Why do some young adults lack ambition? Is it inherent or the way they are raised?

Can you clear up some stuff? Like, define “lack of ambition” – is this anyone who isn’t as successful as the Kennedys? Also, what kind of privilege are we talking – the financial privilege to never worry about shelter, food, and clothing? The financial privilege to never worry you won’t get new $300 jeans? Safe (emotionally, physically, sexually) parents?

The discussion centered around persons of college age living with their parents who had made no effort to enter college or vocational school and no serious effort to enter the job market.

Without any more info, it’s really hard to say why. There could be lots of different reasons for each case, and not all of them parenting-related.

But in general, it’s better for your kid to feel safe in the world and like they are capable of doing things. The Kennedy thing, where the kids were achievers because they were terrified of abuse? That story normally goes more like “kids become anxious and depressed, have hard time functioning in world, have to move back in with abusive parents because they can’t pay for stuff otherwise, repeat cycle”, especially when the kids don’t have a huge political figure for a dad to help them out already.

@Aethelflaed “The Kennedy thing, where the kids were terrified of abuse?” I have never heard that the Kennedy’s were abusers or afraid of their parents. Where did this come from?

I have friends who have children from middle class families that the kids are given a lot of things growing up, college paid for, etc, but that they don’t get jobs, won’t leave home. I wondered why this is happening also. I wondered if it was because the kids were given so much while growing up, but then I have also seen where really rich people have children that grow up to be very self supporting.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought: I think boomers have a problem with assuming the life of the millennial generations (early 30s and down) parallels previous generations. Millennials are a generation that has never seen the type of employment boom that was seen in the 1960s as the USA suburbanized. The upper middle class and even much of the middle class in this generation spent much of its time in college, generally getting expensive, unremunerated degrees, with a vague promise that such degrees would help in the job market. The ones who didn’t go to college can’t just go to a factory and get on a track to a well-paying union job in a few years – these jobs are disappearing. The cheap suburban housing their parents bought up doesn’t exist anymore, or is impractical with $4/gallon gas, and gen X yuppies gobbled up the low-hanging fruit of once-inexpensive and crime-ridden urban cores. So, just where do you think the millennials should go?

Consider this: unemployment basically measures people who are of working age who are actually looking for a job, but those who never had one probably don’t apply. Millennials spent a lot of time in school, outside the job market – very likely this unnoticed absence from the unemployment statistic was an early symptom of the recession that exists today, given that they were often racking up so much debt at that point. And bankruptcy isn’t an escape from student loans, so they don’t even have the escape route the victims of subprime mortgages had.

For working class offspring, the only options are near wage slavery or community college. Neither exactly opens many doors.

@chyna Read Sins of the Father. As a general rule of thumb, any time a man is known for being a cunning, deceitful, manipulative bully to everyone else, makes a habit of cheating on his wife, and has his daughter lobotomized for acting a little weird, there’s not a great chance he’ll treat his other kids with much respect.

Culture is constantly evolving.

Note to readers: The is a generalization. It does not speak for all of the generation discussed (thankfully).

This up coming generation has been raised differently than any other generation prior. They were not allowed to play outdoors unsupervised because of pedophiles. They were pushed into excessive sports seeking the holy grail of “The free ride to college” or because their parents were afraid that if they did not keep busy they would become drug addicts. They were handed electronic toys like candy to keep them occupied in their confinement safe homes.

They have been taught by technology that anything that they think, no matter how mundane, is tweet or post-worthy. They have scores of electronic “fans” and never need to leave the couch. In fact, on numerous occasions I have witnessed teens silent – texting one another even though they are in the same room. How are these kids supposed to interact in jobs when they cannot seem to pull it off in person with friends?

They are well aware that the job market is brutal- and flipping burgers does not seem very fun or inspiring. The generation before worked to get independence from their parents, they wanted cars and gas and more. This generation does not have the same passion for adulthood to get them out there. In fact, they appear to not have any real goals at all. They seem to want all the perks but to still be in the nest with laundry service and meals provided.

