So here's the deal with progressive parenting that kinda fukks up their perspective on current reality. Their success changes the game dramatically, and it will be the same for us when our kids are grown and in the workforce:
- For those of us 30+, our parents were able to build careers of 25-30 years WITH pensions AND 401ks. Pensions are hard to come by in this day and age unless you have a union or government job. This is also the first generation since probably the Depression Era where young adults make less than their parents did at a similar age because all the safety nets like pension and long-term unskilled labor [that can be parlayed into careers], hourly jobs w/overtime have disappeared. Not to mention our parents will probably be the last true beneficiaries of Social Security
- My dad got into oil & gas in the late 80's at age 30 making 60k+ with overtime. Over the years his company got bought and sold several times and because of that he has TWO 401k's and Three pensions. He's been over 100k for the past 10 years and is at 30 years of service. At 60 years of age, he barely does any work other than supervising folks that are ready to move into his position but of course, its easy money so he doesn't want to retire early and people like him contribute to the stagnation of succession for qualified candidates with 10+ years of service. See the correlation? His journey of 20 years to get to 100k directly competes with the next generation of folks who now have 10+ years of service but can't move to the BOTTOM of his payscale which is about 70k.
- My grandparents' generation were frustrated with people from my dad's generation who didn't get college degrees because in their eyes, the climate was conducive for young minorities to more easily obtain college degrees. Needless to say, my dad doesn't have a degree but was able to achieve a level of success. So the cycle of frustration really hasn't changed and will continue, lol. Ready for the second correlation? Our parents generation has the highest % of non college grads who have earned over a million dollars in their lifetime. This directly impacts the value of a college degree (for non profession-specific career paths) which is now diluted because 5+ years of work history is > college degree for most jobs.
- The challenge for the next generation (our kids) is that our generation has gained all the knowledge and are moving more and more into entrepreneurship, internet startups, consulting, freelance, independent contracting, etc. Our perspective is gonna be to "assume" that in the next 20+ years, there should be NO EXCUSE for anyone to not have their own business, lol. That'll be our frustration with our kids. But because of the amount of information that is currently at our disposal, we're gonna over-saturate the playing field there by removing a lot of the financial advantages of owning a small business. We can already see some of that now with the loopholes and tax advantages that are getting exposed in the private sector.
I've had these convos with my dad as well. The most difficult part of those convos is the fact that my dads death/my inheritance is gonna be one of the biggest come ups in my life
. It's fukked up, but to be honest, this is how white people have been coming up for years. This realization gave us both the perspective we needed to understand the value of family and the reminder that success is what you make it
Gotta ask for manager, and of course theyll give you the cookie cutter response "you gotta apply online" or "our store isnt hiring but other stores are". But if you physically give them a resume it could help your chances 
Anything Diff'rent Strokes is an automatic dap from me!!!!
