I recently read about a 23 year old woman
in Spain who sued her parents because they refused to continue to
support her. She was living at her parent’s home, had no money, never
finished high school and testified that her parents were putting undue
pressure on her to get a job. She had held a couple jobs very briefly
but she quit because, and I quote, “It was too much work.”
Which is kinda the whole point.
The
lazy young lady may win her case because the average age at which
Spaniards leave home is 29 years old, so she should have six more years
of mooching left.
Spain
is not alone in this outbreak of laziness. Over 20 million Americans
between the ages 18 and 31 are still living with their parents. And I
recently read that in the future a good chunk of American males may
NEVER have a job during their entire lives! I personally know a 30 year
old man who has sired two children, lives with his mother and apparently
feels in no rush to get a job. I’ve had another millennial young man
tell me at age 25 that he feels burned out and hopes to retire at age
30.
I can’t relate to any of this. In
high school I worked every summer. For two summers I picked citrus
alongside Hispanic crews who could work rings around me. These Hispanics
must NOT have been related to the Spaniards because where I might pick
30 boxes of lemons per day they’d pick 50. Between my junior and senior
years I got the worst job ever. I had to crawl under lemon trees, dig a
basin around each tree and paint around its circumference 18 inches high
to prevent insects from crawling up the trees. The toxic “paint”, which
I’m quite sure contributed to my health problems later in life, was a
nasty substance I can still smell now 50 years later. For this work I
got paid the princely sum of $1.25 per hour.
As
a youngster I also worked at a gas station, mowed lawns, delivered
newspapers, raised show steers and ran a rabbit business that multiplied
rapidly. In the summers between my three collegiate years I worked in
the oil fields and during Christmas and Spring breaks, when everyone
else went home, I worked at the university livestock facilities. Through
it all I gained a work ethic that has served me well. I’m 67 now and
plan on working until I take THE LONG NAP.
The
unwillingness to work entry level jobs by young people today has
created a shortage of workers in agriculture. Farmers have had to plow
under entire crops because they couldn’t find anyone to pick them and
many farmers are now switching to crops that can be picked by machines.
Ranchers tell me it’s getting harder to find good cowboys and many have
switched to hiring cowgirls. Even illegals are passing up farm and ranch
work for higher paying jobs in big cities. The shortage of milkers is
forcing many dairies to switch to robotic milking machines and it’s
predicted that by next year the agricultural robot industry will be a 16
billion dollar industry!
But inventors can never build a robot to replace the cowboy, can they?
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