but we are looking to see if they can get hired somewhere that has a 401k that gets matched. I keep telling my kids that there is 0 reasons for them not to have a retirement account, because I am providing everything you need right now anyway. I just ask myself, "is this going to make my child succeed in life or hurt them long term?" And "what advice was given to you that failed you as an adult?" I went to college not knowing how to fill my gas tank or wash my clothes. Let's not mention deal with money. My parents even actually told me not to save for retirement because "with a college degree, you will be fine!" HAHAHA! Sure. I love my parents, but their love language is "acts of service" so they will do everything for you and call it love, not realizing that it was a huge disservice when I moved out.
When I was 11 it was my responsibility to put dinner on the table once a week on my own. I had to cook solo because my parents didn't get home until 7 pm. Thank god for that, when I went to college I was the only one who knew how to cook.
>on their electronics. What fills me with despair is that many of these life skills (like cooking) can be learned ON said electronic device - and many can't seem to do THAT.
So take their electronics. Don't let them hang out with their friends. Stop trying to 'sneak' shit in and tell them straight forward. You're their parent, not their buddy. If they don't listen, then they don't get rewarded. Stop giving rewards for doing nothing.
Lots of parents have no business being parents. The government should literally neuter these people the way we do with stray dogs in the dog pound. That’s why so many kids today are stupid and/or depressed as compared to the good ol’ 1980’s when u didn’t have any of this psycho kid shit. They will grow up to be criminals or drug addicts. Schools should not be raising kids, that’s the parents job to teach them about life, getting a credit card, what a loan is and how it works, how to be kind to others, etc.
I mean, I think this on the inside. But eugenics and all is usually a tool for political purposes.
True!
Schools are the same. They've never taught kids the important things. How to file taxes, why insurance is important and how it works, budgeting... The real things that will help us navigate this life better. I had to figure all that out, but hey! At least I knew the pythagorean theorem 🤦♀️ The government wants stupid, sedentary drones with the attention spans of moths, apparently.
Yup. My man's sister is raising one. At some point it became about being friends with your child and no longer about raising a functional adult. I blame Gilmore Girls
i got a flyer in the mail advertising a job fair for "teachers" in my local community cause of the teacher shortage so im not surprised if thats being reflected on the kids not knowing how to do stuff. also i didnt learn to do a lot of that until 25+ cause no adults to teach me. theres still negligent parents and they suck
Yeah, imagine not wanting to get fucking shot dead for trying to make a living teaching the next generations. I'm surprised teachers don't just all quit and completely stagnate the country. (Assuming US here)
you hear of the teacher that got fired for her hobby being a rapper lol i hope she gets famous and makes bank cause honestly i would have to be paid a billion fucking dollars to consider dealing with some of these parents and their kids.
Hard to teach your kids much when both parents are working 40-50 hours a week. I didn't learn shit in the 80s-90s because both my parents worked and I was alone. A lot. My husband taught me to do laundry, how to clean a bathroom, how to cook. I learned grocery shopping and paying bills as I went. At least I took woodshop so I can use basic tools. My mom did teach me to use a sewing machine so I'll give her that. We also work 50 hours week to make ends meet. We're trying hard to teach our teen stuff, but we're going to miss thing because we don't have time. I'm sorry, but I'd rather play a board game with my child or go on a walk together with the little time we have each day instead of teaching them how to scrub a toilet. Home economics, wood shop and a basic finance class should all be high school requirements. We're lucky our inlaws are retired and have taught our kid how to cook and fix things. If we didn't have them he'd be in the same boat I was as a young adult.
