And yet the same principle, that a young one did not ask to be born, applies not only to every human that ever lived, but also to every animal, fish, and blade of grass. If we took it that without a signature of consent life should not exist we would be left with a very barren planet - and the majority of humans seem at least intermittently pleased to be here. We do not need a world so burdened with people that it becomes unsustainable, but the fact that at least some are inclined to reproduce is probably a very good thing.
@@RandyPaterson But a million wrongs - previous generations not being asked to be born - does not make a right- your parents giving birth to you. It still stands - you did not ask to be born and still have to learn the customs, codes, expectations that the tribe demand. Its a fundamental ethical catastrophe of civilization - to bring someone into forced participation. This cant be ignored as its unethical. The structure, society and its rules, are inherently problematic as all that is earned in on the back of struggle in varying degrees. You have invited problems upon someone, much like a guilty thief stealing money or someone hitting you with a car. Its not about the age of the child, 18 in most countries, its about the act of forced participation. Ppl should be supported by the guilty - the parents - if they are a failure to launch. They forced them into existence with their genes, societies indoctrination such as culture, schooling, etc and it failed. The child did not fail, how could it? If their genes and environment were effective then they child had a 0 percent chance of failing. The project failed. The genetic information and the environment failed. This brings in free-will, which if anyone educated enough, knows that at best there is only a very limited amount, if any. Ppl who are failures to launch are those who couldnt be influenced by their environment with the body they have. Reproduction is always wrong as you can never get the permission of the child. You are deferring value to society and the world over the experience of the child. You are basically saying that the world trumps the child. Why? Its absolutely impossible to know how the child will experience this world yet ppl still have babies. Man, get a clue.
@@sneakerbabefulso sorry you have had such a bad experience. As shitty as some as my past might have been, I would relive it in a heartbeat. It's gone by so fast. And not having kids? Being allowed to be a dad feels like such a huge blessing. Even if my teenager thinks they are gay, it's alright. It's his choice.
It's true I didn't ask to be born and I hate that I'm here to experience all the bullshit the world throws at me. I would have been better off not being born.
I'm going through this with my 26 year old son now. It hurts my soul to see him struggling, but I've also seen him burn so many bridges with people who are helping him with life. I have to "cut the cord"
One of the things we see in therapy is parents who have either capitulated (essentially giving up hope of change and treating their young adult as an invalid) or they have become fed up and are contemplating a "cold turkey" approach - essentially throwing their offspring out and letting them sink or swim. While the latter can sometimes result in a young person taking charge of their own life, sometimes they simply don't have the ability to manage such an abrupt transition. We usually advocate for a gradual shift from support for dependence toward support for independence. One parent who took my "Parent Trap" course, for example, reported to me that they had reduced the financial subsidy by 10% each month, and that the outcome was that their young adult took up the slack and began applying for jobs. The temptation must have been to cut the subsidy all at once, but this "graduated parental retirement" approach generally seems to work better.
I did used to think this way. I can understand why people would think this way. I think the main reason I thought this way was because of my very pessemistic future outlook. I do not want kids, because I look at my own childhood, and the future, and it doesnt seem to be full of the experiences that make life really worth living, family, relationships, etc.. If you have a happy life, you do not isolate yourself, which was my experience of this. I gave up on my own life, and my mother is an enabler and allowed me to do that. I can udnerstand the point, but at the same time for those already born, we are here, and thats it, so we either choose to die, or do something about it. You have not ended your own life, so there is something keeping you here, why would you not try to optomize that time? The reason you do not push to progress, and the reason why we instead shift the blame, is because things feel hopeless. Its hard to be optomistic in that mindset. However, not doing anything just makes it worse, the longer you do nothing, the harder it gets. So if you want to be happy, or at least have some form of contentment in ths life, it is actually in the best interest of the young adult, to be pushed out of their boundaries by their parents as you suggest. Obviously not everyone ends up content with their life at the end of the day, some will take it as a betrayal, but in reality, its just doing what should have already happened. I actually had to go to my mother and set the boundary myself that I will no longer be accepting any financial support from her period. I dont spend much of her money, that practically only meant food, I pay for everything else. My main problem was a total lack of motivation to work, so I told her shes not paying for it anymore, and so I will have toi make ends meet, or go into debt. I have directly told her multiple times that I need her to help me on it, and she seems stuck in her ways. I had to set that boundary myself. Its as if she beleived that some day I would just make that change. I did not need 'support', I needed a father. I needed someone to kick me in my rear and tell me to go and do something because I didnt have any motivation to do it myself because of my self hatred, and my lack of happiness. I just needed to be forced to do it, and the sources of motivation come as you do it.
