I seem to remember the same thing being said in the late 50's and 60's.
And it was said in the 20's and 30's.
There are just people who don't want to work in every generation and they drop out.
They all seem to have a major allergy to soap as well.
There are some of those.
There are also those who would love to work if that was all they had to do.
The paperwork, the hoops, the regulations overwhelm them.
They watch their parents filling out this form, filing that statement, paying the bills, applying for this, signing for that, waiting for the other, and their eyes glaze over at the ridiculous complexity of it all.
They're gobsmacked.
All they want to do is work and get paid. Get a place to stay and pay the rent, not go through background checks, nor sign a lease for what seems to be an interminable time.
Everything seems inordinately complicated to them, and between those lines they see people who 'care'--for a profit.
They are throwbacks to a time when people did business with a handshake and there were not lawyers, government, and accountants involved in everything. Those people would look at the insane overcomplexity of 'modern' living and walk away, too.
Half of America is aching for that system to break down. They're storing up food for it, ammunition, rifles, gold, silver, gadgets, tools, and gear even as they deal with it day to day.
Those same kids see their parents worn to a frazzle trying to keep up with it all and often having little time for them...
It isn't that they are ingrates, and it isn't that they are bums, it is just that they see there is (or should be) something better and they are looking for it.
That dissociation has been present for every generation to some degree, sometimes capitalized on by Communists, sometimes by Democrats, currently by those who make a living telling others what victims they are (ka-ching! thank you for shopping at grievance mart, please come again!)
We had that better life (forget the gadgets and medical advances, we could have had them anyway--maybe more), speaking of the American Middle Class, not so long ago. We've been overregulated, our lives are overgoverned at every level, doing the penance for the sins of sloth and greed of others. Our money has been devalued and is taken to feed others forcing us to work harder, longer than ever (not just dad, but mom, too) in order to maintain that toehold on the thin ledge above poverty--which means we have less time than ever to spend with the kids and the State and its minions are snapping that time up--and, in the case of those willing or unaware, our kids, too--just as planned.
These are the children who would have moved out to the frontier to escape the strictures of the Eastern cities just 150 years ago. Now, there is no place for them to go as government declares the unoccupied lands off limits and the inholdings which remain become the playgrounds of the rich (pure Agenda 21).
The kids can't cope with it all, and don't know how to fight it, but they aren't playing along, either.
Unfortunately, the whole subgrade economy and lifestyle has its ugly contingent as well, and the protections of our culture seem more reserved for those who are all shiny clean and well dressed. The kids are on their own.
They all seem to have a major allergy to soap as well.
Oddly enough, their allergy to soap is a matter of not having a safe place to bathe on a regular basis. Most would be happy to stay clean even if they forget what that was like. In the meantime, naked is vulnerable, in so many ways, so the clothes stay on.