Learning to work hard and be relentless are some key attributes people are missing more and more now days it seems

less accountability also..kids get away with more than when we went to school (cursing at teachers/principals, fighting, threatening school teachers/admin..there are basically no consequences now and the kids know it

if a kid does no work, give them a 50 instead of a zero

Apparently, they are on their phones during class.
This is unacceptable, and would have been met with fierce swift swats from the yard stick with the metal edge in my day.

Same here. Mom taught us how to do house work which has come in handy over the years. Dad was a welder and later a machinist. He learned to be a machinist by asking for more job duties when the company he worked for was low on welding work. Could read a micrometer by the time I was 9 years old and how to sharpen a drill bit to almost as good as new.
Mom and Dad finished high school but had no other formal training. I wanted to follow my dad as a machinist so I went to trade school in Northwest Louisiana and was lucky enough to get hired at Eastman Kodak. The put me thru their Maintenance Apprenticeship Program to become a US Department of Labor Certified Mechanic. My dad told me to go to any and every school or training they offered. I did as he said and ended up as a Senior Mechanical Inspector/Pressure Vessel Inspector with 33-1/2 years of service before retiring. Took that knowledge and started a second career with another chemical company and worked for them till I completely retired.
No college debt, had a job waiting for me when I finished Trade School. All three of our children (along with my wife) have college degrees and were school debt free within 2 years of graduating.
They are all working in the field they went to college for and we are so proud of them. Hopefully they pass this on to the 4th generation of our family.

I have 4 grandkids. 3 know how to work. The other one, 20 year old guy, so far has shown no sign of finishing any task. The wife says to give him time, but I don’t think slackers improve with time. Hope I’m wrong.

His parents, as much as I care for them, are the fault. His Mom is a helicopter parent that solves all her son’s problems.

All my siblings and my wife’s siblings worked hard to make a good life. We had great parents.

OP --- great post . ---today has had several great post's .
I was told as a young father ---- " don't be your child's friend , your only job is to parent them and make them responsible " . To many parents want to be friends with their kids ---huge mistake . Teach them the value of hard work , how to be responsible and ownership to what they do .

Awesome Post. Thanks for sharing.

Us olds are the last spawn of the greatest generation.

Times are changing at the speed of sound.

Unless you want to start your own business, it's tough to get a decent job without a degree these days. Even tougher to find one that's not at risk of being obsoleted in the next 10-ish years.

As for parenting, parents are too focused on their phones these days. Very few actively parent and spend time with their kids. And when the schools try to replace some of that lack of parenting, the parents get offended and tell them not to get mad at their perfect little angel. If admins had any guts, this would go away. But they don't and the entire culture and future of our country suffers as a result.

While I'm not discouraging the youths to go to college and get a degree, your statement of its tough to get a decent job without a degree it's idiotic, plenty of good jobs out there, learn a trade

No it's not.


Fir instance just in the DFW area there are lots of fire and police jobs going unfilled that start out at $70,000 plus.Many will send you to school and pay you while in school. Guaranteed pension when you retire. Decent benefits etc. Some start in excess of $75,000 and being in the $90,000-100,000 range in a few years is easy.
These jobs ho unfilled. No layoffs, no downsizing etc.

Tons of unfilled Firefighter jobs? Really? I can understand Police positions going unfilled, regradless of the salary, but I was always under the impression that Firefighter openings usually had way more applicants than positions available.

This is not true- the skilled trades present many opportunities to make more money than you could imagine and you go to work day 1 versus 4 years down the road. Companies that require degrees on job postings will take people with relevant real world experience in lieu of a degree and pay you big money.