<p>To the OP, maybe she should’ve looked at AmeriCorps or Peace Corps. While she’s job hunting she should volunteer somewhere, just so she’ll be somewhat busy.</p>
<p>
Wow, I wish I could have chosen to grow up with your parents or ones like them. I bought my own car and paid for my own vacations (not seeing Europe for decades after college). Graduating from a strong State school, nobody I knew got anything like a car or a trip.</p>
<p>I graduated from an Ivy and none of my friends got cars or trips after graduating from college. This includes friends whose fathers were doctors.</p>
<p>I do have middle aged friends who talk about traveling after college, but all had worked for a few months – typically at a job like waitressing – to fund the trip.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who got a car for a college graduation present. The few kids I knew who were from well-to-do families were given cars while in high school. </p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who ever got a trip for a present either. My H worked for the Peace Corps for 2 years after graduating college, and then took 6 months to get home, traveling in Europe and Africa on the cheap. He has never been overseas again in the past 35 years; we still have a S in college, and, if we have any extra money after retirement (ha-ha), and if we are physically strong enough, maybe we’ll get to travel abroad then. Unfortunately, we just don’t have any extra piles of cash sitting around to finance cars or trips for our kids.</p>
<p>Hey, Merecole. You and I are running similar numbers on our threads: mine (“Has she got a job yet?”) expired after 3,500 hits and 79 responses. Yours seems still alive but frankly it’s running out of gas. I bring this up because both threads hit a common nerve, and have similar viewer/responder patterns. My sense is that a lot of parents out there have returned from commencement and are or will be dealing with this same issue. Most are just watching to see if anybody has something on target to say. Unfortunately, most of the “advisers” are the usual ones (no college age kids but lots of submissions on various threads - these folks just need to get a life) ready to tell stories about how it was back in the day when they really laid down the law, or watched their kids blossom, or etc etc. Their day could have been as recently as even a few years ago, before the bottom fell out of everything. Our '09 grads don’t know what to do anymore than do a lot of grownups who lost jobs and now hang around the house. At least the grads are still young and haven’t defined themselves, but the options may never be the same as before. I still say that the traditional LAC degree is a thing of the past - the least a college should do is include an intern program as a requisite to getting a BA degree, regardless of major.</p>
<p>NorthstarMom: You wrote that you took a month off between grad school and a job, and that you visited with relatives for 2 weeks. That is all I was talking about. </p>
<p>My son has worked tirelessly for 4 years. As I said, if he had a week off at home, he worked at a local computer company every day, full-time, and he held three jobs at college, which he paid for 80% himself, including food and books. He had paid internship every summer, which have led to employment for mid-August.</p>
<p>He is now taking June off, helping his sister get to a program 3,000 miles away in July and looking for a house there, visiting a friend for 2 weeks, then reporting for a permanent job.</p>
<p>That doesn’t sound much different from what you did, at the same age.</p>
<p>So I don’t understand the animosity in your post.</p>
<p>I was writing about honoring what he has accomplished, almost completely on his own, by allowing him the luxury, one last time, of living here without paying rent, and sleeping until noon if he likes. He still does his own laundry and cooking.</p>
<p>Ironically, since I wrote that other post, my husband has had a stroke, so my intention of honoring my son is being interrupted a bit. The day after graduation, his father was in the hospital, and my son is temporarily the man around the house. So much for rest. Today, he went to the dump twice, put up all the screens, and carried laundry for me (I have a bad back). So much for a vacation.</p>
<p>It sounds like your month off ended up a lot more restful than his will be. I wish he could do absolutely nothing for a month- he deserves it.</p>
<p>"That doesn’t sound much different from what you did, at the same age.</p>
<p>So I don’t understand the animosity in your post."</p>
<p>I don’t feel animosity. My point continues to be that while making the transition from college to the work world is stressful – as are all transitions in life – I don’t that means that parents owe kids paid vacations to help ease that transition. If parents want to give kids those things, fine, but I don’t think parents owe their offspring such things nor do I think that the offspring need such gifts in order to adjust to life after college.</p>
<p>Between grad school and starting a job, I took my own money and visited my grandparents. While I was visiting them,I also did some temporary office work. Before I started my permanent job, I used my earnings and savings (from the office work and a job I’d worked in grad school), and I went the Bahamas with a friend.</p>
<p>All of this was a nice way to transition into a permanent job. I didn’t feel that my parents should fund my travels. And in all honestly, if anyone really deserved a vacation, it was my mother, whose hard work had helped fund my undergrad education. Once I had permanent employment and had been working for a while, I did offer to help her go to Europe, something that had been a lifelong dream of hers. I was basically offering to pay for her plane ticket, but she said she was no longer interested in that kind of travel.</p>
<p>I felt very grateful for the financial and emotional support that my mom and grandparents gave me in regard to my higher education. I did not feel that they owed me cars or trips because I had successfully handled college and grad school. Once I had permanent employment, I took a lot of pleasure in giving back to my mom and grandparents.</p>
