Work for your own future

Gen-Yers say they are willing to make financial sacrifices to make the world a better place. How very ‘generous’ of you. How long can you really expect to work less, volunteer more--and count on your aging parents to push back their retirement?

Too many twenty-somethings are still living with Mom and Dad. Too many twenty-somethings think they can just quit their jobs because they are not having fun. Too many parents have instilled in their children that ‘you can be anything you want to be’ without instilling in them the fact that they have to actually work for it.

In a study released this summer, global employment agency Manpower found that across the developed world, under-30s would overwhelmingly rather "pursue their passions" than "make lots of money," with 73 percent of young Spaniards and two-thirds of Americans and Canadians backing that statement.

I think it is necessary for every person to pursue their passion, and I certainly do not advocate the very unhealthy, stroke-inducing, all-out drive to earn as much money as you can before you die mantra. You don’t have to push yourselves into an early grave to earn more than anyone else. What I am saying is get out there and earn something for your future. Earn enough for the basics and a little extra for vacations and, if you like, for charities. But for God’s sake put some in savings and stop living off of your parents. They are trying to survive too. They have worked long and hard for it and now that you are old enough to support yourselves they should spend it on themselves.

The main thing that these twenty-somethings have failed to realize is that inevitably they will be too old to work and they will need a ‘nest egg’ to help them survive because Mom and Dad are not going to always be there for them.

Another thing, it is very selfish for these twenty-somethings to drain Mom and Dad’s retirement savings because they don’t like their jobs. Well guess what, Mom and Dad most likely did not ‘like’ their jobs either but they had the work-ethic to stay with the job because they also were very aware that they alone would have to support themselves when they retire.

Now, that work-ethic is disappearing, or maybe it is being put off until later, I don’t know, but one thing I do know, the less you work the less money you have for retirement.

The Social Security Administration was created by the government because people were not saving enough money to fund their retirement. Now we are reverting back to that same inability to support ourselves in retirement due to lack of savings.

Why do you twenty-somethings think you don’t need to work towards a financially secure future of your own? Here is how the Social Security system is set up to work: Mom and Dad’s income feeds the fund with the promise of supporting them in their retirement. That money went to help fund their parents generation so they could retire. Your income goes to support your parents retirement. When you don’t work you are not putting anything into that fund and therefore your parents are not going to have any money for their retirement. This is extremely selfish of you. But you go ahead and have your fun, just keep putting off the inevitable collapse of your dream world until the day you suddenly realize you have no income because your ATM, your mom and dad, have passed on, or, more appropriately, spent it on themselves.

How much ‘fun’ is life going to be then?

Where is the stigma that used to drive ‘adults’ out from under their parents roof? Why has it become acceptable for ‘adults’ to continue to live with their parents and be supported by their parents long after they have reached the traditional age of maturity? Why has it become acceptable for you to continue to go out and play instead of work for your own future?

This may come as a shock to you but trust me when I say that your parents, who have worked steadily at their jobs (jobs that they did not always find ‘fun’) so they could afford vacations from that ‘boring’ job and so they could afford to retire in some relative comfort, was not planning on supporting you for the rest of their lives. And now that you are ‘forcing’ them to do so by not pulling your own weight, you are sucking them dry of every dream they have worked for. Can you not see that this must be a very difficult and depressing realization for them, that their hopes of retiring have gone away because you are too self-involved and narcissistic to support yourself?

What are you going to do when your world comes crashing down around your ears because you did not get that big inheritance from your parents when they die? What are you going to do when you find out that the family house that you thought was going to support you has been heavily mortgaged to help support you while your parents were alive because you refused to grow up?

Your parents likely feel an embarrassment that they did not do a good enough job at raising you to be an asset to this society instead of the money-pit you have become. Since they love you they will continue to sacrifice to help you, even when they know there is no prospect of you helping them, because how can you, you have not been earning any money to support yourself, how are you going to help your parents when they need it? Deep inside, they feel a resentment towards you for not taking it upon yourselves to support yourself and they also feel a disappointment in themselves for not being strong enough to teach you the importance of a good work ethic.

Parents who give their kids everything are not doing their kids any favors. In fact they are prolonging one of lifes most important lessons. That lesson being that the only way a person appreciates what they have is if they have to earn it for themselves with their own blood and sweat.

In May, Britain's HSBC banking group released a global study on the future of retirement, which found that in nearly all of the 21 countries they studied, senior citizens--those who in times past would have been cared for by their grown children--gave more money to their offspring than they received. What are they going to retire on? What is their prospect of earnings when they are too old for work?

This country, as a whole, does not respect their elders. This country does not respect to the wisdom of age. This country would rather hire young people and let the elders fend for themselves. And if the young aren’t going to help support them then their future is pretty dismal.

Is any of this getting through to you selfish, lazy, narcissistic heathens? Sure, most of the blame begins with your parents for not instilling in you a strong work ethic. Sure you could blame a lack of ‘fun’ jobs to keep your interest. Sure you could again blame your parents for always giving you what you want instead making you work for it. But, sooner or later, you are going to have to realize that your future is your own responsibility, not your parents, and not anyone else’s.