Given that no human, animal, or plant has ever been consulted in advance of their own existence, in large part because there was no one to consult and therefore it would be impossible to do so, I would say that consent is not required. And that requiring consent involves using a form of reasoning that exceeds the bounds of rationality. To mix metaphors, then, there is no elephant in the room until the ship has sailed. As I mention in the video, however, the point many make is that BECAUSE I didn’t sign anything agreeing to life, THEREFORE those who bestowed it upon me are my servants and caregivers in perpetuity. This implicit contract would require their buy-in, and without it they are under no such obligation.
@@RandyPaterson I agree with the last part. Asking parents to take care of us is not a great idea. I still struggle A LOT with "failure to launch." Did some readings here and there and came to understand that I am a puer aeternus. 30 year old btw. *Sigh. What you told in the video is all about how to practically go forward now that a person is alive and is of a certain age. But the first para is where I disagree. If there is no way to ask for consent, we shouldn't procreate. Before someone is conceived, we don't even know if they exist in some other form. Making someone is always done without their permission. If there is no way to get permission, it is our moral duty to abstain from procreation.
so the bottom line according to you is we should keep forcing people into existence and as soon as they are legally an adult which is at age 18 in most countries, there is no moral obligation to provide for them anymore and they are on their own? I think it is cruel to think this way, at the end of the day the parents where the ones who created the problems for the child by forcing the child into existence, therefore they have a moral obligation to at least help the child. I am not saying they should be the servants of the child for the rest of their lives but the responsibility for the child does not end at 18.
I think you are objecting to a straw man here. No one has indicated that offspring should be cut loose on their 18th birthday. I advocate that parents steadily shift their support toward independence over the full lifespan of their son or daughter, not that they suddenly withdraw support. At some point they must recognize that they no longer have a child, they have a young adult, and that by continuing to treat him or her as a child they are doing their longer term life a disservice.
@1boi593, It sound like he hit a nerve and you are the very type of individual that this therapist is talking about. Botton line is you dont get an indefinite free ride. Eventually you have to stand up on your own two feet as a human being. Period! You either become a grown ass man or woman or you dont. This is life! There are countries where the age sadly is much younger. If all you have to contribute to the conversation is griping and complaining, then you are lost. Which is what it appears that you very well may be.
This is my 26 year old brother. I’m a mental health professional pulling my hair out watching them NOT implement any sort of REAL rules. My brother is the identified patient of the family and has worked himself into a diet of only meat, getting him down to 130 lbs. He’s on the dark web. They’re praying about it and doing an intervention 🤦🏼♀️ ahhhhh!
IDHAF about other human beings who also didn't ask to be born . That's between them and their maker. I am only interested in my situation comparing me to the others is not helping
Fair enough. When others talk about not having requested birth, it’s most often a two-parter. First, they didn’t ask to be born - which is almost certainly true. Second, given the preceding, therefore another person (often a parent) is obliged to do X, where X is often to provide parental care on a lifetime basis. It is this second bit that involves and requires the cooperation of another person, and whose cooperation, if given, will in most instances harm the young adult in the long run. If there is no imposition of duty on another person, then the point of the video is moot.
I have this kind of issue between my mother and I... It's easy for her to just do a bunch of tasks I could do but end up leaving to her. It's not that I'm doing it on purpose or cause I dont want to be an adult but that due to this lack of encouragement towards independence I feel like I can't. I have mental health issues from a mix of difficult experiences and current life circumstances. Its not easy for young people to go out and live independently and there are benefits to both sides to adult children still living with parent/s.