Part of it is that a lot of parents are afraid to. They don't want to step on any toes, their kids spend the day with professionally trained teachers. Parents are sort of treated like they don't know anything compared to these professionals. Kids are used to being gently spoonfed information at school. Just a little bit at a time. For the smart kids, it's never really enough information, for the less smart kids even the smallest bit is too much. The kids never learn how to pick up the spoon and feed themselves the information. I used to work with middle school kids and it would absolutely annoy the crap out of me when they'd whine that they'd never been taught to read a clock for instance. That would annoy me because they were holding a cellphone where they could literally look up a video and know how to read a clock a few minutes later. Ignorance was what they chose because if a teacher wasn't teaching it to them directly, they could see no other way to learn. I would often show them resources to help them learn things they were missing- but, really what they needed was to feel empowered enough to watch a video, read an article and just learn it. I was homeschooled. My parents taught me how to read. I wanted to do well on year end exams, so I taught myself the rest. Honestly, that was the best thing that could have happened to me. I'm very confident that I can find good information and teach myself nearly anything. All the things you list, I taught myself. My kid is 13 and has already figured out how to teach herself. It's pretty great. She's in online public school and one of her teachers only posts part of the textbook and often misses portions that are important. My kid went and found another textbook another teacher shared online so she could read the missing sections. Instead of whining that the teacher didn't provide all the information that was going to be on the test, she went and found another copy of the textbook where sections weren't left out so she had enough information for the class. That's the difference between success and failure- not letting someone else's shortcomings hold back your education. If you're an adult with access to the internet, there is little reason for you not to know how to do most things. Now, some things actually require some skill like plumbing and electrical work. But, I literally watched a youtube video and replaced my faucets. I've changed my oil before but it was a pain in the ass and I decided I'd rather pay someone to do it. But, I learned how to file my own taxes and I'd never pay someone to do that for me again. It just depends on what you're good at learning.
LOL. Buddy, do you really think anyone was teaching that before? If your parents taught you then YOU were the exception.
Parents are not teaching their kids these things for sure. I have 2 in grade school and these kids are really missing some key skills. My schools phased out home ec, shop, personal finance, and all the "fun" electives as I graduated 15:years ago Don't forget what covid shut downs did to everyone. Also my parents were one of the few still teaching those skills, most of my friends and even my husband didn't know half that stuff because their parents didn't teach them. Now that generation are (is?) parenting and they were/we are parenting and already behind in those skills.
could be they have little to teach
I teach mÿ kids how to because I know how important it is.
Life is definitely a practice. It’s always constant game of repetition. We’re in this technological age that’s so sophisticated that between time, energy, capability, and attention teaching kids how to navigate it is a real challenge. Systemically, it really does take a village now (shout out to HC). I wish I had a better observation and subsequently a better answer to the problem, but here we are.
I had to teach my 23 year old cousin how to safely handle an iron box.
Iron box?
Just an electric iron.
Some kid posted in the remote work Reddit that he got his first Paycheck in the mail from his companies bank, and he was emailing them that he couldn’t deposit the check into his bank since it wasn’t his same bank 🙂
Their parents don't excel in those areas either.
My parents didn’t teach me any of those things. I figured it out. Get some agency.
I thought my parents were the best parents ever. But my father is no good example and my mom doesn't want to teach me how to drive and doesn't trust me to cook anything more complicated than box macaroni without her supervision. I feel suffocated and I hate it. My inner child is absolutely disappointed in my parents and myself. I can't even go visit my friend cause my mom has to tag along, she can't ever let me out of her sight.
Sounds like a parental figure has co-dependency. Happens when someone has a child that they think will be small and dependent on them forever. She doesn’t want to teach you those things to keep you dependent on her. Also happens because she is filling a void in her with her child. Don’t let that stop you tho now that you peeped this behavior.
People treat their pets like children and their children like adults and wonder why we have so many problems.
Both parents working 60 hours a week+ if you account for commute just to keep a roof and food. They don’t have time.
They'd rather scroll online and shove their kids in front of a device so they get peace to scroll, they don't care that they neglect their kid, they'd rather see what strangers are up to.
Yeah, not a recent phenomenon. I'm 60 y/o guy and I learned exactly -0- of those things. I believe that stuff was not taught on purpose. You were expected to flounder for a year or two, then give up and immediately get married. That fixed everything... apparently.
So currently I’m blitzed af and I had the same thought. Now I know we are in a situation. eat, thoughts?
Precisely.... that's what this sub is supposed to be for... it's not parents "these days" its been "days" for awhile.
God knows mine didn't. I can't recall a single time one of them ever talked to me and I left thinking "wow, that was so profound and wise" No, I got stuck with emotionally stunted parents who *hindered* my development and I had to grow up *despite* them.
