30 Years Ago This Week…

As my son, Pete, approaches his 30th birthday, I can’t help but wonder, “What have we wrought upon our progeny?”

As my son, Pete, approaches his 30th birthday, I can’t help but wonder, “What have we wrought upon our progeny?”

Pete’s an intelligent young man, able to comprehend more than he might think he can.

I’m ashamed to admit this, but oftentimes he is far more astute than I give him credit for.

Not one to march to the beat of the drummer of conventional thought, it took the lad several years longer than most to earn a Bachelor Degree.  (Okay, it took him 10…)

Not that he would have been any further ahead by flying through university in the usual four or five years.

I saw the young college graduates who were several years older than Pete (GenXers, if you prefer) get hired for jobs at ridiculous incomes of $35K, $45K, and more, even though they had absolutely zero experience.

Then, too, the GenXers would scoff at any job that didn’t offer full benefits and perks – gimmes to which their predecessors who had worked slavishly for decades were still not “entitled”.

More often than not, young women were given first consideration.

Across the board, whether male or female, those who were more pleasant to behold were automatically moved to the short list – abilities, personalities, and smarts be damned.

Pete’s a pretty solid worker, when the job isn’t so mundane as to be rote.

He can think on his feet, usually.

When turned loose on clientele, Pete can commiserate knowledgeably and pleasantly.

So, why can’t he find a reasonably fulfilling, somewhat-lucrative full-time position?

Simple.  Such jobs no longer exist.

For the past five years, he’s been putting up with surly customers and even surlier managers at the local outlet of a well-known department store chain.  Take the Christmas season out of the equation, and he averages 10-12 hours per week.

On a good week, if he’s lucky the store will schedule him for 20-25 hours; most weeks they throw him a bone of four or five hours.

A self-taught guitarist, unabashed at getting up – alone – in front of an audience to play and sing, (something I could never imagine myself doing), he tends to ignore those particular talents because there’s no money in it.

(Truthfully, most venues allow only for payment of drinks and tips, and the good folks around here are unsophisticated in the nth degree regarding tipping practices.)

He can’t make more money as a performer because he’s not in the musicians’ union.  He can’t get into the musicians’ union because he doesn’t have enough of the proper experience.  He doesn’t have enough of the proper experience because he can’t get good gigs because he’s not in the musicians’ union.

‘Round and ‘round goes the carousel.  Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Pete’s also a good actor, and, when working with a knowledgeable director, has proven himself an excellent actor.

But, as with music, the merry-go-round is essentially the same.

When he does inquire about jobs, the firms don’t even bother to respond.  He gets more calls and mail from the organizations that want their student loan money back.

It’s kind of difficult to repay those loans when one’s income is far below the poverty line, yet these ersatz “banks” keep up the pressure as though the economy has not seen any sort of downswing.  (Thankfully, President Obama has recently changed the repayment rules to favor the student loan recipient, not the provider.)

Oh, I know what you’re thinking:  “Why doesn’t your son enlist?”  “There are plenty of new construction jobs he could look into.”

I spent seven years in the Army, and can safely say that Pete’s not the soldierly type.

As for construction, Pete tried that for a short time, and it’s something he’s just not cut out to do.  Besides, one doesn’t get a good construction job without being recommended to the union by someone, and it takes experience to get a recommendation… once again, the merry-go-round.

He even applied to the local school as a substitute teacher – paid the State of Illinois $50 for a license to teach – but the district, for the first time in its history, was not taking new applicants.

So, not being able to meld his talents into viable, productive avenues of endeavor, Pete goes through periods where he shuns those things that he’s good at, and loves doing.

By now you’re probably thinking that I’m making excuses for the lad because he’s my son.  That is hardly the case.

I wish that he had had some of the opportunities that I was able to experience before turning 30, but most of those roads have been blocked off in a world that has become ever more angry, mean, and dangerous.

I relate Pete’s tale (abridged, to be sure) because he’s not alone in the boat.  In today’s economy, millions of young men and women, many of whom are well-educated, cannot get a solid foothold on life.

To anyone who would blame Barack Obama for the current situation, remember that he came along years after we were deeply entrenched in this disastrous mess.

Pete is capable of doing far more than act or sing, but the opportunities are just not there, and the concept of “it’s not what you know but who you know” is currently in overdrive.

The market may open up in another five or 10 years, but what do our floundering progeny do while their talents lie wasted in dormancy in the meantime?

Oh, well… Happy Birthday, my Son.  We’ll muddle through somehow, together.

Shalom.

(Jerry Tenuto is an erstwhile Philosopher and sometime Educator.  A veteran with seven years of service in the U.S. Army, he holds a BS and MA in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.  Depending upon your taste in political stew, you can either blame or thank Jerry for his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast.  Visit his blog Blue State View at illinoiscentral.blogspot.com)