Parents sometimes scoff when younger generations don't want to work as hard as they did or have kids, but part of why they don't want that is because they witnessed the misery of their parents.

Submitted by smugglingkittens t3_10ntyqm in Showerthoughts

Younger generations watched as their parents slowly lost their hobbies and became depressed and full of shame due to being degraded and undervalued at work. And they saw what it resulted in —anger issues, substance issues, slow loss of intimate friendships due to neglect.

So what's being seen as forgetting what their parents sacrificed is sometimes actually remembering vividly what their parents sacrificed and seeing it as a warning story

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greenknight884 t1_j6b1vld wrote

In many jobs young people are working harder, with no guarantee of job security, raises, or promotion. Not even mentioning the lack of a pension plan. You're no longer off the clock at 5pm, you have to frequently do overtime, and many people are having to juggle childcare or other responsibilities as well.

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Sixhaunt t1_j6bcj7y wrote

Lets also not forget that they are doing all that to earn only half of what they need to support a family and so they require 2 incomes instead of just 1 like it used to be.

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Apo42069 t1_j6bovon wrote

High degree holder, I changed careers to go into higher tension jobs (that is when there is not enough professionals to hire per open position), never looked back to my corporate past. My bosses have to be nice with me, they know i can go work anywhere i want, anytime, and that’s the greatest feeling, no bs!

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Fatherofdaughters85 t1_j6dr74w wrote

My dad just finally acknowledged that my wife and I are never actually “off” work. Even on vacation and holidays we still have to constantly be thinking about what we have waiting when we get back to the office (not necessarily a physical space)

That being said, there’s a quality of life that I want to maintain for my family. I like having a place to live, I like to eat food, I like having water and transportation. Those things require money. The only way to get the money is to provide a good or service that is marketable. So I work. I think one of the reasons the older generations (which now includes millennials) are somewhat (or overtly) hostile to this anti capitalism is because we don’t really see a way out. If we stop, we lose all of the things that we have literally worked our entire lives to gain- and asking people to give up everything they have worked for to uphold an ideal that many of us don’t agree with in the first place is unrealistic. (The ideal being that all of a sudden society will just become one big commune where everyone just openly shares all goods, services, and labor “for the common good”.).

We can’t even stop killing each other over dirt and whether we agree about the sky monster that controls everything. How in the fuck are we going to get everyone to agree to work for free so we can all have the same quality of life across the board. How do you quantify the value of a more dangerous job, or disgusting job, vs an easy job, or fun job?

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BreakfastBeerz t1_j6bptst wrote

Screen shot this post and save it with a reminder to see it in 30 years

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American_PP t1_j6dhr0t wrote

My parents worked for 30+ years in nursing and all they did was bitch about work my entire childhood. When I became an adult, they kept encouraging me to become a nurse as if I wasn't already a pissed off at people young adult. I went into information technology. Sometimes I think I should have listened to them, I would have met way more women. IT is mostly dudes. It's a sausagefest.

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RiC_David t1_j6bz4vp wrote

Nothing has changed for generations. Younger generations appear however they appear because they're young, older generations likewise because they're older.

There was no generation where all the young people wanted to work hard - if they worked hard then it was because they had to, if the next one didn't then it was because it was optional.

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balrus-balrogwalrus t1_j6cras1 wrote

when it's clear your parents became miserable when they had kids, and while loving and caring for you is kind of obvious having kids ruined their happy carefree life, it's not exactly encouraging for you yourself to also want kids

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CockerSpankiel t1_j6d6nko wrote

Their parents also made living wages and weren’t living paycheck to paycheck.

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Tom_ragnarrson t1_j6h2uhi wrote

Actually most families before the economic recovery of the Regan era were living in poverty.

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l0000000000l97 t1_j6bsp3t wrote

A lot changes over time and life is generally easier. Kid may have spent hours walking to school in the past but now we have better infrastructure and cars.

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LanzenReiterD t1_j6ctzw7 wrote

If you think kids don't walk to school now because their parents can't afford cars, I have some bad news for you.

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EuropeanTrainMan t1_j6cr2fj wrote

No.

It's mostly due to no longer being pressured into having them.

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smugglingkittens OP t1_j6d3l0w wrote

That's an "and", not a "no". God knows many people are still pressured. And I know for me and many of my friends it's the reasons I described.

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EuropeanTrainMan t1_j6deagm wrote

You're hilariously wrong. It's just not being pressured into having them. Each generation had people living just above or below the poverty line and they were still having children out of pressure.

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