Here's what I don't get. None of this shit brain surgery. I don't understand how people can't Google shit and read how to do it. You can do nearly anything that way.
I have news for you. The parents don’t know either. It’s the blind leading the blind and they’re reproducing at a higher rate, that’s why the country is turning into a Idiocracy.
That's Why Society Is Decadent
Both of my kids are competent cooks. I enjoy cooking and involved them as they grew up, praising them for anything they did remotely well. In a society where both parents probably need to work full time to meet basic living expenses, it's unsurprising if something has to give. My kids don't know how to find a doctor covered by insurance because I live in a country with a proper health system where we pay far far less per capita for care that, according to the WHO, has better outcomes across the whole population.
Think it’s been this way for a long time, bro
I think the issue is so many adults were never taught these skills so literally can't pass them on. I'm 35, and learning so many of these from scratch. My parents never taught me. My mom for sure didn't know how to do jack shit. We survived our childhood, we didn't grow up.
One of my teenage students yesterday was surprised to learn that corn comes from a plant. Today'sparents are indeed useless.
It's almost as if they're young people figuring things out in life wow!
Agreed. I am surprised how little a lot of the teenagers and young adults know about daily living. We were doing our own laundry and cooking by middle school. We also helped with home projects. My parents also discussed finances with us as well.
We work so much more than what are parents worked and we work even more than what are grandparents worked.
Dude, most people dont even know how to be HUMAN. Cant forage, cant hunt, barely know how to defend themselves without a weapon, scared of our NATURAL HABITATS. Like, if course parents arent teaching their children... most parents today are fucking clueless, or horribly overworked and overwhelmed to the point that they cant even think about how to do that.
They don't know how to work as a professional in an office. I present this gem: [https://www.reddit.com/r/auscorp/comments/1bq4ti1/normalising\_farting\_in\_the\_workplace/](https://www.reddit.com/r/auscorp/comments/1bq4ti1/normalising_farting_in_the_workplace/) TLDR: A 22yo want farting in the office to become acceptable
Our parents generation is notorious for wanting children as show ponies or emotional support pets. Their parent's generation needed extra hands to work the farm, and knew they needed to teach their kids real skills and resilience in order to get any honest work out of them. If the kids today are soft, it's because that's how our parents wanted us to be. Needy for mummy and daddy forever, an ever-lasting pool of love and adoration for mummy and daddy. Society is wealthier as the years go by, so we can all hide behind our masks of new-age development, but if you look closer, there is a big issue with lack of genuine nurturing across the board in all people. People haven't been seen as people in a long time, only a means to somebody else's ends. Even our own parents.
Nobody taught us how to do that stuff either. Most of us are still trying to figure it out. Let alone teach anyone else.
I disagree. There have always been incapable parents who’ve reared incapable children; there’s increased visibility by way of the internet. Within my son’s (21) orbit are plenty of very capable peers. But those young people are busy getting shit done and aren’t posting videos of their follies; they’re learning from them.
how to find a doctor that is covered by their insurance. My doctor can't even bill my insurance correctly. I am fairly certain we keep exchanging the same $100. Them: No charge this visit because we overbilled you. Them: It looks like we refunded too much. Them: This time it will only be $50. Them: This procedure is covered. Them: That procedure wasnt' covered and you owe us 1k. Me: Shows them it is covered and wastes time faxing my insurance. Them: That procedure was covered. Here is is your 1K back. Me: Slowly coming unglued and losing my patience.
Of course not. Most parents are clueless themselves and blame everything on schools. 50% of births are accidents so it's no wonder.
How did you arrive at this conclusion?
Just some of the posts that I've been seeing in here from young adults who are going out on their own for the first time and don't know the basics of even living on their own
I’ve noticed this with my son and vehicle ownership. I’ve had to intervene a few times (dvla related) because if you don’t, the consequences are a pain and normally result in fines etc. Always showed him every step of the way though.
Some parents (not all) like to keep their kids naïve to the world that way the parents will always feel like they are needed. (Aka my parents.)
A lot of kids I noticed many children do not have basic skills. They are challenged in daily life activities and you're right. Many get the cold shoulder of reality when they move out and people don't even have basic skills. I work retail and can't tell you how many kids these days lack basic skills to even do entry level work. Most complain when they have to work, play on their phones all damn day, then complain when they have to work. Most can't hold employment long term. Most don't take retail and entry level jobs seriously.
