Generation useless

It seems people 18-24 are now incapable of performing simple chores...or maybe just too fucking lazy. According to this, some of the things people don't know how to do include:

• Washing dishes by hand by washing the lightly soiled items first and scraping dishes clean beforehand
• Bleed a radiator
• Resetting a fuse box
• Change a lightbulb
• Sewing on a button

I lay the blame at the parents, who failed to teach basic life skills to their kids and did not require them to participate in the care of their childhood household.

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cassia
I lay the blame at the parents, who failed to teach basic life skills to their kids and did not require them to participate in the care of their childhood household.

Yes, the parents absolutely failed to teach their children how to function as adults. However, as an adult there comes a point where blaming others is not an excuse for failing to address your deficiencies. Except their parents probably didn't teach them resilience and personal responsibility, either.

But seriously, how stupid do you have to be to not be able to figure out the logical order for washing dishes, and that you should scrape/rinse the dishes first? That goes beyond coddling. That's box-of-hammers dumb.

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yurble

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cassia
I lay the blame at the parents, who failed to teach basic life skills to their kids and did not require them to participate in the care of their childhood household.

Yes, the parents absolutely failed to teach their children how to function as adults. However, as an adult there comes a point where blaming others is not an excuse for failing to address your deficiencies. Except their parents probably didn't teach them resilience and personal responsibility, either.

But seriously, how stupid do you have to be to not be able to figure out the logical order for washing dishes, and that you should scrape/rinse the dishes first? That goes beyond coddling. That's box-of-hammers dumb.

I grew up in a dysfunctional household with parents who taught me very little.
Back then and later as an adult, I guessed and figured out how to do many tasks, including household responsibilities.
These days almost anything, no matter how simple, can be learned through the internet or just using some basic common sense.

The only thing modern kids know how to do is stay glued to their devices.

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cassia
These days almost anything, no matter how simple, can be learned through the internet or just using some basic common sense.

That's what I don't get. You can look up how to do any basic task and find written instructions and a YouTube video. And a good many problems can be solved by simply thinking them through. The first time I dealt with an old fuse box I had no experience with changing fuses, as I had only previously used the modern kind with switches. It was not difficult to figure out which fuse needed replacing and how to do it. And the first time I had to bleed a radiator - the house I grew up in didn't have them - I think I asked someone to show me (this was pre YouTube). After one example I was able to handle the rest of them.

So how have we ended up with a bunch of people who couldn't figure out how to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel?

I was reading an article about the absence of play and it made me think maybe that is the problem. Instead of encouraging creativity and problem-solving, children are shuffled from one activity to the next. So when they haven't been taught to do something by rote learning (cleaning, for instance), they cannot figure out how to do it.

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yurble
So how have we ended up with a bunch of people who couldn't figure out how to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel?

I was reading an article about the absence of play and it made me think maybe that is the problem. Instead of encouraging creativity and problem-solving, children are shuffled from one activity to the next. So when they haven't been taught to do something by rote learning (cleaning, for instance), they cannot figure out how to do it.

My theory is that they're a generation that has learned passivity in every aspect of their lives. Parents didn't directly teach the skills or give them chores to do, or expect them to work hard in school (but maybe wanted good grades somehow). So that's passivity in work/jobs.

Then they were never left to entertain themselves in any sort of unstructured play at home. Toys dwindled in favor of screen-based, pre-made games. Some schools moved to much more structured recesses wherein kids choose from some structured, adult-run activities instead of free play and negotiating amongst themselves. So playtime involved a certain passivity.

Result was a generation of young people who may have lots of potential, but never use it because they're unaccustomed to recognizing a need (like cleaning, repairs, etc) and taking initiative to address that. They don't think to sew on a button or clean a bathroom because they don't recognize it as something that needs doing. Buy a new shirt and wait for an adult to clean the bathroom...only they don't realize they're the adult now.

Which brings me to a favorite saying: parents need to focus on the fact that they're raising children, sure...but also that they're raising adults. If you "let them be kids" all the time, they won't know how to be anything but that for the rest of their lives.

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mumofsixbirds
The only thing modern kids know how to do is stay glued to their devices.

Which you see a lot of parents love to goo over. 'My kid's so smart, he can figure out the DVD/Ipad/Computer at age 5, not even I could figure that out!'

Real practical things that don't involve screens or the Pavlovian response to their phones or Ipads? Weellllll.....

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nightfire

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mumofsixbirds
The only thing modern kids know how to do is stay glued to their devices.

Which you see a lot of parents love to goo over. 'My kid's so smart, he can figure out the DVD/Ipad/Computer at age 5, not even I could figure that out!'

Real practical things that don't involve screens or the Pavlovian response to their phones or Ipads? Weellllll.....