<p>I liked to go shopping with Mom and then treat her to things that I saw that she liked. I loved to pull out my credit card before she could pull out hers to buy things</p>
<p>I never understood some of my peers who as adults working permanent jobs would brag about all of the things their parents bought them and their kids. My generation had it so much easier than most of our parents had it when they were young. </p>
<p>When H’s parents used to send boxes of new clothes and toys for our kids, H and I would have preferred that his parents had spent the money on themselves. They had had kids young, and had been very poor. H and I wanted them to in their old age enjoy some of the luxuries that they hadn’t been able to have while raising their kids.</p>
<p>Easy solution NSM – if you don’t feel that your kids deserve a vacation or a car for graduating college or to ease that transition, then don’t get them one! Why not just acknowledge that different things work for different families? Some have the mindset that when you’re out of college, you’re on your own financially, even if that means working multiple minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. Others provide cars, vacations, and only want their kids to take professional jobs that align with their career goals, even if that means hanging out for months. It seems that most here are at the middle ground – let the student come back home before they launch for good. For those who have jobs or grad school lined up starting in Aug/Sept., I don’t see why it’s a big deal to let the student be on a “semi-vacation” in the parents’ home for a finite amount of time – they can have some combo of sleeping until noon, home cooking but doing some chores, and using the home as a “base” as they go off on mini-vacations to visit friends, help siblings move into dorms etc. If you don’t think that’s an “adult” thing to do then, fine – don’t do it. Believe it or not, there are others who enjoy having that last month or 2 of downtime with their kids and are willing to finance it because for the kids entering the work force, it’s probably one of the last times they’ll be in the parents’ house for an extended amount of time w/o constantly worrying about how many vacation days they’re using up or about what project awaits them at work the moment they return.</p>
<p>In that situation (graduate is living at home and doesn’t have a job yet) I would check with the kid and see if they are looking at jobs beyond what they majored in. If the kid wants to be a massage therapist or entomologist or what have you, are they also applying for things like data entry temp which, while not their desired career, could keep them occupied and earn them money until they find a more permanent job in their field? And might even earn them enough to move out?</p>
<p>Two things here stand out in compmom’s scenario:<br>
- her S paid 70% of his college expenses – no free ride on his part for the past four years. He knows what needs to be done and he accomplished it quite successfully and already has a job in place starting in a month.
- the gift of letting him have some time to chill out turns out to be a blessing in disguise – since compmom’s H just had a stroke (which recent posters seem to have ignored while still continuing to argue). S is home and is offering assistance and emotional support.</p>
<p>Compmom, hope your H is improving and that he is home and healthy soon.</p>
<p>Get well soon, compdad! Compmom, you sound like you’re holding up pretty well with the help and support of compson. I’ll bet that even though you and your son had different plans for this time, you raised your kid right and he’s doing the responsible things and not whining. I hope your situation eases so you can all relax and regroup before compson starts his job.</p>
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</p>
<p>Congratulations on having raised a wise young adult. </p>
<p>Thank you to NSM and the other adults in this thread who have been providing the voice of reason. </p>
<p>compmom, I hope your H is on the mend very soon. You son sounds like a fine young man.</p>
<p>“Why not just acknowledge that different things work for different families?”</p>
<p>That’s what I’ve said – repeatedly. I’ve said that I don’t think that kids need parents to pay for them to have a vacation after graduating from college, but if the parents want to provide such a vacation, that’s the parents’ choice, and that’s fine with me.</p>
<p>To quote directly from my post # 67:</p>
<p>“My point continues to be that while making the transition from college to the work world is stressful – as are all transitions in life – I don’t that means that parents owe kids paid vacations to help ease that transition. If parents want to give kids those things, fine, but I don’t think parents owe their offspring such things nor do I think that the offspring need such gifts in order to adjust to life after college.”</p>
<p>I think it’s wrong when people act like new graduates are entitled to such a gift from their parents. I also think it’s wrong when people suggest that it’s parents’ job to send their offspring to college. I think it’s wonderful when parents do this, but I don’t think that parents are obligated to do this.</p>
<p>You live in a society where a person is not really an adult at age 18. For example, the financial aid available to attend college is highly dependent on parental wealth, even if the parents refuse to help financially in any way.</p>
<p>Of course, there is no legal obligation for parents to contribute towards college cost. You can kick your kids out when they are 18 if you want, you won’t go to jail for it.</p>
<p>But for a well off parent to refuse financial help for college is despicable. All this talk that its just a gift freely decided by the parent is hogwash.</p>
<p>It’s not often that I agree with Barrons, but this is one of the rare occasions!</p>
<p>The OP posted on May 27 that her D was whining about not having a job. She also mentioned that the D had looked at many sites already suggested. In other words, the D did not sit on her duff and moan and groan all day long. Today is only a week or so later.