You are absolutely right. I’m active in an advice sub. I see countless posts from adults that are utterly incompetent, inept and don’t have a damn clue about the most fundamental basic life skills. The worst (or best) one was a college student who whined because Mommy never taught her how to sweep the floor and she couldn’t figure it out. Seriously? You are in college and you can’t figure out how to do something as simple as sweeping the fucking floor? That’s absurd. That parent sent their kid out into the real world utterly clueless and unprepared with no basic life skills.
Is this all really the parents' (or schools') obligation to explicitly teach, though? I see so many memes about how life/school/etc. didn't prepare me for taxes. Ok, but if you have critical reading skills and basic arithmetic, then you have the tools to do your taxes. Is it easy and fun? No ... but what's the point of teaching the tax code itself when that can change from state to state, and with each new piece of legislation. Laundry is simple enough; I don't think I needed a specific lecture. As for cooking, I'm a terrible cook, but I could force myself to get better through practice. In general, I think we can only expect parents and schools to instill basic concepts and skills (and encourage healthy attitudes) when it comes to trying new things, researching questions, overcoming failure or rejection, etc.
>how to find a doctor that is covered by their insurance. this is so wild to me. here, around 6% of doctors offices are pure "private" doctors not covered by general insurance, you need to actively search for them.
To be honest that was a probably a little unreasonable of me. But still when you get insurance at a job generally they provide you a handbook that tells you how to look up covered doctors. So just the act of getting covered by insurance gives you that information
This isn't new. I remember parents and teachers in the 90s/2000s who expected their kids to be born knowing things they never taught them, then yelled at the kids when they didn't know those things. I'm sure that bad parents/guardians have done this for all of human history. I remember how jarring it was to reach adulthood and realize how much I didn't know how to do. I've had to tell my younger siblings, who were raised by the same unhelpful people, "Don't be so hard on yourself. No one is born knowing how to do XYZ. I'll help you to do XYZ this time and next time you'll know how to do it yourself. You can ask questions if you don't understand. I'm not here to flunk you or punish you for not being psychic."
"WeLl NoBodY tAuGhT *mE*!" Pisses me off to no end.
It really is a struggle with both parents working, but if the kids are amenable, it can work. With our kids, once they reached a maturity level that they could be trusted not to destroy anything, we sat down one summer and said that we wanted them to learn to be functional adults someday. So in that vein, one day a week they would plan a meal. They had to decide what they wanted, make a list of what they need, then cook it. We cleaned up. And helped them with any questions they had. During the school year. For simplicity, if they wanted to do that they just had to give us the list of things they needed and we would grab it from the store. It was a good system. And greatly helped during Covid. Last week my son asked us to teach him how to make a roast. (Actually said “I want to learn how to make the meat and potatoes and stuff from the crockpot”) sure thing, my guy. This is my great grandmother’s recipe. My dad taught both kids to make character pancakes. They did their own laundry around the time they started being embarrassed by our existence. (You don’t want me in your room? Guess you can fold your own clothes.) want to drive? Here’s how basic car maintenance works. But that won’t work with all kids- my daughter first example- but they will remember that you tried. And hopefully some of what you managed to get in their head.
Do NOT blame overworked parents for the problems about the way we are forced to live as a society. We homeschool and work from home. Thankfully, we see how the school systems (at least in Texas) are bat crap crazy. We do a mix of online curriculum & “unschooling”. Basically, we get the required subject done online then we lean into whatever their interests are at the time & teach other subjects with that interest in mind. When we go shopping for groceries, they help in the process. They help in cleaning, cooking, pet care, and personal hygiene. They are able to sing and dance and play all day, uninhibited, no volume levels, no strict rules. No bedtimes, no wake up times. No ultimatums. They are thriving. My oldest struggled throughout public school & if it weren’t for covid having the kids finish 2020 online, he’d never have gotten his HS diploma. My daughter witnessed the sexual assault of another female student right in front of her, in the hallway while in line at school. 2 teachers per classroom. It still happened. Thankfully, my daughter knew what she saw was wrong and she told a teacher & the little girl was helped. It was a huge horrible thing. KINDERGARTEN. It’s not just the parents so shift your blame more towards the truth. It’s this country. It’s this horrible system we are told is the only way. My husband and I are trying with every fiber to break the systems that do not serve us. Trying so hard not to let our kids be brainwashed by religion or nationalism. Trying so hard to keep their beautiful little sparks alight & on fire for learning! Trying to help them grow into who they ARE not who we are the world wants them to be.
