During a town hall meeting last summer, a moderately high level employee of a veteran’s group outside DC respectfully expressed her frustration with the current state of the country and asked President Obama if the things she and her family was experiencing were just their new reality.

I’ve been giving things like this some thought for some time — a little over thirty years, in fact.  My conclusion more than thirty years ago was we’ve reached a point in our societal development where the age-old desire of parents to provide a better life for their children than they had growing up will be difficult if not impossible to retain for many families.

However, I believe there will always be families who are on the lower end of the economic scale, and there will be nowhere to go but up for them, and for those families, they have the opportunity to instill desire and a work ethic in their children to do better than they have done.  They will most likely do it the way families have done it for generations — demanding their children do better in school than they themselves did or were able to do, setting the expectation that they will, and working, sometimes multiple jobs, to provide for their families so their children can focus on school or have the opportunity to participate in an extracurricular activity they may excel at.

Because, our free public education isn’t really free.  There’s always something a parent needs to subsidize. There’s the standard expenses of school clothes, school supplies, school lunches (and breakfasts), milk money, and immunizations.  If a parent can’t afford those things, there are usually charitable organizations to help ensure a child has them.  The really tough part is the couple of dollars here and couple of dollars there for field trips, it’s the instrument for band, the shoes and socks for a sport, the dress for choir, the outfit for the dance — the so-called extras that are so essential if a parent wants their child to have a positive school experience.  And, typically, there aren’t too any people offering to help with those expenses.  I don’t think many kids who have access to those events have a clue about their friends who do not.  As far as they know, in many cases, they believe their friends don’t want to go or be involved, but how often have they learned not to ask, because the answer is, “You know we can’t afford that.”

There are ways a lower-income parent can provide for these experiences.  Sometimes, when the child is old enough, he or she will get a part-time job to supplement family income to be able to afford to participate and still not impede their academic experience. Sometimes, there are places in the community where a gently used formal gown (or, perhaps less often, men’s formal wear) are available dirt cheap in a resale shop or yard sale, enabling someone to attend a formal dance.

That avenue of providing a better experience than the parent had growing up is still available, and families everywhere are making it a reality.  I’m talking about the situation of the child who is the beneficiary of the family who has been able to provide a better childhood than the parent had — to the point where the child can probably not top the experience with their own children.

My query thirty years ago was, “What happens when we’ve reached that point in society — the children are given everything they could possibly want and more and their standard of living when they leave the nest won’t be able to compare for years?  Are they ready to accept that challenge?  Are they prepared?  Will Mommy and Daddy let them suffer a little to learn to fend for themselves?  Have Mommy and Daddy done them a disservice by providing them that things-rich environment growing up?”  (I guess that would be queries, wouldn’t it?)

I think the unrest we saw in our country in the 1960s was part of the symptom of this “problem.”  Privileged children came of age, realized other people hadn’t had the advantages they’d had, and they thought that was wrong.  Their college education was being paid for by parents who were trying to provide an environment where their child was free to study like the parent may not have had.  Instead, their children’s free time was not spent working to pay college costs and tuition, and they frequently had allowances which afforded them the opportunity to be looking for something to do.  I’m sure some worked in economically challenged areas to help show kids how to obtain a better way of life — sociology was a popular major then, and that would have been a good thing for them to do.  But lots more protested the war in Viet Nam and the Establishment (which was paying their way to allow them to be dissatisfied that everyone else didn’t have it as good as they did).

It’s interesting to note that some of those protesters became more conservative as they aged.  It’s also interesting to note that some of them just became craftier in their politics.  Both types are in charge of our nation today.  Quite a few of them are advocates that everyone should have a comfortable lifestyle no matter how it is obtained.

I don’t really know how to object to that statement without making it sound like I believe hard-working poor people should stay that way.  That’s not my point, but, unfortunately, it’s reality for many people.  Many hard-working poor people don’t want the world’s pity, nor do they want any hand outs.  They would tell anyone who cared to listen that money doesn’t buy happiness (it doesn’t — that comes from within), and they are wealthy in non-material ways.  They would be absolutely correct, and I would hope there would be a way they could earn more financial compensation for their serious labor to obtain a financial cushion to ease stress in their lives.

