The many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXI

[Synobun]

See, when I was a young man it was a universally-accepted fact of life that any man worth the name would sacrifice comfort to gain autonomy - he would rather live independantly and simply than in comfort with his parents. It's a little worrying that this trend seems to have reversed recently.

It's much harder today to be totally independent at age eighteen unless you had the luxury of having a good job while in high school or having a large network of friends in high places. You can "survive" with a job at fast food but that is all you'll be doing. Surviving. It's not really independence since your very foundation is based on being abused by a company that couldn't care less about you.

You're much better off if you have experience in the trades but again that's entirely based off of the premise that you had work as a teenager and got taught the trade by someone (usually by a parent). Unfortunately, it's a running trend now that parents are pretty much completely nonexistent in their children's lives, not teaching them necessary or useful skills and not particularly encouraging them to find work.

Having lived in a small town with no work, I couldn't get a job in anything as a high school teen because of two reasons -- My father refused to drive me to an actual workplace, even if it was along the way of him going to his own job, and there was no one willing to let me tag along to learn a trade so I had no opportunity to say, become adept at drywalling and carpentry. Instead, I had to find experience by volunteering and freelancing as a copywriter and marketer but at this point, being 18 with no education, is entirely useless since any job for a copywriter requires college education as a principle.

The job market and being independent is much more complex today than it was back then. It can be simpler if your parents were invested in your well-being when you were little, but again, that's... Not the consensus anymore.

 

[Farm Boy]

There was some talk a few years ago, from specifically Brazil if I recall - but it would apply to every country - that they should have some say in US presidential elections since they are affected by the decisions that are made in the US.

At the moment only the electorate of the USA get to have any say in who polices the planet. And it ain't fair. (Is the cry.)

Interesting thought. I almost approve to an extent, representation would seem to imply a base line justification for regulation and taxation - this tired old hegemony doesn't have the funding to maintain pax americana forever. Perhaps some fresher blood from our southern counterparts and developing economies would help.

It can be simpler if your parents were invested in your well-being when you were little, but again, that's... Not the consensus anymore.

Yea, that whole nuclear family unit thing is passe and patriarchal. Good riddance to obstacles to progress(I'm just kidding, I think I know what you are getting at and agree to an extent, though I think that has long been a problem rather than it being an entirely new one).

 

[salty mud]

See, when I was a young man it was a universally-accepted fact of life that any man worth the name would sacrifice comfort to gain autonomy - he would rather live independantly and simply than in comfort with his parents. It's a little worrying that this trend seems to have reversed recently.

It's worrying that people stay at home?

Perhaps it could have something to do with the rapidly escalating cost of living, the oft-outrageous tuition fees, the general rowdy and rude behaviour of many people these days. Just because your "independence" was forced upon you in the army doesn't mean it's worrying that others don't follow suit.

 

[Borachio]

No. I don't think it's worrying at all. I think intergenerational living arrangements are a natural thing in many ways.

Shoving one's offspring out of the nest isn't something that is necessarily a good thing. And happened a lot in the relatively recent past because people had too many damn children, perhaps?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

See, when I was a young man it was a universally-accepted fact of life that any man worth the name would sacrifice comfort to gain autonomy - he would rather live independantly and simply than in comfort with his parents. It's a little worrying that this trend seems to have reversed recently.

On top of everything synsensa said, I actually tried striking out on my own at one point. As sysnsensa points out, you have to be very lucky to land a job that will provide you the income to live on your on at all, much less discomfortably.

Wages for high school graduates with little to no experience are much depressed from where they were 30 or even 20 years ago. I worked in a factory and only made minimum wage, which, despite the intent behind it, is no longer sufficient to live off of in the US.

The only realistic options that many young people have to strike out are to join the army or go to college and those options are viable for everyone. You could, I suppose try and room with 4 or 5 other guys in order to live alone, so you might have an argument to make there. However, it's a bit of a stretch to say that you have any real autonomy in such a situation where you are still absolutely dependent on others for the roof over your head.

