Replies

Well, I think you make some good observations, but I think you are missing a generational shift here that others are commenting on.

Certainly no one, or few, would begrudge people in the prime of their youth from traveling or experiencing life so long as they maintained a proper perspective. However, if you’ve ever spent some time perusing YouTube you would witness a whole class of Millenial types who do nothing but sail around the world or travel across the country with no home address whatsoever. In fact, a report I recently heard is that the RV industry is absolutely booming right now as Millenials are buying up all kinds of RVs for traveling around living a vagrant life.

Tied together, it would appear that this generation whats no commitment, no roots, and as little real responsibility as possible. This is why you see home ownership declining among this demographic. Amazingly, they prefer to rent, and pay rents that are equal to or higher than mortgages simply because a home is more permanent to them and they want to be able to pick up and go anytime without having to have a home sale tie them down.

So yeah, I encourage my kids to be as free as they can in their youth, but I also want them to understand responsibility as a human being and to those around them.

I’m not sure you’re correct re the generations. I already said, the youth were mocked and belittled in Plato’s time! In my day, growing up in the 70s and 80s, we were ridiculed and there was of course some truth to the comments back then! We WERE all on drugs! My parents’ generation with The Beach Boys and the goofing off (in America)?? The music, the styles? It seems there never will be a new generation of youth who is wiser and more hardworking than their parents’ generation.

Even in your day, you probably weighed how much commitment to [whatever, army, wife, boss, etc] you would need to display to get [your dream of a good life]. And made your choices. That is probably constant through time; Kids today (did I actually just say that? Yikes) don’t always see their parents’ commitment to their job, their farm, their wife, as a good thing or something that worked out for that parent. They have to make their mistakes and good choices based on what they see.