We often work with parents to help them see that some forms of "help" are actually undermining, and advocate what we call "graduated parental retirement" in which they gently and kindly step back, bit by bit, and let their young adult take the wheel of their own life. Some parents are reluctant to do this, however, for a variety of reasons - including, sometimes, anxieties about what a life after parenting might look like. In situations like this it is often up to the young adult to take over their self-care (cooking, laundry, financial management, etc) and slowly shut out the intrusive parent. This is hard to do, because frankly it is more convenient to have dinner made for us than to make it ourselves, and to have money provided when we need it. But the benefit is a steady increase in a sense of one's own capabilities, and rising self-esteem and confidence that comes with it. Sometimes a young adult is waiting to feel confident enough to do these things, forgetting that confidence never comes first - it is the result, not the prerequisite, of action.
I had parents that had me when they couldn’t afford it. Then my mom moved me to a car dependent area and never bothered getting me one so I could find a job and knew this. I was never able to get a drivers license until recently. Some parents actually don’t even care and yet will complain about about their child failing to launch and it’s their fault. Given that next to no entry level job pays a living wage isn’t helping. Almost every job that people want requires a degree so you have to be in a bunch of debt for 5-10 years. You’re destined to be a loser anyways.
Thank you for your observations. I think it can be very difficult to grow up in an environment where one's peers are materially more advantaged. A sense of disadvantage seems to be influenced not only by the absolute level of deprivation (whether we have enough food, etc) but also, and perhaps mainly, by our relative living standard compared to those around us. When I grew up in a middle-class Canadian neighbourhood, for example, I don't believe that a single friend of mine received a car (or funding for one) from their parents. We had no resulting sense of deprivation or resentment. I believe this was because it simply never entered our minds that such a gift might be possible, any more than we expected to wake up to a ribboned zeppelin or private jet. Our acquisitive imaginations seem to have failed us. In my years as a provider in the public health system I came to see the circumstances others experienced, and my level of privilege became somewhat clearer to me. It was only traveling in the developing world amidst true abject poverty that I think it really sank in, however, how much my own expectations (and disappointments) were influenced by the wealth of my city and country. Several years back an individual posted on an online forum for psychologists asking what others felt was the single worst part of being a mental health provider. Some suggested it had to do with billing or paperwork. I replied that being a psychologist meant that one could no longer complain about one's own childhood. If my parents did not use me for their own sexual gratification, or extinguish their cigarettes on my forehead, maybe I had done pretty well overall. In my work with emerging adults I sometimes suggest the use of real-world affirmations. Not the "Everyone loves me and I can do anything I want" variety. Reality-based ones. One of mine is "No one is coming to the rescue." My life is my life, and it's mostly up to me. It's best not to rely on others, even parents, to make life tolerable. If one's parents have been deficient or neglectful, this is no less true. Indeed, it is even more true, because they are unlikely to make a late-life u-turn. The mission is to get into the driver's seat of our own life as much as possible. Congratulations on earning your license.
For me its more so my parents help me and I choose to return the favour because I appreciate having parents who guide me and care for me. I may have not asked to be born but I chose to accept my life and appreciate having one
What of the opposite situation? Where the parent(f) is nagging, & needleing at the adult child to NOT leave the nest, not develop the connections that will assist in doing so (financially, socially or romantically). The adult child(ren) actually comes to realize that the parent's decisions during his whole childhood through adolescence were about keeping him from leaving the nest & establishing a family. I.e: A history of cutting off support when he transfered away from town for college against her wishes. Disdainful to neutral attitudes towards all of his girlfriends. Laying claim to his inheritence moneies from her ex-mother-in-law. Refusal to transfer parental custody on a primary school teachers suggestion to the father who lived in a state with better educational support. Refusal to support the adult child in moving outside of a region where he's relgated to a teenagers level of income despite having degrees & certification (the glass ceiling) (her income is in the 6 figures though).
When working with parents we raise the possibility of ambivalence about independence and the end of parenthood. Often there are some unresolved concerns about what comes next, and these may cause unintended actions that have the effect of discouraging autonomy. For the young adult in this situation the temptations to remain at home can be strong. But the future still beckons. I'm reminded of the old men's-movement book Iron John, which retells a myth, the point of which is that our autonomy is seldom granted by our forebears. It must be taken.
