Saturday, July 9, 2011

Birthday card share

Missy's birthday card made from scrap scraps scraps...
With our daughter Missy turning 23 this week, the Hubster and I have really felt our ages a bit. I don't exactly know what we were thinking before, but we apparently had been delaying the fact in our minds that Miss was indeed an adult. Tis one thing to say it, and another to feel it.
Inside sentiment - written by moi. :-)
She has a very demanding job that doesn't pay that great, and after a year of singing that song, it has contributed to some disillusionment and reassessing on her part.
Against the backdrop of the worst recession in my lifetime, she has had some tough soul-searching about her choice of profession and her future in it.
Of course, I'm now a bit terrified for her. Is she making the right decision?
And I am feeling pretty helpless, for she is the only one who can know the answers. After all, it is her life.
What she is going through isn't new or novel. Most young adults, after being thrust, with college degree in hand, into the real world, encounter that big let-down, when what they've imagined their work to be is indeed something entirely different. In Missy's case, she has weathered discovering how mundane and boring part so fit are, and if they paid her decently, she's be pretty satsfied where she is, where they love her work and trust her with responsibility and relative security.

On one hand, she is lucky. On the other hand, it makes it worse because the one thing they cannot, do not reward her with may well be the one thing she discovers is her prime motivator or necessary requirement. Hubs and I have been concerned the last few months because she has not been herself. It's as if all the enjoyment of life in her was being sucked out. I pray daily that she can figure out what really will make her happy and that she won't regret whatever she decides. But I also know she cannot go on the way she's been. Something has to give.

There was a recent study I read about that looked at young professionals her age (24 and younger), and it said that in the last year 44% of them have quit their jobs. Now, most would assume that means that "kids" that age are just lazy or immature and if things don't go 100% their way, they are outta there. But, in fact, the study reveals that the reason is because these "kids" are being worked to death for low pay by their companies who see this as an okay way to weather the recession (whether the companies are being adversely affected or not).

In other words, the times allow companies to get away with treating the youngest in the work force that way.

Most of my daughter's friends that I know are worth thinking much better of, and are worth treating better. I just hope and pray that things improve before any real psychological damage is done to their generation. I think they are all pretty much great kids and deserve better. And we need them to help us fix what is wrong with this country. And we need them to want to.