Are most young people ready for the working world? Not according to their mothers.
A new survey commissioned by McGraw-Hill Federal Credit Union shows that moms are worried about their children’s future independence:
- 49 percent of moms believe their children are unprepared to get a job
- 44 percent believe their children will not be able to finance college
- 33 percent believe their children are “not at all prepared” to save money or live on their own
To keep reading, click here: Many moms say their kids are unprepared for the future
I just found the source study amusing. What mom doesn’t worry about the under 18 set. There’s a lot to be said for letting kids make their mistakes, and expecting those to continue through college.
Heh yes, because – as we all know – mothers are the source of all wisdom when it comes to job searching.
It’s an interesting article but my first thought was…did it really take a survey to figure this stuff out. It seems pretty obvious to me. I know my parents did all of those things. They worked us like dogs as kids. We got an allowance and had to divide it up between savings, church and fun money. Savings and church were required, if we spent all our fun money we couldn’t raid. And oh did we do chores. The lists were insane, especially during the summer. Then starting at about 12, our allowance got doubled during the summer because we also had to prepare 3 meals a week. Full meals. Even adding to the grocery list if we wanted something specific. And yes, if something wasn’t done to my mom’s standards, we re-did it. They talked with us about money and how credit worked. Explained why some kids got to do more things than us and why we always shopped a sale. And we worked our entry level jobs. Boy, did we. It’s all seems pretty obvious to me. I know I’ll do the same with my children.
Doing all of that, I don’t think my parents worried if we were prepared. I think they felt that they’d done all they could to prepare us and any failures were our own and we need to have them to learn.
I think that this is a wake up call to all parents not to baby their children so much that they are incapable of using their own alarm clock. Stepping back is hard to do, but kids do need to learn how to manage time and money. I think that it’s sad that parents create an environment where they do everything for their child and then complain that their child doesn’t know how to do anything.
Even I have to step back and stop trying to come to the aid of my little 2 year old everytime she shows frustration. I got a lightling bolt of what my hovering does when I noticed that she always asked for help at the playground to climb a certain toy. When my head was turned she tried to master it herself, but as soon as she noticed that I was looking at her she stopped and asked for help. She will not learn to do things on her own if I’m always there to remind her that she needs my help. I have to remember this as she grows up.