<p>Very interesting thread. D1 is in her Freshman year in Engineering school. She studied a good 7 hours a day this past semester, including for her writing class. After taking her 2 AP English classes in HS and scoring 5s on each, she declared that college writing is very much a different animal than HS writing. She’s taking 18 credits per semester since she has been notified that college is costing a lot of money and we can’t afford for her to dink around. She’s contributing financially towards her living expenses and knows she will need to pitch in more so is looking hard for an internship next summer.</p>
<p>We made her pay a part of the 11 year old car we bought when she got her license and when she moves off campus next year, she will finally understand why we’re always telling the kids to turn off the lights!</p>
<p>By comparison, we have a family friend whose D1 is in her second year in college. She has held one job, back in her Senior HS year that her mom got for her. Her dad has always taken the car out and filled up the gas tank for her. The parents are amazed how little this young woman knows about finances (she told my D that her car, an SUV, gets 60 mpg. Truth is more like 18). When they lament that their D can’t hold on to money, the mom’s finishing line is “she’d better marry someone rich!”. And this girl has heard the story enough times that she told my H that she expects to marry someone rich because she will not mow the lawn when she “grows up”.
So if this young woman responded to the survey, then yes, this generation is much more “special”. But then I firmly hope that my Ds will expect that they need to work hard. Because to tell them otherwise would be us failing to do our jobs as parents.</p>