Living with other people also used to be something you could avoid in the past if you were willing to live cheeply. However, now it's an absolute necessity in many cases and I refuse to fault people for choosing to stay at home a few years over having to live with others near their same age. Tell me, would you like to live with some 18-25 year old guys?

I truly hope that your last sentence there was more a reflection on the adverse economic conditions young people face instead of a judgement on the young people themselves.

 

[Synobun]

Yea, that whole nuclear family unit thing is passe and patriarchal. Good riddance to obstacles to progress(I'm just kidding, I think I know what you are getting at and agree to an extent, though I think that has long been a problem rather than it being an entirely new one).

I think it's more so the mentality of your guardian than the number and make up of your family. A family stricken with divorce can still be happy as long as both the parents are mature about the situation and raised their child well. Problems sort of start flooding in when your guardian neglected teaching you important things such as developing a personal support structure and analyzing your actions, and you then reach the age of where you start consciously thinking for yourself.

Obviously it's not that simple, but older generations, although they may not have invested in their children, the consensus was usually that you needed to be useful and work. Even abusive parents made their children work and learn skills that ended up helping them later in life. This mentality is not that evident today in families that aren't driven by the trades (For example, a family that works strictly in the automotive industry will teach their children how to do it because access to the garage and the tools will always be there, regardless of abuse), but for everyone else, I've watched many parents simply not teach their children anything.

How is one to succeed or work hard as a teenager if they were not taught the concept of hard work?

It's complicated. I'm probably thinking too deeply into the topic for the context of this thread, but as someone who works with orphaned children, used to volunteer all the time at the daycare, babysits daily, and used to volunteer as a therapist for peers with family issues or older people with flashbacks about their childhood, I get a little riled up about the subject and how it's a revolving cycle that gradually gets worse.

 

[Farm Boy]

On top of everything synsensa said, I actually tried striking out on my own at one point. As sysnsensa points out, you have to be very lucky to land a job that will provide you the income to live on your on at all, much less discomfortably.

Wages for high school graduates with little to no experience are much depressed from where they were 30 or even 20 years ago. I worked in a factory and only made minimum wage, which, despite the intent behind it, is no longer sufficient to live off of in the US.

The only realistic options that many young people have to strike out are to join the army or go to college and those options are viable for everyone. You could, I suppose try and room with 4 or 5 other guys in order to live alone, so you might have an argument to make there. However, it's a bit of a stretch to say that you have any real autonomy in such a situation where you are still absolutely dependent on others for the roof over your head.

Living with other people also used to be something you could avoid in the past if you were willing to live cheeply. However, now it's an absolute necessity in many cases and I refuse to fault people for choosing to stay at home a few years over having to live with others near their same age. Tell me, would you like to live with some 18-25 year old guys?

Communal living, be it family or independently, was very common even in the US not very long ago. Living entirely alone is a more recent phenomenon. If the prices of base line resources - heat/food/fuel/construction material continue to increase in price, as the environmentally concerned say they must in the face of increasing populations, then communal living "coming back" is not only inevitable - it's predictable.

More what I get from FP is that the desire of the young to "make something of themselves for themselves" is a little bit at odds with the mentality of your mother still doing your laundry when you are 22. That makes sense to me.

Obviously it's not that simple, but older generations, although they may not have invested in their children, the consensus was usually that you needed to be useful and work. Even abusive parents made their children work and learn skills that ended up helping them later in life. This mentality is not that evident today in families that aren't driven by the trades (For example, a family that works strictly in the automotive industry will teach their children how to do it because access to the garage and the tools will always be there, regardless of abuse), but for everyone else, I've watched many parents simply not teach their children anything.

Like you said, the trades are dying in some areas. The parents might not know anything terribly useful themselves to pass on!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@Synsensa - I can agree with you there. The only 'skill' (if you could call it that) that my father passed on to me was good work ethic. He didn't even teach me Spanish (he is Spanish) or how to change the oil!