I agree with Barrons that when things don’t pan out, people ought to be able to vent–and usually, the recipients of venting are their nearest and dearest. It does not mean that they are ungrateful or immature. It actually means they feel safe doing so, rather than to complete strangers. It would be a very sad day if cyberstrangers became the recipients of our innermost hopes, dreams, fears, feelings, rather than members of our own family just because we are afraid of getting on their nerves.
Now, if the D continues to whine in July, that would be a different story, requiring a different approach.</p>
<p>I don’t often agree with Barrons but this is one of the rare occasions that I do.
When the OP posted, the D had been at home a week. She had been used to handling two jobs and doing well in her studies, graduating cum laude), had looked diligently for jobs, but was not successful. So she whines and it gets on her parents’ nerves. They also had enjoyed being empty nesters and find the return of the D to be inconvenient.
I realize it’s hard on the parents, but I also fully empathize with the D. It’s not just that the transition is hard; it’s the worry about the future, especially given the fact that the economy is bad and she has already tried unsuccessfully.
Maybe she should come to CC to vent instead of whining to her parents; but I think it will be a sad day if cyberstrangers rather than our nearest and dearest become the recipients of our deepest hopes and fears, our dreams and our disappointments.
As for enjoying being empty nesters, H and I at least are not looking forward to it. We are determined to enjoy the last months of S being at home. We will be by ourselves for many a years.</p>
<p>When D1 finished undergread she was in a similar situation. Things had not fallen neatly into place as hoped and she was a bit lost. I just reminded her that her education was not over just because she graduated. I encouraged her to follow up on some of her academic interests while trying to figure out the next steps. I suggested she work on some articles, contact some of her profesors for advice on how and where she might get a few things published. I encouraged her to set up some appointments to interview local professionals engaged in her area of interest, maybe do some volunteerib. I told her I’d work with her to put together a business plan/ proposal outline for starting a nonprofit - something she previously expressed an interest in doing. I also told her that if she preferred, we’d work on a business plan for her to create her own job. </p>
<p>Basically, I tried to point her towards projects and points of interest in which she could engage that would help her appreciate the time she had to focus on what SHE wanted to do. I kept reminding her that she was smart, independent, and didn’t need any employer to get her on her way – she’s her own executive over what she wants to accomplish. But you have to start somewhere, job or not. </p>
<p>She followed through and eventually decided she needed to do more research and spend more time on a couple of projects. One of her professors put her in contact with some others, and pretty soon she was just as busy as ever. She became very focused after awhile, and figured out that what she really needed was grad school. She’s never looked back since then </p>
<p>I’m not suggesting grad school. Just saying that in times like these it’s important we get our students to view opportunities a little differently. They have to learn how to do unstructured activities on their own that will help put them in the right places to get the work they want. Sitting at home just sending out resumes and waiting usually breeds frustration. You’ve got to convince her to be proactive and to make the most of this time.</p>
<p>Back in the 80’s my siblings and I become serial nanna nannys. My grandmother really needed someone to live with her, to keep her active, just keep an eye on things. As we graduated we each asked if she could do us a favor and let us live with her for a while. She was a gracious host, with her dignity intact. After we all did our stints, spaced over a couple of years, the teens in the family mysteriously were enrolled in a course or took a part-time job in her neighborhood - and she graciously offered to let the stay over a few days a week. All quite gracious.</p>
<p>toadstool-
Serial nanna nannys! Thanks for sharing your family’s story. What a beautiful way to solve a situation with dignity and love.</p>
<p>Ok, some suggestions for op’s D -some summer camps and other programs may still have openings which include room and board away somewhere else; She can call local camps and school programs as well - this will allow for something to do while she still looks for “permanent” position after the summer; register with temp agency for office work - I did this for a few weeks after I graduated undergrad - low pay but at least it is payment; live in or out nanny for small children - check craig’s list, local papers etc or put an ad in the local paper advertising such services - usually good pay as good child care workers are hard to come by. Ok, what if you don’t like kids, so camps, child care etc are out - advertise other services like dog walking, house sitting. Broaden the search to include jobs like receptionist. I have hired recent grads for the doctor’s office that I work in and they have been good workers. I realize that they will move on, but a good worker for a year is better than many of the other candidates that I may have seen. Volunteering is also good for filling time and gaining skills and meeting people as others have said.</p>