Again- just my opinion- and not all teens are like this. But a notable number of them are.

Well said @iBite.

@rooeytoo Thank you. I was waiting to be tarred-and-feathered so your response was a nice surprise. I do feel sorry for them- the kids I describe. They have not experienced the pride and excitement of earning something or meeting a goal yourself. They are too within themselves to see the injustice of the world and go out to make a difference. Sad really.

@iBite – the tar and feathers will probably come but not from me. Someone said in a thread recently that there are no more cases of kidnapping or molestation now than there ever were but people seem obsessed with the fear. I would hate to be a kid today. How do they ever learn to fight their own battles in this world? Or find their own way?

No to the part of your question purporting that lack of ambition comes with being from a wealthy family. Lack of ambition/underachieving is the result of lack of parental expectation.

@iBite: Throw in prison-like schools, automobile-centric lifestyles, etc. Someone mentioned a statistic to me that the average kid a century ago had 100 sq. mile or so on which to roam, whether he lived in the city or country. Today a kid is lucky to be able to leave his back yard on his own.

Some of it is a power trip on the part of low-status adults, most likely, but treating children that horrendously is mainly seen in the USA. It’s not seen in most other western countries, where there was never a fascistic drug war, massive crime wave resulting from said bumblefuck drug war, or that silly TV-driven pedo scare that continues to this day. Teenagers are generally given a little more respect as they age, and so are incentivized to be more “adult” as time goes on.

The “lack of ambition” thing is just flat wrong, though. It’s lack of opportunity. And that might even be worse outside the USA. Look at Spain and its double digit unemployment. And then consider the unemployment rate for youth is significantly higher than the norm. Part of the problem, besides what I mentioned above, is that the older generation just isn’t dying off and leaving land and resources to the next generation.

@MollyMcGuire Or maybe it’s due to there being too much expectation, and not enough appreciation or acknowledgment.

Having money is not always a factor, my Dad was never wealthy, grew up underprivileged and his environment bred a unambitious slob who says “why should I work”. Then there’s me who is motivated by the fact my needs as a child were not met BECAUSE of his lack of ambition and I use that as a powerful drive to be successful and I have a degree now and earn more money than both of my parents at the age of 21.

I seriously doubt they lack ambition. I also doubt they lack opportunity. I think the issue is psychological. They are ill equipped, psychologically, to start at the bottom and to work their way up. They are ill-equipped to be entrepreneurs—to try things and to fail.

I think kids these days were like me, when I was their age: they way guaranteed success. They want to start at least in the middle, if not the top. They want to be Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Beiber, or Mylie Cyrus. Frankly, I think their parents want the same thing.

This should not be mistaken as a lack of ambition. What it is is a lack of a realistic understanding of how the process works.

What our society needs to understand is how we help each other. How we make connections to people and help others get jobs. We need to understand how social capital works. We need to understand how social anxiety works and how people are afraid to get out to ask for jobs and how to overcome those fears, or find ways around them.

Many of us on fluther understand perfectly. We’re here because we get incredible anxiety at picking up the phone or meeting people in person. We’re afraid of being rejected and we take the internet because it is harder to get rejected here. It is easier to find people who will like us here. Not so in the real world.

The real world needs to be made kinder and more supportive. It needs, frankly, more love. More fun. More niceness and kindness. If we can learn from the internet how to make that happen, maybe we can apply those lessons in the real world. Then people will have an easier time in the real world. Especially kids.

One of the things we learn from fulther is the role of the moderator. What would a real world moderator look like? How would that work? Could it work?

There are tons and tons and tons of articles telling us (young adults) how every single career is not a good choice. Go into something different, they say, because over here sucks. Follow your dreams, some say, because only then will you have the passion to really work hard to make the money. Don’t even think about this bourgeois ‘follow your dreams’ bs, others say; get a job that pays a lot, even if you don’t really care about accounting or upper management or comp sci. Yet still others say, look, getting an MBA/accounting/comp-sci/science/law/medical/STEM degree was a great idea, except that tons of other people had it before you and now there’s too many of you for anyone to make real money.