There are challenges the present generation faces that earlier generations did not - the housing situation and growing income disparity among them. I am in support of parents providing more assistance to their young adults' independence than they might have in certain periods during the past. And whether we are talking about the depression of the 1930s, the rampaging unemployment of the 1970s, the wars of the 1900s, 1940s, or 1960s, the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, the housing and income challenges of the 2020s, or other challenges of other times, every generation faces a difficult truth. Whether I chose it or not, this is my life. It is for me to live. And the primary role of my parents is to bring me to the launchpad, not to replace my own efforts or protect me from facing the challenges of my age.
Your cognitive bias and lack of experience is showing. As someone who grew up in the '70's, young people today have it way way easier. No one today is having to worry about getting drafted and sent to die in Viet Nam. Cars don't have to be constantly repaired and replaced and are much less likely to kill you. Mortgage rates aren't 13% as mine was from a company appropriately called Perpetual Mortgage. There are a ton more industries today that didn't exist when I was starting out so many more career options. How many people today have ever had to program a computer by punching a deck of cards? Anybody still watching a 13 inch tube television with no vertical hold? And make sure you were there at the right time because you didn't set the schedule or get to choose what's on. You don't even have to leave your house now to buy crap; you've got crap on demand. Anyone ever spend over two hours waiting in line at a gas station? Besides death and taxes, the other universal constant is people complaining how everyone else had it easier than them. As someone once said, most people don't recognize opportunity when they see it because it's disguised in overalls and looking like hard work.
This is completely biased. Many people have to care for parents who are in no need of help yet they make their children do everything for them. My own mother does this out of laziness. I have been cleaning and doing her laundry for over 30 years. Cooking, cleaning and walking her dog, cleaning her yard, fixing her car and washer and dryer or paying for her heating bill etc. And why does this guy say it’s mostly males who use this phrase? What proof of such a question as ever been examined? Sounds like bull snot to me. He has a hate for someone he believes fits his criteria of codependency of their parents.
Thank you for this comment. I hope that the video makes it clear (and from this I see that it may not) that only a small minority of men and women suggest that, as they did not ask to be born, responsibility for their existence and care lies with another. The commenter is absolutely correct that there is no published empirical evidence that males adopt this dependent point of view more than females, though in long experience I have only heard it expressed by men and never by women. I am sure there are exceptions, however. The core point of the video is that for this point of view to work to anyone’s satisfaction, the parents would have to agree - and in most cases they do not.
I had this conversation with my mother actually and she used the, "you dont remember signing the contract" excuse 😂 I didn't have a failure to launch problem but outside of ending my own life, our society deems me to no longer be my parent's responsibility once I became 18 so that excuse wouldn't hold up in court if they decided to put me out on the street.
It sounds like you successfully hooked your mother back then into a losing argument. Who knows, maybe there IS a signed parchment sitting in some other dimension. But if you can’t produce the document it isn’t binding. We don’t advocate that parents cut off their offspring - just that they support independence rather than unwarranted dependence. It’s supposed to be a steady downward ramp (gradual parental retirement) not a cliff.
@@RandyPaterson I wouldn't advocate kicking someone flat on their butt as well but sometimes you have to "light a fire" if that involves giving the adult child an inkling that their housing may not always be secure if they keep down this path sadly. Do you think the adult child who believes that they can stay with their parents because they created them doesn't understand that their parents are not immortal and I'll likely die before they do?
We presume in these situations that young adults have the cognitive capacity to understand life expectancies - if they don’t we are looking at a separate concern. The goal for most parents is to gradually reduce caregiving.
It's one of the reasons i'm an antinatalist
And yet the same principle, that a young one did not ask to be born, applies not only to every human that ever lived, but also to every animal, fish, and blade of grass. If we took it that without a signature of consent life should not exist we would be left with a very barren planet - and the majority of humans seem at least intermittently pleased to be here. We do not need a world so burdened with people that it becomes unsustainable, but the fact that at least some are inclined to reproduce is probably a very good thing.
