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<p>I just got back from lunch. My S (the one I made figure it out on his owned) had called and asked if he could take me out to eat. I think I’m OK on the" Cat’s in the cradle" concern.</p>
<p>IMO–you don’t parent to try to insure you get chauffer or nursing services from your kids when you get old. This might even been a source of how kids get coddled.</p>
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<p>My sister and I got hand-me-down cars when we turned 16, and brand new ones when we graduated college. My kids do not have a car, but we share our cars with them as needed. I guess I should extrapolate that the trend is going the other way – that would make about as much sense as your generalizing from 30 kids in a small, rural town.</p>
<p>My daughter got H’s hand me down Saab when she was 16 1/2. Her brother wrecked it a year or so later in a middle of the night excursion. We got her a nice, used Ford Focus. She was heartbroken about the Saab. It’s a 2001 Focus (I think) and she still drives it. She is 28 and ready for a nicer car, but she and her H are going to try to go another year. His car is equally old. WildChild still drives the WRX we (I didn’t know what I was doing) got him when he was 18. It’s been through the mill, but it’s now in his name and he pays his own insurance. </p>
<p>When I was in high school (affluent suburb) it seemed like the kids that got cars the soonest were the less affluent and needed the car (usually a beater0 to get to a job after school. By senior year more of us had cars, but they were generally NOT new cars. Mine was a bright yellow Dodge Rambler convertible named Euripides.</p>
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<p>I agree with this. I see no reason for my car-less kids to envy the kids who got some crummy beater when they turned 16 because they’ve got to get to their afterschool jobs to help the family out or to save every penny they make towards finally being able to go to the local community college. There’s nothing “coddled” or “upscale” about that situation at all.</p>
<p>But even more importantly, it’s not really a good thing to count other people’s money, is it?</p>
<p>As a general observation, comparing “then” and “now” cannot make sense without factoring in race and socioeconomic status.</p>
<p>Consider being urban poor in the 1960s with now. Riots in (1964) Harlem, Rochester, North Philadelphia; (1965) Watts; (1966) Cleveland (Hough); (1967) Plainfield, Ill, Newark, NJ, Detroit, Buffalo, Cairo, Ill.; (1968) Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, DC.</p>
<p>Has it changed? You tell me.</p>
<p>07Dad-I was literally just thinking about that. H is black and grew up at a time when even in “liberal” Seattle, most blacks worked as maids and janitors (like his parents). They had a car but it was old and when it broke down they had to save up to fix it. None of the kids even dreamed of having a car of their own. Thankfully there was good public transportation.Because both of his parents worked two or even three jobs, H was responsible for going to the market, buying food and making dinner by the time he was 10. His much older sister talks about having to choose between dinner and a new pair of shoes for her S one month. H and all of his siblings worked as soon as they were able-their dad died when some of them were quite young-hard to get medical care when you’re working alone overnight and have a heart attack.His mother also died quite young due to health issues she couldn’t afford to address.</p>
<p>At one point the family lived in the “projects” until they bought a house in the redlined area where blacks were pretty much relagated. Ironiocally, the house he grew up in just sold for nearly $1 million since it’s now a hot real esate area.</p>
<p>By contrast, I grew up in a family with two cars, though we kids never owned our own. None of us HAD to work, nor did my mom, though most of us worked for my dad when we were of age. My parents both went to college, all of us who wanted to (4 out of 5) did so. H and his one brother went to college and paid their own way-every dime. My parents paid for us. We had good medical care, went on vacations all over the east coast and Canada and never wanted for anything.</p>
<p>We’re the same age-I was clearly more coddled than H, and it still rankles him some that our D and my two older kids have never and will never know the level of responsibility H had to have at such a young age. At least to some extent, some of the time, the racism has improved. Our D has had far more options than her dad and his siblings did and tons more than her dad’s parents. </p>
<p>Coddling is more of an income and race factor than anything else. I work with some immigrant families living the way H’s family did decades ago. Go a few miles north in north Seattle and you might as well be comparing two different planets.</p>
<p>Well, the other thing is – one can be “coddled” in the sense of having luxuries (nice house, cars when turn 16, college paid for, nice vacations and travel, $ for extracurricular activities, and the like) … that doesn’t lead to happiness. No one knows what goes on in another’s house or another’s soul. </p>
<p>So, you can be the kind of bitter person who reflexively resents “coddled kids” (=“have more luxuries than I can give my own kid”) or you could be the kind of more self-reflective person who recognizes that everyone has good things in life and everyone has bad things in life, and you never really know what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes.</p>
<p>I think each of us is parent enough to know the approach that will work best for our own kids. I have done things with my kids that others might view as coddling or harsh, but I have done it based on what I know of my child and what will bring out the best in them.</p>
<p>My parents never got any of us kids a car. I bought my first car when I was 30 and I could afford it. It was a 911.</p>
<p>Boy, that was a fun car. 3rd gear was a beautiful thing.</p>
<p>My sister drove a Porsche when she was 16. And she is the absolute most down to earth person you’ll ever meet. Things don’t make people spoiled; attitudes of entitlement do.</p>
<p>When my dad died when I was 17, he had apparently taken out a policy that paid me $1000 when I turned 18. My mother suggested that I use it for college, but as that was the first time in my memory that college had been mentioned, I used it to buy a car ( Dodge Coronet), since I was at that time walking or hitch hiking to work.