On top of that are all the articles saying that college degrees aren’t worth it, because the actual rates of current tuition and student loans + interest make it too expensive, long-term. Some will say, you need to get a graduate degree before you can really earn enough money to pay off all that student debt; others will point out that getting a graduate degree is the dumbest, most masochistic idea you could have, and the comments section will be flooded with actual grad students going “no, seriously, guyz, don’t go to grad school!!!” So you try your hand at not having a degree, except that very few people are hiring without at least an undergrad, especially for more than minimum wage and especially for advancement and a “career” and not just a “job”. And then there’s technical school – seems like a great idea, except for all your mechanic/vet tech/med tech/massage therapist friends bitching about how the trade school industry tends to a scam that costs more than state tuition.

So, is it really a lack of ambition? Or is it that young adults just have no freaking idea what to do, because they’re constantly being told that all their ideas are horrible?

@Aethelflaed I wish I could give you a 1000 GAs for that.

Thanks!

@wundayatta: you may be right that they get the process wrong, but the process was a bait ‘n switch for them. Decades of being told a degree gets you a job, and that’s what everyone did. Except there were no jobs forthcoming. Starting at the bottom is fine for most people if the bottom offers a route upward, but it rarely does. Few burger flippers get promoted to manager. They go on to their next burger flipping gig – the sooner the better for the employer because the burger flipper doesn’t get cheaper the longer s/he stays.

Also, if there was a real-world “moderator” such a person would have to be overthrown.

It’s trickier than that, @Aethelflaed. The degree is intrinsically not worth it – many times, people don’t come out especially more developed than they were before. On the other hand, it’s not worth it but necessary. You also won’t get looked at without a degree. It’s basically an entirely unremunerated part of life. It might be harder than many entry-level jobs, but you don’t get paid for it.

@bolwerk What’s trickier than what?

@Aethelflaed: the necessity of a degree is trickier than just over-supply. That problem exists, but so does over-demand. :(

@bolwerk Ok. My point was not to get into which of the various articles were correct. My point was to look at what the psychological effects are of constantly being told that no matter what you do, you are screwed. (And, you are kind of proving my point: the second I mention all this contradicting advise, Random Internet User – you – weighs in on the matter of what people should do.)

@Aethelflaed: I don’t see that. Bad advice is probably like sex – it exists in every age. The problem is that most commentators that aren’t snake oil salesmen may actually have some truth to them, but rarely see the the big picture. Also, there’s often a lag time between when a line of work is in hot demand and when workers can be trained to fill those roles – in the case of jobs requiring degrees, that can be years. In the mean time, satisfactory workers can probably be drawn from foreign labor pools.

And also, I wasn’t saying what people should do. I was saying what they must do, in general, to get a look. But that criterion, while necessary, is far from sufficient. I think it’s unfortunate that it’s that way, but that’s the way it is.

Ambition is subjective. I’m employed and going to school, so what else should I be doing? The rest is just doing work and waiting for time to pass and an opportunity to come up, but as long as I’m doing what I need to to get somewhere, I think that’s what matters?

@Blackberry I think the question is about 18 year old kids and older that aren’t going to school, won’t find a job, hangs at the parents house and eats, sleeps but does little else. I know several people that their kids are still living with them, that can’t afford to move out because they either won’t look for a job or won’t try to find a better job than a clerk at a fast food joint. I worked with a guy that his two sons, age 30 and 32 still live with them. My cousin who lives in another state says that she has noticed that being a trend in her area also. Her 20 something year old daughter still lives with them.

When I graduated in 1978, I wanted a job in a publishing house. I sent out what I though were a lot of letters—50 or so—before I got totally depressed. I had to go home to my parents, and after a month, they thought I was doing nothing to find a job (I had stopped doing much of anything), and they kicked me out.

I freaked, and took a job washing dishes. That lasted for a week, and I quit on a Saturday night with dishes stacked up above my eye height on three sides of me. I remember being very surprised when they gave me my paycheck.