@@RandyPaterson But a million wrongs - previous generations not being asked to be born - does not make a right- your parents giving birth to you. It still stands - you did not ask to be born and still have to learn the customs, codes, expectations that the tribe demand. Its a fundamental ethical catastrophe of civilization - to bring someone into forced participation. This cant be ignored as its unethical. The structure, society and its rules, are inherently problematic as all that is earned in on the back of struggle in varying degrees. You have invited problems upon someone, much like a guilty thief stealing money or someone hitting you with a car.
Its not about the age of the child, 18 in most countries, its about the act of forced participation. Ppl should be supported by the guilty - the parents - if they are a failure to launch. They forced them into existence with their genes, societies indoctrination such as culture, schooling, etc and it failed. The child did not fail, how could it? If their genes and environment were effective then they child had a 0 percent chance of failing. The project failed. The genetic information and the environment failed.
This brings in free-will, which if anyone educated enough, knows that at best there is only a very limited amount, if any. Ppl who are failures to launch are those who couldnt be influenced by their environment with the body they have.
Reproduction is always wrong as you can never get the permission of the child. You are deferring value to society and the world over the experience of the child. You are basically saying that the world trumps the child. Why? Its absolutely impossible to know how the child will experience this world yet ppl still have babies. Man, get a clue.
@@RandyPatersonIt is a moral violation. It is why I'm not having kids. No one deserves the torture that is life.
@@michaelshannon9169 absolutely spot on👏🏻 thank you for giving us a logical and intelligent answer.
@@sneakerbabefulso sorry you have had such a bad experience. As shitty as some as my past might have been, I would relive it in a heartbeat. It's gone by so fast. And not having kids? Being allowed to be a dad feels like such a huge blessing. Even if my teenager thinks they are gay, it's alright. It's his choice.
It's true I didn't ask to be born and I hate that I'm here to experience all the bullshit the world throws at me. I would have been better off not being born.
I'm going through this with my 26 year old son now. It hurts my soul to see him struggling, but I've also seen him burn so many bridges with people who are helping him with life. I have to "cut the cord"
One of the things we see in therapy is parents who have either capitulated (essentially giving up hope of change and treating their young adult as an invalid) or they have become fed up and are contemplating a "cold turkey" approach - essentially throwing their offspring out and letting them sink or swim. While the latter can sometimes result in a young person taking charge of their own life, sometimes they simply don't have the ability to manage such an abrupt transition.
We usually advocate for a gradual shift from support for dependence toward support for independence. One parent who took my "Parent Trap" course, for example, reported to me that they had reduced the financial subsidy by 10% each month, and that the outcome was that their young adult took up the slack and began applying for jobs. The temptation must have been to cut the subsidy all at once, but this "graduated parental retirement" approach generally seems to work better.
I did used to think this way. I can understand why people would think this way. I think the main reason I thought this way was because of my very pessemistic future outlook. I do not want kids, because I look at my own childhood, and the future, and it doesnt seem to be full of the experiences that make life really worth living, family, relationships, etc.. If you have a happy life, you do not isolate yourself, which was my experience of this. I gave up on my own life, and my mother is an enabler and allowed me to do that. I can udnerstand the point, but at the same time for those already born, we are here, and thats it, so we either choose to die, or do something about it. You have not ended your own life, so there is something keeping you here, why would you not try to optomize that time? The reason you do not push to progress, and the reason why we instead shift the blame, is because things feel hopeless. Its hard to be optomistic in that mindset. However, not doing anything just makes it worse, the longer you do nothing, the harder it gets. So if you want to be happy, or at least have some form of contentment in ths life, it is actually in the best interest of the young adult, to be pushed out of their boundaries by their parents as you suggest. Obviously not everyone ends up content with their life at the end of the day, some will take it as a betrayal, but in reality, its just doing what should have already happened. I actually had to go to my mother and set the boundary myself that I will no longer be accepting any financial support from her period. I dont spend much of her money, that practically only meant food, I pay for everything else. My main problem was a total lack of motivation to work, so I told her shes not paying for it anymore, and so I will have toi make ends meet, or go into debt. I have directly told her multiple times that I need her to help me on it, and she seems stuck in her ways. I had to set that boundary myself. Its as if she beleived that some day I would just make that change. I did not need 'support', I needed a father. I needed someone to kick me in my rear and tell me to go and do something because I didnt have any motivation to do it myself because of my self hatred, and my lack of happiness. I just needed to be forced to do it, and the sources of motivation come as you do it.