 

[Cutlass]

See, when I was a young man it was a universally-accepted fact of life that any man worth the name would sacrifice comfort to gain autonomy - he would rather live independantly and simply than in comfort with his parents. It's a little worrying that this trend seems to have reversed recently.

The ration between entry level work and entry level housing has changed quite a bit recently in all too many places...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Communal living, be it family or independently, was very common even in the US not very long ago. Living entirely alone is a more recent phenomenon. If the prices of base line resources - heat/food/fuel/construction material continue to increase in price, as the environmentally concerned say they must in the face of increasing populations, then communal living "coming back" is not only inevitable - it's predictable.

More what I get from FP is that the desire of the young to "make something of themselves for themselves" is a little bit at odds with the mentality of your mother still doing your laundry when you are 22. That makes sense to me.

I am of the opinion that this is a distorted sense of what's actually happening. Yes, living at home when you're 22 means your mom is still doing your laundry. That says nothing about 'making some of themselves for themselves' whatsoever in my opinion. Of course you'll find the people that prove this assertion - they've always been there, always will - but I still don't find it an accurate depiction of reality.

 

[Synobun]

@Synsensa - I can agree with you there. The only 'skill' (if you could call it that) that my father passed on to me was good work ethic. He didn't even teach me Spanish (he is Spanish) or how to change the oil!

I had edited my post in response to you, and then figured you wouldn't see it since you already replied to my post. I'll paste it into a new response.

Edit@Hobbs: Yeah. Making more than minimum wage for a full-time job is very difficult these days if you have no education, no internships, and no multiple years of experience in what they specifically want. You're better off getting two to three part-time jobs since they are more willing to pay more than the minimum, but then you run into the problem of several of these positions not being flexible with the work schedule. There are a few companies I can think up of off the top of my head which involves not letting you negotiate your schedule, which is a huge (read: impossible) problem if you are multi-employed.

If you can manage to get a job with a static schedule, it's much easier to get another job on top of it, but if it's constantly shifting and you have no control over it, you are frankly pretty screwed.

I have the luxury of being able to scrounge up enough money for living in a motel at a 50% discount for three months starting February 1st, but if I don't find a job that is more than minimum wage (or if it is minimum wage, at least 45 hours a week), I am screwed. It's a tough situation and it's times like these that I really resent my parents for being totally nonexistent in my life and instead forcing me to live in my room without permission to even step outside into the yard. However, resentment gets me no where. All I can do is continue to volunteer as a copywriter, rake up long-term experience in it, and try my utter best to make ends meet. I've even considered dropping the money into getting a bunch of licenses and certifications upon moving for childcare just so I can advertise myself and maybe make some money on the side to ease the burden of watching my savings drain into the minuses until I'm reduced to homelessness.

It is not a fun situation.

 

[GinandTonic]

I was under the impression that when flying pig was a lad almost all working class people stayed at someone's home untill they married. Privately renting a home under your own name was very, very difficult for the young and the council wouldnt rent you a home without a marriage certificate and an employers reference, so unless your job included diggs people all either stayed at home or lodged in someone elses home.

The idea that a single working class person would have their own flat free of parents, landladies or drill sargents was, as far as I understood it, a fairly recent phenomenon.

 

[Synobun]

Like you said, the trades are dying in some areas. The parents might not know anything terribly useful themselves to pass on!

That may be so, but even as a parent who does not know much, you should still make it your priority for your child to know something. I never had the luxury to learn how to ride a bike because my father told me I didn't deserve to know. If I ever have a child, my lack of knowledge in riding a bike won't prevent me from ensuring that my children will learn how to ride a bike. Condemning my children to live the same misfortune I have lived is nothing but neglect.

 

[Borachio]

He's not that old, is FP. I think you're going back to the generation before that, say to WW2. My father was always (well very occasionally) talking about being in "digs". I think they'd pretty much died out as a general way for young people by the 60's when bedsits started getting popular. That was certainly a viable way for someone to leave home and set up on their own. But you only had the one room and had to share toilets and bathrooms.

