He graduates high school in 2017. We took him and his brother out west for 2 summers and he can't get it out of his head. His parents are talking about college. He is talking about throwing a sleeping bag, a tent, a cooler and some clothes in his jeep and heading west for the summer, then showing up at the Navy recruiter in the fall. We reminded him that his jeep has canvas sides and about the bear that bumped into the rv one night in Yellowstone while he was with us. He is reconsidering his vehicle choices. I guess it will depend on what his parents will go along with as far as trading in the jeep. They keep the boys on a tight rein and they are both really insistent on at least 2 years of college. DH and I are keeping our noses out of it.
Grandson came over last night to fix our computer
- Thread starter gcal
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gsfish said:
He got a job as soon as he got back home last summer and has been saving for his trip ever since. He has also been working on bringing his math skills up so he has more career training choices in the Navy. The boy has focus.
NeedAnEscape
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gsfish said:
At 18 I was in a similar situation, except I had a learners permit, but not a license and all I wanted to do was play video games all night and sleep all day. I didn't even think about getting a job until I was 19, but I had one by the time I turned 20. Now I'm 21, working all night and sleeping all day while fixing up the van and saving for at least a year on the road without financial worries, but this is also something I have wanted to do since I was 14.
GotSmart
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Lost in the world said:
:huh: When I was 14 I had 3 part time jobs, as well as full time school. At 15 I bought my first van. (Corvair Greenbriar) At 16 A new car. Times were different without computers and their games.
jimindenver
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I had three Corvairs, always wanted a Corvan or rampside.
At 14 I was the foreman on a vegetable ranch and took a full time job in a grocery at 15. Not much else to do back then with three TV channels and no Video games/internet. On the weekends I cracked wood.
At 14 I was the foreman on a vegetable ranch and took a full time job in a grocery at 15. Not much else to do back then with three TV channels and no Video games/internet. On the weekends I cracked wood.
GotSmart said:
I don't think it's the computers, or the games... I think it's the failure of both the parents and the schools to teach kids to have a good work ethic, and to teach them that they have to work for what they want or need instead of just getting it handed to them.
I grew up in a poor family, if I wanted a bike, or new clothes, or anything else, it was up to me to earn the money to buy them. I was pulling weeds for neighbors at 5 years old to make enough money to buy clothes and shoes so I could go to school without being laughed at.
After school and weekends I worked, from 1st grade on, because if I wanted to do anything, I had to earn the money to do it. In the summer I worked all day every day. I pulled weeds, mowed lawns, picked fruit, berries, & corn, shoveled snow, washed cars, and windows, painted fences, and later whole houses. I learned how to fix bicycles, and then cars, if there was money to be made, I was busy doing it.
There might not have been computers, but there were plenty of games to play, and kids to play with. Plenty of ways to waste time. But when you NEED something, or want it desperately, and you are TAUGHT that you have to work to get what you want or need, and that nobody is just going to hand it to you, that is what sets the tone, and the course, of the rest of our lives. We learn good work ethics, and how to provide for ourselves and our families.
I was fortunate, my Grandfather was a good teacher. He taught me that I could have anything I wanted if I was willing to work for it. In the beginning, he taught me that I didn't need to learn how to save money, I needed to learn how to make money. Saving money came later, making money came first. If you needed more money, you worked harder, you worked longer, or you got a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th job. If you couldn't afford something, it was your own fault, you hadn't worked long enough or hard enough to get there, and until you did, you didn't get to do what you wanted, or to buy what you needed. Essentials came first, pleasures or luxuries came last.
Kids today aren't being taught from day one what it takes to survive in this world. They are being brainwashed into going to school, then college, going into deep debt, only to find out that nobody taught them HOW TO GET A JOB, and then when the jobs they were promised aren't available, and what they learned was obsolete before they graduated, and in the end, they wind up taking minimum wage jobs just to survive.
Screw college, and their false hopes & lies. Starting in middle school, start grooming kids for the workforce, and have jobs waiting for them the moment they graduate high school. Then our young people will have the time, money, and means to decide what they want their future to hold, instead of entering, and possibly exiting college without a clue what they really want to do with their lives.
Kids need to be taught starting at a very young age, the value of money, the value of good work ethics, and how to become a success. Parents need to wake up, get involved, and start taking a more active role in shaping the future for their kids. Take away their cell phones, their video games, and only allow computers to be used for school work or to find jobs. The quality of good parenting has been eroded in ways that should never be tolerated. Learning can only begin at home if somebody's willing to teach it.
Opportunity is everywhere, but only if we are taught how to recognize it, and take advantage of it.
We can empower our kids, our friends, and our families to be a success, or we can groom them for failure. If we continue to groom them for failure, how can we expect any other result.
