Last week I watched a news report on a new type of life crisis.\u00a0 Well, sort of.\u00a0 A young reporter discussed the many difficulties facing the 25-year-olds as they finish college.\u00a0 Wait a minute?\u00a0 Why are 25-year-olds just finishing college?\u00a0 Did they take a few years off along the way?\u00a0 How did they do that?<\/p>\n
I thought about what would have happened to my brothers or me if we tried to explain to our father how we needed a few years off to find ourselves, to figure out what we wanted out of life, to see where we fit in this world.\u00a0 That was a brief thought.<\/p>\n
No confusion, no wondering, no questions.\u00a0 Dad would have explained any concerns we had with admirable brevity.\u00a0 Where did we want to find ourselves?\u00a0 Back at school without any permanent injuries.\u00a0 What did we want out of life?\u00a0 To survive this discussion.\u00a0 Where did we fit in this world?\u00a0 Back at school as rapidly as possible.\u00a0 No confusion, no wondering, no questions.<\/p>\n
At least that is what would be going through our minds amid the moments of sheer terror.\u00a0 To be fair, dad would have remained calm, though unwavering.\u00a0 He would have asked us what was on our mind, listened to what we had to say, and spent a few moments thinking about it.<\/p>\n
Then he would have quietly said, “I’d rather you just stay in college,” meaning “Go back to school,\u00a0we’re done talking.”\u00a0 And the subject would never be brought up again.\u00a0 Period.\u00a0 None of us knows what would have happened if we had pushed dad past him saying “I’d rather you just….”\u00a0 We had an inborn knowledge that doing so would be a bad idea.<\/p>\n
So what is the crisis today’s college graduates face?\u00a0 They are not getting the job they know they deserve, at the income they know they are worth, living in the home they assumed they could afford, driving the car to work they knew they would have.
\nSo rather than a mid-life crisis, they call it a quarter-life crisis; the new catch phrase meaning, “I am not getting what I know I am entitled to get.”<\/p>\n
I am still a bit confused about the claimed crisis.\u00a0 It never occurred to me or to my brothers that we were entitled to anything, yet alone starting out in life where our parents finished, simply moving laterally into our lives.\u00a0 This even though at the time my father died at age 61, he and mom could have put everything they owned in a small U-Haul truck.<\/p>\n
It was years before I realized there were kids who were going to college and not working at all, yet alone nearly full-time.\u00a0 And although at the time I felt the world was unfair, I now look back and see that dad knew what he was doing.\u00a0 He was helping us, not hurting us.\u00a0 He was showing us how much he cared, not how callous he was.<\/p>\n
He was able to do what too many parents of our generation have not done.\u00a0 He understood his job as our father was to teach us how to be men.\u00a0 He understood what that required of him and of us; setting aside the pain he and we would go through.<\/p>\n
When we left home for college, pretty much broke, we entered the final phase of our “training.”\u00a0 We started our final lessons and final exam.\u00a0 He knew what had to be done.\u00a0 He was our dad.\u00a0 He was “allowing” us to become men.\u00a0 His handshake as you left home let you know what he expected of you, and that you were welcome home on holidays.<\/p>\n
The final lessons?\u00a0 The value of money, hard work, learning, poverty, hunger, failure, pain, responsibility, self-sufficiency, success.\u00a0 The results of the final exam?\u00a0 Self-respect and independence.<\/p>\n
We should all love our children enough to give them these final lessons, this final exam.\u00a0 I agree with them, they are entitled–to these lessons.<\/p>\n
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