It's true though, kids should take responsibility but so should the parents - they have something to answer for. Everyone should take responsibility.
You are not addressing the elephant in the room which is, "Is it right to procreate withoit getting consent?"
Given that no human, animal, or plant has ever been consulted in advance of their own existence, in large part because there was no one to consult and therefore it would be impossible to do so, I would say that consent is not required. And that requiring consent involves using a form of reasoning that exceeds the bounds of rationality. To mix metaphors, then, there is no elephant in the room until the ship has sailed.
As I mention in the video, however, the point many make is that BECAUSE I didn’t sign anything agreeing to life, THEREFORE those who bestowed it upon me are my servants and caregivers in perpetuity. This implicit contract would require their buy-in, and without it they are under no such obligation.
@@RandyPaterson I agree with the last part. Asking parents to take care of us is not a great idea. I still struggle A LOT with "failure to launch." Did some readings here and there and came to understand that I am a puer aeternus. 30 year old btw. *Sigh. What you told in the video is all about how to practically go forward now that a person is alive and is of a certain age.
But the first para is where I disagree. If there is no way to ask for consent, we shouldn't procreate. Before someone is conceived, we don't even know if they exist in some other form. Making someone is always done without their permission. If there is no way to get permission, it is our moral duty to abstain from procreation.
so the bottom line according to you is we should keep forcing people into existence and as soon as they are legally an adult which is at age 18 in most countries, there is no moral obligation to provide for them anymore and they are on their own? I think it is cruel to think this way, at the end of the day the parents where the ones who created the problems for the child by forcing the child into existence, therefore they have a moral obligation to at least help the child. I am not saying they should be the servants of the child for the rest of their lives but the responsibility for the child does not end at 18.
I think you are objecting to a straw man here. No one has indicated that offspring should be cut loose on their 18th birthday. I advocate that parents steadily shift their support toward independence over the full lifespan of their son or daughter, not that they suddenly withdraw support. At some point they must recognize that they no longer have a child, they have a young adult, and that by continuing to treat him or her as a child they are doing their longer term life a disservice.
@1boi593,
It sound like he hit a nerve and you are the very type of individual that this therapist is talking about. Botton line is you dont get an indefinite free ride. Eventually you have to stand up on your own two feet as a human being. Period!
You either become a grown ass man or woman or you dont. This is life! There are countries where the age sadly is much younger. If all you have to contribute to the conversation is griping and complaining, then you are lost. Which is what it appears that you very well may be.
This is my 26 year old brother. I’m a mental health professional pulling my hair out watching them NOT implement any sort of REAL rules. My brother is the identified patient of the family and has worked himself into a diet of only meat, getting him down to 130 lbs. He’s on the dark web. They’re praying about it and doing an intervention 🤦🏼♀️ ahhhhh!
IDHAF about other human beings who also didn't ask to be born . That's between them and their maker. I am only interested in my situation comparing me to the others is not helping
Fair enough. When others talk about not having requested birth, it’s most often a two-parter. First, they didn’t ask to be born - which is almost certainly true. Second, given the preceding, therefore another person (often a parent) is obliged to do X, where X is often to provide parental care on a lifetime basis.
It is this second bit that involves and requires the cooperation of another person, and whose cooperation, if given, will in most instances harm the young adult in the long run. If there is no imposition of duty on another person, then the point of the video is moot.
@@RandyPatersonThere should be a legal opportunity for them to donate their organs and leave Jah's earth.
I have this kind of issue between my mother and I... It's easy for her to just do a bunch of tasks I could do but end up leaving to her. It's not that I'm doing it on purpose or cause I dont want to be an adult but that due to this lack of encouragement towards independence I feel like I can't. I have mental health issues from a mix of difficult experiences and current life circumstances. Its not easy for young people to go out and live independently and there are benefits to both sides to adult children still living with parent/s.