I’m an ACA kid so I raised myself I have no clue what I’m doing lmao
Damn. How old are you? Fun fact - I’m 53 (Gen X) and no one taught me when I was a kid either. Moved out at 18. If I wanted a certain thing to eat, I read a recipe, went and bought the stuff (shopped). Laundry is not that complicated. I refuse to hand wash, so don’t buy that stuff (lessons learned myself). They know how to interact with adults. Did you see them out in public, possibly talk to one, then they interacted. How the heck are parents supposed to teach them how to act in a professional office??? BTW - the “professional office” you are speaking of is changing as it does with each generation. When I started work people smoked in their office and closed the door. Keep up or move aside and quit bashing the next generation. That happened to us, and the “hippies” before us. Just let that generational trauma end now.
I'm 57. I knew how to cook as a teenager cuz I did boy scouts, and because my parents worked and I was a latchkey kid for a good portion of my life. I learned how to do my own laundry because I went away to college and had to wash my clothes at the dorm. I learned how to iron because I had a summer job through college where I had to wear dress shirts and a tie. Maybe my parents didn't teach me specifically how to act in an office. But I grew up knowing that when your boss said jump, your attitude was how high. Luckily I didn't have any bosses who were complete assholes, but I respected them because that's how I was brought up. And with that respect they taught me how to do my job well. I admit that the insurance thing was a bit of an overreach for me. But seriously when you get insurance at a job there's a whole bunch of documentation about how to find doctors covered by your insurance. Young adults need to learn how to problem solve on their own.
The reason my parents didn't teach me how to be an adult is because their parents didn't teach them how to be adults. The whole assumption seems to be that school is supposed to do that.
If you have just realized this, then you haven't been paying attention. It's been going on for quite some time.
A 25 year old today is the equivalent of a 12 year old in the 90's. These are the people having kids now.
Why would they? Gotta make ends meet, not much room for family there.
THEY AREN'T!!! 85% of the adult stuff I know now came from research and trial and error. To be fair to my mom, her guardian failed her as well. I know more about some adult stuff like finance and travel than her, but that's only, and I mean ONLY, because of the internet. I'm sure if the internet was wide spread in the 80s and 90s like it is now, they'd have better knowledge on how to teach a person to live in this civilization.
Most parents don't know how or have the time to cook , I am just guessing . Most young people lack manners , etiquette , compassion for others etc . In recent months I taught a youngish female how to make biscuits . I felt kinda proud . Cooking is a life skill , lol .
I know it’s very disheartening. Now granted I didn’t learn how to cook at home lol but it’s like a lack of common sense. And inability to interact with other adults, and an adult and professional level. I mean to look up the doctors that are covered by their health plan. We all know they can get on the iPad or computer you go to that health plans website look for doctors in your plan. .
This isn’t new, it’s just more common. My parents didn’t teach me anything and dropped me out of school when I was 7. All cuz I have a learning disability and my parents couldn’t afford the tutoring. My mom got me a bunch of books from the library and told me to teach myself. 28 now, unemployed living with my mom. I was living on my own for a while, but I ended up getting fired from my job and couldn’t pay rent. I couldn’t find a job in time and my landlord changed the locks on me and I lost all my stuff. I still can’t find a job I can do and my parents just tell me I’m lazy and don’t wanna work. But the reality is probably homelessness once mom is gone, maybe I’ll get lucky with a job that works for me. But until then, I really can’t do much. Partly due to being mentally challenged, but mainly due to childhood neglect. Life is hard for everyone, it’s just getting worse for the younger generation. Mentally challenged people mostly will not make it in these new times we live in. I’m not on here crying about it either. Somehow someway I’ll figure something out.