 

[GinandTonic]

He's not that old, is FP. I think you're going back to the generation before that, say to WW2. My father was always (well very occasionally) talking about being in "digs". I think they'd pretty much died out as a general way for young people by the 60's when bedsits started getting popular. That was certainly a viable way for someone to leave home and set up on their own. But you only had the one room and had to share toilets and bathrooms.

I agree it changed in the 60's and late 50's. It was a slow business though. I dont think it was really until the late 70's that it became a fairly simple to rent a flat if you could afford it.

 

[Flying Pig]

The relationship between entry level work and entry level housing has changed quite a bit recently in all too many places...

Yes, I do accept that - certainly where I grew up, what was once a mining and farming village is now being increasingly marketed as a place to move to from the city, and the mines themselves are closing, so most people have to move away when they leave home.

I agree it changed in the 60's and late 50's. It was a slow business though. I dont think it was really until the late 70's that it became a fairly simple to rent a flat if you could afford it.

Most people when I was young moved from home into rented accommodation - if nothing else, we didn't need a house without a family to put in it, and there still aren't such things as flats in my old village. Certainly the YUPPIE, as it were, is a child of the Thatcher years.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@Synsensa - yeah I totally forgot about inflexible work schedules.

When I tried to strike out on my own, I was a manager at a resteraunt and I worked at a factory overnights. The schedules were supposed to be set (extremely rare for resteraunt work) but my boss at the resteraunt kept taking advantage of me (I couldn't say no without losing my position and/or job) so that I ended up working 28 days without a break, with 21 of those days being double shifts. I physically started falling apart at that point and quit the resteraunt, which ended my attempt to strike out on my own. I could no longer afford it and there was no way to realistically get another job without the same problems.

So Flying Pig - are you indeed characterizing younger folk as unambitious or what?

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

I vaguely recall that sleeping on one's side is helpful when having heartburn. If true, I forgot which side is it, one's left side or right side?

 

[salty mud]

It probably won't make much difference, since when you fall asleep you will probably judt roll back to your natural sleeping position.

 

[_random_]

I see the following spiel every time an internet conversation about the Beatles goes on long enough. Anybody know its origin?

Spoiler :

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success: the Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worth of being saved. In a sense the Beatles are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole: too much attention to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little attention to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will ignore him. If a major label picks up a musician who is as stereotyped as one can be but launches her or him worldwide, your average critic will waste rivers of ink on her or him. This is the sad status of rock criticism: rock critics are basically publicists working for free for major labels, distributors and record stores. They simply publicize what the music business wants to make money with.

Hopefully, one not-too-distant day, there will be a clear demarcation between a great musician like Tim Buckley, who never sold much, and commercial products like the Beatles. And rock critics will study more of rock history and realize who invented what and who simply exploited it commercially.

Beatles' "aryan" music removed any trace of black music from rock and roll: it replaced syncopated african rhythm with linear western melody, and lusty negro attitudes with cute white-kid smiles.

Contemporary musicians never spoke highly of the Beatles, and for a good reason. They could not figure out why the Beatles' songs should be regarded more highly than their own. They knew that the Beatles were simply lucky to become a folk phenomenon (thanks to "Beatlemania", which had nothing to do with their musical merits). THat phenomenon kept alive interest in their (mediocre) musical endeavours to this day. Nothing else grants the Beatles more attention than, say, the Kinks or the Rolling Stones. There was nothing intrinsically better in the Beatles' music. Ray Davies of the Kinks was certainly a far better songwriter than Lennon & McCartney. The Stones were certainly much more skilled musicians than the 'Fab Fours'. And Pete Townshend was a far more accomplished composer, capable of "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia". Not to mention later and far greater British musicians. Not to mention the American musicians who created what the Beatles later sold to the masses.

The Beatles sold a lot of records not because they were the greatest musicians but simply because their music was easy to sell to the masses: it had no difficult content, it had no technical innovations, it had no creative depth. They wrote a bunch of catchy 3-minute ditties and they were photogenic. If somebody had not invented "beatlemania" in 1963, you would not have wasted five minutes of your time to read a page about such a trivial band.