State

Hi, I've been having a simply marvelous time this Wknd at P-town--I haven't had this much fun since Rehoboth in 1989 and seeing the fabulous musical "Saving Ryan's Privates"--and got to wondering: Where are all the surly, lazy, mathematically challenged local teenagers? Much of the wonderful behind-the-counter help seems to come from Central or Eastern Europe.

Delicious-looking Romanians...yummy! I'm not complaining, just wondering why that is.

And as I consider myself roving reporter at large for Patsfans.com, the answer that keeps coming back to me is--work ethic. American teenagers don't seem to have much of it.

That also is the conclusion from an Atlantic piece, From Serbia to Cape Cod, written by a prominent young gay journalist from Mass, James Kirchick (and I think the source for the hit piece against Ron Paul several years ago that received prominent play here):How have American teenagers gotten lazy compared to internationals? Is it we've become too lazy, all of us, thanks in part to our own success (wealth) and the ability to survive by not working (the welfare state)? Rhetorical question.

People start families without having the demonstrated ability to work even a year at McDonald's. What kind of lessons are they passing on to their children when they themselves are having the gubmit financially help them?

It seems the mind set in other countries is gratitude for having work and personal responsibility for one's actions...exactly the mind set that got us our wealth in the first place.

It seems, like the book I read a long time ago by Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, that capitalism sows the seeds for its own destruction. The paradox is that by its success capitalism teaches people values that undermines the continuance of the system.

PatsWSB47

I've personally noticed a steady shift in work ethic attitudes over the past 40 years in the work environments I've been a part of. Anecdotal yes but I believe it's probably common elsewhere.

This phenomenon is not new though. Legal immigrants where allowed to, have flourished with their opportunity here. I think though this work ethic disease is spreading worldwide(striking in the streets over increasing work weeks to 40 hours and taking away time from umpteen weeks of vacation etc.)

The attitude today is what, "be appreciative, a lot of people work hard for my money"?

Patters

It does seem that since generation X, a lot of young people have the belief of staying at home living the middle class lifestyle well into their 20s. I bet for any of us over 40, we could not wait to get away from our parents and have economic independence. I look back fondly of those years of poverty, when I refused to asked my parents for any help. But, times have changed. I know people of all ages and all backgrounds with children who are living at home in their 20s. I think they're missing out on so much. My impoverished years were those of road trips, crappy jobs, meeting strange people, and have adventures that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

chicowalker

Maybe foreign workers are simply more available than they once were?

I'm skeptical of a lot of claims that young people are so much different (usually worse) than they were at some previous point in time -- doesn't that strike you as a generational cliche?

I know when I was a teen many of my friends and I worked, but even the most responsible among us probably wasn't exactly "reliable."

PatsWSB47

No, there has been a decline in work ethic. An increase in the number of foreign workers supports this. They see "bad" jobs as opportunities and will take them and any other not so bad jobs while what State and the journalist observed with young Americans plays out.

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

Does your own experience support this as well? I'd imagine that at least some of us have children in this age group.....are your own children lazy and refusing to take jobs?

I don't see it in my own children or in their friends. I see a bunch of young kids/young adults who are working their way through college, working two jobs, working odd jobs, starting very small businesses, working overtime and generally working wherever and whenever they can.

PatsWSB47

I see it at my work place absolutely and yes unfortunately my daughter hasn't seemed to have the drive of her parents. She is making some progress and that makes me very proud. I wonder sometimes if we didn't contribute by being so much of a safety net for her. We can talk a tough love game but when she puts herself in crisis and we always "bailed her out". Congrats to you and your kids, I envy you ;-).

I've only worked for 4 different places in my life and over that time i have seen work ethics decline. I've been in my current job for seven years. One of the things we do every year is bring on computer programing interns from a college that that we work with(usually 2 at a time). Over the seven years we have probably had a 50-50 mix of american-foreign. I've yet to see an American intern live up to the performance and work ethics of the foreign ones. Some of the americans have been outright lazy.

State

Are you around a lot of Asian kids?

Most college students are too busy partying to work a job, let alone two. That's impressive. I have anecdotally noticed a much great work ethic among Asian students who would rather delay gratification than play now.

And I know a big-time private sector employer who hasn't had good luck with college students in my neck of the woods. They too often don't show up.

I do notice upper income kids working cushy internships to burnish their resumes, but these pay little or nothing.

DarrylS

There are in general, less teenagers, and places like P Town as high costs do not allow middle class folks to spend as much time there as they have in the past, thus their children do not follow.

Are there demographic shifts in teenagers in P-Town?? Many seaside towns have experienced gentrification by the folks from NYC. Places like Newport RI, have less kids there now then they did when I was in High School.

Not sure you can deduce that teenagers are lazy, due to your anecdotal observations.. my grandson(16) is working five days a week, ergo all teenagers work hard. Most of his friends all seem to be working as well.. thus there is really no problem at all.

__________________
"Being the best doesn't mean you always win. It just means you win more than anyone else".. tweet from Kurt Warner to Tom Brady.

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

I am, actually. My last job was working for an Asian doctor and his wife. They worked harder than anyone I've ever known - but their children and most of the children of our largely Asian patient load did not. They did work very hard at their schooling - my boss invested twice the salary he paid me in hiring private tutors for his teenaged daughter so that she could stay in honors classes. Half of my job duties consisted of editing (or just plain rewriting) her papers, I think. That and answering her frantic phone calls for help doing everything from finding her contacts to how to boil water. Their son, who was in his mid-twenties, had a job he hated that his dad had gotten for him and constantly was in trouble for drinking and driving. Many of the patient's children were doing the same sort of thing. The parents did not want their children to work while they were in school - unless it was at one of those "cushy internships" you talked about. Even then, they drove them there and back and ran interference constantly.

That's just midwestern, I think. The kids my kids grew up with were mostly the children of blue collar workers - there wasn't enough money to put the kids thru school and let them party. Party money had to come from the kid himself - and once he found out how hard it was to earn it most of them decided that spending it on beer wasn't what they wanted to do any more.

Everyone who's a member of an ethnic group is also an individual. There is always going to be a wide range of experiences with them because of that. That's why I find it really dangerous to stereotype.