Kids who really understand technology, as opposed to simply being consumers of technology, are pretty rare. Working in the tech field I am irked by vapid talking heads claiming that "digital natives" are so much more fluent with technology than we are. Seriously, who do they think built that shit that kids are using? It was pathetic adults who grew up in the analog age fiddling around with computers and figuring out how things worked. There are still kids like that today, but the vast majority are simply better trained consumers than their idiotic parents, nothing more.

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yurble

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nightfire

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mumofsixbirds
The only thing modern kids know how to do is stay glued to their devices.

Which you see a lot of parents love to goo over. 'My kid's so smart, he can figure out the DVD/Ipad/Computer at age 5, not even I could figure that out!'

Real practical things that don't involve screens or the Pavlovian response to their phones or Ipads? Weellllll.....

Kids who really understand technology, as opposed to simply being consumers of technology, are pretty rare. Working in the tech field I am irked by vapid talking heads claiming that "digital natives" are so much more fluent with technology than we are. Seriously, who do they think built that shit that kids are using? It was pathetic adults who grew up in the analog age fiddling around with computers and figuring out how things worked. There are still kids like that today, but the vast majority are simply better trained consumers than their idiotic parents, nothing more.

Yeah, there is a huge difference between knowing how to use technology and actually knowing how it works and being able to manipulate it. My dad is a computer engineer, so I grew up in a household where I was taught how to actually build a computer and learn about what went on behind the operating system. Like he didn't let me use a computer with Windows until I was actually proficient with DOS and knew how to install a program in it and do basic troubleshooting because he wanted me to understand how computers worked. In this day and age that seems like something that everyone has to at least have some understanding of to be able to function.

There is no excuse for not being able to understand how stuff works when all of that information is easily available online. Hell, when I wanted to put a bigger hard drive in my PS4 there were hundreds of how to videos online. I could have figured it out on my own but I would rather watch a tutorial so that I don't accidentally break something on a 400 dollar piece of machinery.

Yeah, I'd have given the impression of being a computer whiz, but really I just watched closely and cribbed all the useful things I saw.

I still lived at home right around the beginning of general adoption of consumer use of the internet. It took a while to convince my dad to get a modem.

But prior to that we had finally gotten a modern computer after having TRS-80s and fancy dot matrix typewriter-printers that would store 16 characters at once.

Tetris, there was Tetris! I played that shit so much my dad finally put a password on the Windows machine.

But I had been watching and already knew how to use DOS in a monkey see, monkey do fashion. So I opened up Xtree-pro (DOS file explorer) and opened Tetris directly and played it whenever he wasn't home. I forget how I got caught "breaking in" to it... (see, I could have directly opened tetris from the DOS prompt without the file explorer, I just didnt know it at the time and never memorized the path.)

My next tactic was watching him type the password. I'm not sure why he never thought I'd figure that out, I was always standing right next to him when he let me into the computer.

Of course he changed the password after catching me again. Then I tried to make a separate folder of my own copy of Windows, not knowing I should have gone a bit further and somehow fashioned a virtual drive to run it from.

I password protected MY Windows with my own password. Magically that password was applied to BOTH copies of Windows, AND then I forgot it. LOL!

My dad had to wipe the computer and reinstall windows.

Truly I am only a bit more savvy than my average peer consumer of electronic devices. I am WAY better than my husband at not angrily picking "always use this choice" settings. He locks himself out of a lot of things and doesn't know that it's his own fault. Pop ups to confirm your settings piss him off, but they are there for a reason.

On a TV show, someone inserted a thumb drive in a pc which automatically opened all files on it. My husband scoffed, "Computers don't DO that! There is not a setting to make that happen!!!"
Oh, but there is. Pick "Open all files" and "Do this automatically" when the computer recognizes the thumb drive. You'd think he would know this as he has picked this setting himself on accident!

I probably have average tech skills. My dad has no patience with technology. He just turned 80. He asks me to order books for him on Amazon because he does not want to get his own account (he pays me in cash for the books). Sometimes he asks me to look up stuff on the internet for him. I surf the internet so damn much I have tendonitis in my right thumb and I'm left handed. This is because I love to search for information and learn new things. I should have tried to get some kind of research or investigation job. Dad has a cell phone but he never uses it. I don't use mine a lot either, I don't understand how some people can be glued to them 24/7. I turn it on when I leave the house and use it to play music in my car with Amazon cloud. Dad is a retired math professor so the problem isn't lack of brains, it's simply impatience. Although he has learned how to Skype recently and I don't do that. Mom doesn't do anything with computers at all.

My parents were overprotective for the time I grew up in. When I went to college in 1988 the girls in the dorm were amazed I had never done laundry. But I knew how because I had watched my mom. I washed my clothes just fine. I did fuck up my bank account because my parents thought money was as taboo as sex and never told me anything about it. But I figured it out after a while.