I also worked throughout high school to get money for school clothes and personal items like toiletries. At least half the kids I knew worked.
I didn’t expect my kids to work when they were in high school, because I wanted them to have time & energy to do well in school and for community activities.</p>
<p>I’ll say it shorter: “get the hell off of my lawn.”</p>
<p>Big yawn.</p>
<p>Both my H and I grew up in comfortable families as mid-fifties babies. We both had college educated parents and I had college educated grandparents but neither of us was coddled. Our depression era parents made sure we knew how to work (we both started working at 13 ironically) and both held down a couple jobs. My H had to pay for his college (public), my parents paid for mine (private). We had plenty of friends who went “away” for high school and went to today’s dream schools adn entered adulthood by our side with trust funds stretching out to their children’s children. We raised our children and we were fortunate enough to be able to save and give them the essentials - not cars, but braces and the sports equipment they needed (skis aren’t cheap) but no pay for play leagues or travel teams. We are sending them to college. All three kids drove an old Ford (now 19 years old that we inherited) and needs to last one more year til 3 graduates high school. Everyone got a cell phone at age 16 to celebrate getting their “real license” and learned how to drive a stick shift, but none of the kids has owned a smartphone. They got a laptop for high school graduation and $500 for college graduation. They got one bicycle and the “budget” for birthdays is $150 and for Christmas $250. They got enough clothes so they didn’t look like street people and a pair of sneakers and a pair of boat shoes and a pair of flip flops each year along with haircuts whenever they were willing. Anything else had to come out of their job savings and their pockets (Xboxes, or longboards, gas money or restaurant meals with their friends.)</p>
<p>My oldest graduated college class of 2011 and took a job, in the place he wanted to live doing something he wanted to do. It was a job that didn’t require a college degree and paid only enough for him to live with roommates, buy groceries and pay his utilities. He was recently promoted. I believe he was promoted because he had a college degree and I have every reason to believe that he will continue to expand his responsibilities and continue to move up the ladder with this organization if he chooses.</p>
<p>I think the kids got “things” we didn’t get as kids, but I remember crying my eyes out when leather tennis shoes came out (I played tennis) and I still had canvas shoes which was so “old school”, leather tennis shoes didn’t improve your game but oh my they were cool. I worked my butt off at a 3rd job to get enough money to buy those shoes. These days the leather tennis shoes is the equivalent of a smart phone. The riches are different.</p>
<p>I think the only kids that can be technically be called coddled are those they never are asked to work for their own money because learning how to earn a living wage and work for things you want as opposed to what you need is the one thing we can teach our children. If they want leather tennis shoes, they have to work and pay for it themselves. </p>
<p>Will our children lead a better life than we do? Hard to say. Some would argue that we, my H and I, do not lead a “better” life than our parents who went from the depression into a retirement where they will never ever spend what they have saved. I clearly remember my father having a fit because my first job out of my “expensive private college” as he called it paid me less than his secretary made. He was really upset. As long as my children can put a roof over their head and food on the table they have a richness that many in the country will never have and I will be content that we did a “good job” raising our children and what we did give them as money and knowledge well spent.</p>
<p>* I clearly remember my father having a fit because my first job out of my “expensive private college” as he called it paid me less than his secretary made. *</p>
<p>Pay doesn’t necessarily have a lot to do with prestige, responsibility, or qualifications.
A secretary who had been getting annual performance raises is probably going to earn more than an entry level job, even if she didn’t initially need a degree to be hired.</p>
<p>Our school district superintendents make at least 100k more than the governor, but no one wants to pay the governor more.
;)</p>
<p>My H finds it stunning and amusing that kids today pay $50 for a pair of Converse canvas shoes when as a kid he cried because that’s all his family could afford. “Cons” or “Chuck Taylors” were what the poor kids wore. Now they’re status symbols.</p>
<p>I think the big picture is that it’s less about things than the opportunities to get those things even existing. That’s why in some circles, the “achievement gap” is called the “opportunity gap” instead. H’s parents didn’t have college as an option and they sure couldn’t pay their kids’ way, but they made certain that education was a priority in their home, even if the kids had to work while they got it. His parents may not have even know where the kids needed to look for colleges or majors but they WERE encouraged to go, however they could. There was no coddling in any sense of the word, but there WERE very clear priorities.</p>
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<p>right… if everyone under 30 joined together in an effort to stop the older generations from screwing them over, it still wouldn’t be enough. Older generations feel they are entitled to more and more! They continually vote to rob the younger generations (through debt) in order to finance what they want now!</p>
<p>who is really the entitled generation??? who has lived beyond their means???</p>
<p>Good grief whine whine whine. What exactly are you doing? Plenty of young people get involved and become influential. For cryting out loud, you can get elected to the House of Represdentatives in your twenties. One of the curent VP csndidates was under thirty when he firsr got elected. If you’re so concerned get off your rear end and work for a candidate or a position.</p>
<p>BTW many of the richest and most influential people in the country are under 40, and some are under 30. And anybody who thinks young people who are willing to work can’t have an influence wasn’t paying attention a few years ago.</p>
<p>So the only way we can change something is by being elected? That doesn’t seem right…</p>
<p>There are plenty of ways to change things and make a difference. I assure you that complaining about your miserable plight on College Confidential is not one of them.</p>
<p>or vote the b^ms out every two years as they say.</p>
<p>Entrenched politicians tend to vote to spend more always. It is not party specific.</p>