I worked a deal with my parents to do some carpentry work on the condition that I would save up a few hundred dollars and then leave, never to be seen again. I moved to NYC, found an apartment in a pretty bad neighborhood with a couple of other guys—one from my town and graduating class for both hs and college.

I got a job in a few weeks going door to door raising money for political causes—the first one being the ERA. For the next three years, I did that. I never made $7000 in a year. This is the vaunted college education and here I am going door to door selling ideas, making barely more than minimum wage.

Whatever. It kept a roof over my head. I didn’t have to go back to my parents. Most of my friends had found jobs making a good deal more money than I had. So I felt pretty much like a failure.

I went back to grad school six years after college, and got another degree. Then I moved to Philly. I was unemployed for a year, and finally managed to get a job working as a clerical worker. I had a masters degree and I was working as a clerical worker. Eventually, I got hired by a former boss to do more intellectual work: building spreadsheet models, but I was still being paid shit wages. My coworkers used to joke about me being a perfect example of market failure.

Well, I don’t know about that. Maybe the market was paying me exactly what I was worth to them. Maybe I have a good education, but a good education isn’t worth as much as one might think. Maybe if I only had a high school education, I’d be much worse off, financially. maybe people get the idea that doing well is actually doing far better than well. Maybe average is really just hanging in there. Just enough to pay for a mortgage, a car, and food. maybe entertainment is extra.

Eventually, I got married, and things became easier, because we both worked. We were finally able to save and buy a house and have kids (which was expensive for us since it took a lot of medical intervention that we had to pay for out of pocket). There was never any chance that I could support a family on my salary. We always needed two salaries.

Did I lack ambition? I don’t think so. I was just unprepared for the recession I graduated into. I was unprepared to find a job using my education. I had no clue. I was depressed. I didn’t like being told “no” all the time when asking for jobs. No one ever taught me how to look for a job.

After I landed in NYC, and got myself established, my parents did give me a computer in 1981. That computer enabled me to learn spreadsheets and databases and word processing. I taught myself. Probably some of the best skills I ever learned. Turned out to be things people actually were willing to pay for. Because I taught myself those skills, I didn’t value them. Had I known how rare they were, I probably could have made a lot more money than I did. Hell. Now I have a lot of other fancy computer software skills, and I could probably make a lot more money if I wanted to look around.

But the truth is that I lack ambition. I’d rather hand out and fluther than make big bucks. Maybe I always lacked ambition. But I guess I’ve been able to get away with it. You have to nurture your soul as well as your body, I think. I think the marketplace takes care of ambition for us. Most of us would rather work than starve, and so we do what we have to.

So I don’t buy the ambition story. I think people do what they have to, and that’s fine. They’ll get where they want to go, over time. Things don’t happen as fast as they may want. But the recession won’t last forever, and people will find things to do, recession or no.

In families like the Kennedy’s, my guess is there is a lot peer pressure to live up to, contribute, exceed, whatever because so many of them have been very active. On the converse, I’m sure a few of them were overcome by the pressure and so didn’t do much at all in order not to face the fear of challenge, failure or perceived social responsibility.

As for regular non-public families, I’m reading along, hoping to glean some pointers because I have one particular step child who is a legal adult, high school graduated but otherwise uninterested in much of anything aside from staying indoors and playing video games. We’ve backed off from suggesting anything because he’s moved from saying he’ll think about it and initiating but not following through on things to now where he basically announced he is not going to do anything. :(

@chyna Oh, yeah that makes more sense lol. I should probably make an effort to read details sometimes :/

@MilkyWay Nope. Take the lowest achievers and the most lazy slackers and the common denominator is lack of parental expectations.

@MollyMcGuire Perhaps every mother should be one of those Chinese dragon mothers or tiger mothers or whatever they are?

@MollyMcGuire: I doubt it’s on parents who have a lack of expectations but a bit on some parents who fear having too high of expectations, who don’t want to push too hard, who fear not letting their kids have a “good and fun” childhood.