I can't believe how much over-protectiveness is normal now. I read it is illegal for kids under 13 to be outside without an adult in some places. I thought it was really bad my parents insisted on walking me to and from school until 3rd grade. They tried to continue it in 3rd grade but I threw a shit fit and they no longer had the support of the school. The school encouraged parents to walk with their kids for the first 2 grades but very few of them did it. I lived three blocks from the school and it was a normal residential neighborhood. If this is now mandatory behavior for parents no wonder kids can't do anything for themselves.

Most of the computer skills I acquired over the years were from my job. These included general skills ranging from cleaning up virus-infected machines to figuring out how to run stuff, as well as using programs such as Word, Lotus, and Excel. And at my old job, I was hardly the best at PC skills because the newer employees knew so much more than I did. At best I was in the middle of the pack, but to most people not coworkers I looked like a genius! ("Big fish, small pond!") And I continue to pick up new tips all the time.

My parents were good at showing me how to figure out things. Living on my own for the last 30 years, I have to do a lot of small home-improvement tasks such as changing lighting fixtures and light switches, and retiling bathroom and kitchen floors. I'm not so good with car stuff, as I have done some minor damage with DIY tasks there, so I rely more on my mechanic now.

I need to hire a doggie for plate/pot cleaning duty. among other perks... especially companionship

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

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mumofsixbirds
The only thing modern kids know how to do is stay glued to their devices.

THIS! My ex-girlfriend's son didn't evenk now how he should feel about something tragic. So they're not only screwed up with little knowledge of how to do many things but also some don't seem to be able to figure out how they feel.

I can't say "boo" in front of my wife about anyone, especially her "sister" (some foster kid the family didn't adopt, so, no, she's not a sister in my book). She's a millennial and there has been bad blood between us since the day we met because Wolf and I, along with other people were supposedly talking too loud so her precious CHYLD might wake up. Oh, and she blew off our handfasting (probably to shag some fuck o' the day she found at the Pagan Festival we were attending (My wife is one of these "no hate" types).

In rereading this thread, I still don't understand how people can go through life without knowing many of the simple things that help one survive. Maybe it's because I was raised by a couple who were big, bad Greatest Generation. /s Having experienced the Great Depression during adolescence (early adulthood in the case of my dad), they felt I needed to be able to fend for myself. I remember being six or seven and my mum teaching me how to make my bed (strangely enough, I didn't know there was any other way to make a bed except with hospital corners till I was in my 20s). By the time I married, I was able to cook, clean house, etc. So, I guess that that may be why i don't understand Gen Z's helplessness.

The only conclusion that I can come to is that many Gen Z types were overly coddled by their parents. I saw that with my ex and her son. She never really disciplined him and didn't let me discipline him, either--she was one of the "gentle discipline" cohort. He's in his mid-20s now, so I hope he's learned to do for himself, but I kind of doubt it (he's the one in the post above who didn't know how he felt about a majorly bad car crash. Gee, how about sorry for anyone innocent who may have been killed or injured?). This is why I get peeved when they spout the "OK, Boomer" nonsense. At least most Boomers can do for themselves!

Another thing that I notice about younger folks (dear Lard I am officially an old Fogie now) is they seem to be raised with the "there's more where that came from" attitude. It applies to food, money, clothes, electronics, everything. They seem so wasteful and they want to live large every minute. I have a co-irker who is in his 30's. He has a stay at home wife. It's not unusual for them to eat two meals a day that are not prepared in the home: restaurants, Uber Eats, delivery. Neither one of them seems to have a clue about economy in the home. They blow so much money on food.

When my sibling's kids were small, the family went to a restaurant. My niece, who was maybe 8 years old and of normal size (not overweight) was allowed to order two entrees (grilled cheese sandwich) because she wanted them. She did not finish the sandwich from the first entree. She picked at and mangled the second one and hardly touched it. It all went in the trash. My mom commented to me after the meal that we never would have been allowed to do that, and how wasteful it was. I do not believe in forcing kids to eat, but my parents would have said---you get one entree, and if you are hungry after that you can order more food. (Even going to a restaurant was a treat.)

Today's parents are just so indulgent and they never seem to tell their kids no. This attitude is also trashing the environment and creating hyper consumers.

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MerlynHerne
In rereading this thread, I still don't understand how people can go through life without knowing many of the simple things that help one survive. Maybe it's because I was raised by a couple who were big, bad Greatest Generation. /s Having experienced the Great Depression during adolescence (early adulthood in the case of my dad), they felt I needed to be able to fend for myself. I remember being six or seven and my mum teaching me how to make my bed (strangely enough, I didn't know there was any other way to make a bed except with hospital corners till I was in my 20s). By the time I married, I was able to cook, clean house, etc. So, I guess that that may be why i don't understand Gen Z's helplessness.