We often work with parents to help them see that some forms of "help" are actually undermining, and advocate what we call "graduated parental retirement" in which they gently and kindly step back, bit by bit, and let their young adult take the wheel of their own life. Some parents are reluctant to do this, however, for a variety of reasons - including, sometimes, anxieties about what a life after parenting might look like. In situations like this it is often up to the young adult to take over their self-care (cooking, laundry, financial management, etc) and slowly shut out the intrusive parent. This is hard to do, because frankly it is more convenient to have dinner made for us than to make it ourselves, and to have money provided when we need it. But the benefit is a steady increase in a sense of one's own capabilities, and rising self-esteem and confidence that comes with it. Sometimes a young adult is waiting to feel confident enough to do these things, forgetting that confidence never comes first - it is the result, not the prerequisite, of action.
I had parents that had me when they couldn’t afford it. Then my mom moved me to a car dependent area and never bothered getting me one so I could find a job and knew this. I was never able to get a drivers license until recently.
Some parents actually don’t even care and yet will complain about about their child failing to launch and it’s their fault. Given that next to no entry level job pays a living wage isn’t helping. Almost every job that people want requires a degree so you have to be in a bunch of debt for 5-10 years. You’re destined to be a loser anyways.
Thank you for your observations.
I think it can be very difficult to grow up in an environment where one's peers are materially more advantaged. A sense of disadvantage seems to be influenced not only by the absolute level of deprivation (whether we have enough food, etc) but also, and perhaps mainly, by our relative living standard compared to those around us.
When I grew up in a middle-class Canadian neighbourhood, for example, I don't believe that a single friend of mine received a car (or funding for one) from their parents. We had no resulting sense of deprivation or resentment. I believe this was because it simply never entered our minds that such a gift might be possible, any more than we expected to wake up to a ribboned zeppelin or private jet. Our acquisitive imaginations seem to have failed us.
In my years as a provider in the public health system I came to see the circumstances others experienced, and my level of privilege became somewhat clearer to me. It was only traveling in the developing world amidst true abject poverty that I think it really sank in, however, how much my own expectations (and disappointments) were influenced by the wealth of my city and country.
Several years back an individual posted on an online forum for psychologists asking what others felt was the single worst part of being a mental health provider. Some suggested it had to do with billing or paperwork. I replied that being a psychologist meant that one could no longer complain about one's own childhood. If my parents did not use me for their own sexual gratification, or extinguish their cigarettes on my forehead, maybe I had done pretty well overall.
In my work with emerging adults I sometimes suggest the use of real-world affirmations. Not the "Everyone loves me and I can do anything I want" variety. Reality-based ones. One of mine is "No one is coming to the rescue." My life is my life, and it's mostly up to me.
It's best not to rely on others, even parents, to make life tolerable. If one's parents have been deficient or neglectful, this is no less true. Indeed, it is even more true, because they are unlikely to make a late-life u-turn. The mission is to get into the driver's seat of our own life as much as possible.
Congratulations on earning your license.
For me its more so my parents help me and I choose to return the favour because I appreciate having parents who guide me and care for me. I may have not asked to be born but I chose to accept my life and appreciate having one
What of the opposite situation? Where the parent(f) is nagging, & needleing at the adult child to NOT leave the nest, not develop the connections that will assist in doing so (financially, socially or romantically). The adult child(ren) actually comes to realize that the parent's decisions during his whole childhood through adolescence were about keeping him from leaving the nest & establishing a family.
I.e: A history of cutting off support when he transfered away from town for college against her wishes. Disdainful to neutral attitudes towards all of his girlfriends. Laying claim to his inheritence moneies from her ex-mother-in-law.
Refusal to transfer parental custody on a primary school teachers suggestion to the father who lived in a state with better educational support. Refusal to support the adult child in moving outside of a region where he's relgated to a teenagers level of income despite having degrees & certification (the glass ceiling) (her income is in the 6 figures though).