No, the people who want to “spread the wealth” are typically of two types.  The first is the type who live a comfortable lifestyle and believe “spreading the wealth” should come from other people’s pockets — the mythical “rich” — who the comfortable people don’t believe they are but many people who earn far less money than they do fall into that category (the rationalization they employ escapes me) or the people who have never worked an honest job in their lives and don’t believe they should have to but want all the trappings that come from an industrious, hard-working person’s labors.  Of course, a lot of work that goes into learning how to game the system in a way you can profit from it, but I would argue they need to learn to apply those skills to earning a living from honest labor.

We have reached a point in many families where children have been coddled by privilege.  They were born to parents who waited to have them until they were established in their careers, and the children have only known economic comfort.  They have been blessed to not be aware of the struggles their parents went through to gain financial footing in life.  And cursed.  They do not know hardship and the perseverance required to overcome and enjoy the fruits of their labors.  Parents who are trying to present a better life experience may have forgotten to help their children understand what it takes to earn their way in life.  Sometimes, this makes for a challenging young adulthood — and beyond.

I think we’re experiencing an economic correction of serious proportions and consequences.  If there are serious consequences, there can also be serious benefits.  Our nation is being challenged right now, and I think the status quo is changing.  The answer is not necessarily in a college education.  I think part of the answer lies in obtaining a marketable skill coupled with entrepreneurial skills.  Children and their parents need to look critically at the skills and interests of their child. Then they need to examine what society needs and what opportunities exist in today’s world and in the future.   Instead of blindly “preparing for college,” young people and their advisers need to consider a wide range of options and opportunities, because college may not provide a path to economic and career satisfaction.

With so few people having a clue about how anything in their house works and being generally unwilling or unable to lift a finger to learn, any number of skilled professions offer a goldmine of opportunities for someone willing and able to learn — especially if they prefer the satisfaction and challenge of seeing a job through from start to finish.  For someone wanting to work for themselves, the skilled professions of electrician, plumbing, HVAC, and home remodeling offer a willing entrepreneur a wealth of opportunities.  The initial path may be to work for someone else, but the opportunity exists to work with a family owned business with a potential for purchase or for the opportunity to gain experience and strike out on one’s own once the hands-on skills and business-side of the business are learned.  Certainly by the time classmates are hanging around college hoping for graduate school because they can’t find a job, those who chose to learn a skilled professional trade can be well-established in their field.

No, this solution isn’t for everyone, but there are opportunities for learning the trade as well as picking up enough business classes or on the job experience to know what’s involved with running a business without spending $40, 000 – $100,000 on a college education just because it’s the thing to do.

There are so many people who find themselves working in an office because that’s what they’re supposed to do, and they hate it.  They complain about no job satisfaction.  They’re not able to see a job through from start to finish.  They may be involved in a portion of a project but are frustrated because they have to hand it off to someone else and move onto another job.

Our societal emphasis that a traditional college education is the one-size fits all answer or you’re a failure is causing not only big problems for individuals, but for society as a whole.  It’s messing up our economy.  It’s time we took a serious look at just what education is important for which people based upon their skills, talents, and desires and adjusting accordingly (while ensuring we’re not creating a dumping grounds or stereotypical shepherding based upon inferior education).

Too many kids are filling a square at school because they have to be there.  What if we took a closer look at that nasty European format that doesn’t guarantee an academic high school education?  What if when your academic scores didn’t meet up with  standards if you were channeled to an educational experience more appropriate for your demonstrated skills?  What if, even though you were academically sound, you knew you wanted to be an electrician or a plumber or a welder or a carpenter?  How could you spend your last four years in school preparing yourself for that career so you were ready to join the work force, either as an employee or as an independent business when you graduated at 18?

Yes, I know some schools have been doing that for decades.  Aviation High School in NYC graduates certified aircraft mechanics.  The Columbiana County Joint Vocational School in Ohio graduates students (or they did thirty years ago — I guess they still do) with various technical skills.  Other high schools around the nation do this.  I don’t think these approaches to education are as prevalent as they once were.

Yes, we have a new reality, but it doesn’t have to be gloom and doom if we take a serious look at reality and embrace it for the challenge it is.