I don't think it's whether parents experienced Great Depression -era living; I think it's whether the parents were raised with expectations of participation in household responsibilities. I am solidly Gen X by age, and my sibs and I were raised to pitch in with household chores. Did we like it or do it cheerfully at all times? God no. But thanks to my parents I was reasonably functional by the time I left home at 17. I could manage basic cooking, cleaning, and managing a checking account. Given proper equipment and safety gear I could mow a lawn and prune a tree.Oh, and I'm Team Hospital Corners...I had to Google to see what the other methods were!

"Let them be kids" hamstrings them in the long run.

I blame the parents too. I know my maternal unit sure as hell never showed me how to do anything because she figured I was too dumb to know what to do, but then she'd turn around and call me stupid for not just intrinsically knowing how to do those things. But if I tried to learn them on my own and she found out about it, she'd stop me and tell me I'm too stupid to figure it out. I never got chores or anything because it was drilled into my head that the only thing that mattered was good grades and nothing else. Orly? Will good grades do my laundry and cook my dinner for me too?

So I learned all this shit on my own. Cooking, laundry, dish washing, clothes folding, sewing, cleaning, even homework because she did my homework for me for years! I had no choice but to figure stuff out in college because nobody was going to hold my hand and show me. I learned how to reset the fuse box by accident - I ran the heater and microwave at the same time and everything shut off, so I looked in the fuse box and saw all the switches were going in the same direction except for one, flipped it over and everything was okay again. I did it when my mother wasn't home, thankfully, or else there would have been screaming, sobbing, praying, and frantic calls to people to come over and fix it because the house might burn down if I so much as looked at the fuse box because I'm Stupid^TM. My mother is afraid of everything and I think she wanted to make sure I was too.

Parents want to take the easy way out and not bother teaching their kids anything, and then they unleash them on the world with zero life skills (or they just don't move out). At the very least, there are tutorials for everything on Youtube now, so if a kid needs to know how to do something, they can turn to the internet. That shouldn't be how things are where strangers have to do a parent's job for them, but I'm glad it's an option for kids and young adults whose parents didn't feel like preparing them for adulthood.

I know there are things I still don't know how to do, but I'd probably be among the completely useless members of my generation had I not learned things on my own. I'm not the most competent adult in the world, but I can at least change bulbs and work an oven.

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randomcfchick
I don't think it's whether parents experienced Great Depression -era living; I think it's whether the parents were raised with expectations of participation in household responsibilities. I am solidly Gen X by age, and my sibs and I were raised to pitch in with household chores. Did we like it or do it cheerfully at all times? God no. But thanks to my parents I was reasonably functional by the time I left home at 17. I could manage basic cooking, cleaning, and managing a checking account. Given proper equipment and safety gear I could mow a lawn and prune a tree.Oh, and I'm Team Hospital Corners...I had to Google to see what the other methods were!

"Let them be kids" hamstrings them in the long run.

I, too, am Generation X, and I was raised by a trio of Silents. While I can be surprisingly helpless, and I certainly can't do hospital corners with bedsheets, I do think there is a legit reason in my case. I was diagnosed as slightly autistic at age 5, and didn't fully talk til age 9. Autistic people have a great deal more to learn, what most children do instinctively, I had to learn by memorization. My education due to the autism and learning disabilities turn out to be full of holes that I'm now trying to patch in.

+++++++++++++

Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

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yurble
But seriously, how stupid do you have to be to not be able to figure out the logical order for washing dishes, and that you should scrape/rinse the dishes first? That goes beyond coddling. That's box-of-hammers dumb.

I can't do anything with cars, as I never have had any exposure to them. Because I take too many medications, I never learned to drive, although I did fill my mother's gas tank many a time. I've done fuse boxes before, and I can change a lightbulb in the stove hood and in lamps, but I cannot in our twelve-foot high ceiling lights or bathroom lights because my disability makes that a nightmare liability for the landlord (stroke). Do remember handwashing dishes at 10, and same with loading a dishwasher. Sewing on buttons is a no-go, because buttons are as foreign as cars, there weren't many around when I was young, why I don't know. Pants are always pull up, and shirts are always pulled on.

+++++++++++++

Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

I rarely feel sorry for parents who complain about their children turning out to be useless lumps because more often than not it's the parents fault. The parents are lazy fucks that either refuse to teach their kids basic life skills or refuse to even try to get help for their child's mental illness/disability/disorder (Don't wanna label our precious snotleigh, what would the neighbors think?)


The chickens are just coming home to roost.