When working with parents we raise the possibility of ambivalence about independence and the end of parenthood. Often there are some unresolved concerns about what comes next, and these may cause unintended actions that have the effect of discouraging autonomy.
For the young adult in this situation the temptations to remain at home can be strong. But the future still beckons. I'm reminded of the old men's-movement book Iron John, which retells a myth, the point of which is that our autonomy is seldom granted by our forebears. It must be taken.
@@RandyPaterson "it must be taken". That's a deep line. Thank you. Unresolved concerns sounds about right.
Here's the deal the opportunity's that the boomers had are not there.
There are challenges the present generation faces that earlier generations did not - the housing situation and growing income disparity among them. I am in support of parents providing more assistance to their young adults' independence than they might have in certain periods during the past.
And whether we are talking about the depression of the 1930s, the rampaging unemployment of the 1970s, the wars of the 1900s, 1940s, or 1960s, the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, the housing and income challenges of the 2020s, or other challenges of other times, every generation faces a difficult truth. Whether I chose it or not, this is my life. It is for me to live. And the primary role of my parents is to bring me to the launchpad, not to replace my own efforts or protect me from facing the challenges of my age.
Your cognitive bias and lack of experience is showing. As someone who grew up in the '70's, young people today have it way way easier. No one today is having to worry about getting drafted and sent to die in Viet Nam. Cars don't have to be constantly repaired and replaced and are much less likely to kill you. Mortgage rates aren't 13% as mine was from a company appropriately called Perpetual Mortgage. There are a ton more industries today that didn't exist when I was starting out so many more career options. How many people today have ever had to program a computer by punching a deck of cards? Anybody still watching a 13 inch tube television with no vertical hold? And make sure you were there at the right time because you didn't set the schedule or get to choose what's on. You don't even have to leave your house now to buy crap; you've got crap on demand. Anyone ever spend over two hours waiting in line at a gas station? Besides death and taxes, the other universal constant is people complaining how everyone else had it easier than them. As someone once said, most people don't recognize opportunity when they see it because it's disguised in overalls and looking like hard work.
This is completely biased. Many people have to care for parents who are in no need of help yet they make their children do everything for them. My own mother does this out of laziness. I have been cleaning and doing her laundry for over 30 years. Cooking, cleaning and walking her dog, cleaning her yard, fixing her car and washer and dryer or paying for her heating bill etc. And why does this guy say it’s mostly males who use this phrase? What proof of such a question as ever been examined? Sounds like bull snot to me. He has a hate for someone he believes fits his criteria of codependency of their parents.
Thank you for this comment. I hope that the video makes it clear (and from this I see that it may not) that only a small minority of men and women suggest that, as they did not ask to be born, responsibility for their existence and care lies with another. The commenter is absolutely correct that there is no published empirical evidence that males adopt this dependent point of view more than females, though in long experience I have only heard it expressed by men and never by women. I am sure there are exceptions, however. The core point of the video is that for this point of view to work to anyone’s satisfaction, the parents would have to agree - and in most cases they do not.
I had this conversation with my mother actually and she used the, "you dont remember signing the contract" excuse 😂 I didn't have a failure to launch problem but outside of ending my own life, our society deems me to no longer be my parent's responsibility once I became 18 so that excuse wouldn't hold up in court if they decided to put me out on the street.
It sounds like you successfully hooked your mother back then into a losing argument. Who knows, maybe there IS a signed parchment sitting in some other dimension. But if you can’t produce the document it isn’t binding. We don’t advocate that parents cut off their offspring - just that they support independence rather than unwarranted dependence. It’s supposed to be a steady downward ramp (gradual parental retirement) not a cliff.
@@RandyPaterson I wouldn't advocate kicking someone flat on their butt as well but sometimes you have to "light a fire" if that involves giving the adult child an inkling that their housing may not always be secure if they keep down this path sadly. Do you think the adult child who believes that they can stay with their parents because they created them doesn't understand that their parents are not immortal and I'll likely die before they do?
We presume in these situations that young adults have the cognitive capacity to understand life expectancies - if they don’t we are looking at a separate concern. The goal for most parents is to gradually reduce caregiving.