How do so many nice couples end up with dud adult children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's harder now than it used to be for folks with limited motivation, skills, and stamina. When it was easier to have a middle class lifestyle on a single salary, women who didn't want to work could get married and keep house (maybe not very well). Men could work in a factory or something else very structured and unchanging, with a simpler application process and less education needed. And they didn't have to do much around the house because their wife did it...and they didn't have to struggle to find a wife because women had fewer options (it was harder to be single or lesbian) and lower expectations for how men would act.

So the folks who look like duds today still existed back then, but it was easier for them to appear functional.

This. If you are a male dud, your uncle or your father would get you a job at the factory, and you'll be going there every day for the next 40 years, doing more or less the same thing. If something changes, you'll get ample notice and training. You'll be responsible for a handful of bills and wouldn't need much of executive functioning otherwise. If you are a female dud, your family will make you pretty and marry off.

[Anonymous]

This is kind of a harsh post. I really don't like using the term "dud" to describe human beings. What's the definition of a "dud?" Someone who is basically a decent human being but doesn't meet the definition of DCUM successful?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's harder now than it used to be for folks with limited motivation, skills, and stamina. When it was easier to have a middle class lifestyle on a single salary, women who didn't want to work could get married and keep house (maybe not very well). Men could work in a factory or something else very structured and unchanging, with a simpler application process and less education needed. And they didn't have to do much around the house because their wife did it...and they didn't have to struggle to find a wife because women had fewer options (it was harder to be single or lesbian) and lower expectations for how men would act.

So the folks who look like duds today still existed back then, but it was easier for them to appear functional.

This. If you are a male dud, your uncle or your father would get you a job at the factory, and you'll be going there every day for the next 40 years, doing more or less the same thing. If something changes, you'll get ample notice and training. You'll be responsible for a handful of bills and wouldn't need much of executive functioning otherwise. If you are a female dud, your family will make you pretty and marry off.

Darwin took over before computer everything. The dud would do someone dumb like forget to plant the crops and starve, or get stuck in the train tracks, or lose a limb in the machinery, or wanted into the bear cave because Why not?, or fall off the cliff.

Now they live in their parents basement, order door dash, sleep in to noon, and doodle on the computer from 2pm until 2am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is kind of a harsh post. I really don't like using the term "dud" to describe human beings. What's the definition of a "dud?" Someone who is basically a decent human being but doesn't meet the definition of DCUM successful?

Same as a firework. Doesn’t launch. It’s a dud.

[Anonymous]

Unproductive member of society.

Big gap between one’s talents (edu, intelligence) and one’s performance (being productive friend or worker)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's harder now than it used to be for folks with limited motivation, skills, and stamina. When it was easier to have a middle class lifestyle on a single salary, women who didn't want to work could get married and keep house (maybe not very well). Men could work in a factory or something else very structured and unchanging, with a simpler application process and less education needed. And they didn't have to do much around the house because their wife did it...and they didn't have to struggle to find a wife because women had fewer options (it was harder to be single or lesbian) and lower expectations for how men would act.

So the folks who look like duds today still existed back then, but it was easier for them to appear functional.

This. If you are a male dud, your uncle or your father would get you a job at the factory, and you'll be going there every day for the next 40 years, doing more or less the same thing. If something changes, you'll get ample notice and training. You'll be responsible for a handful of bills and wouldn't need much of executive functioning otherwise. If you are a female dud, your family will make you pretty and marry off.

Yep. Or you got with another dud and made it work.

I grew up in a LCOL, large Midwestern city. I knew several couples growing up who had two minimum wage jobs, and they owned homes. They weren’t the biggest or the most luxurious, but it was THEIR home. You can’t do that now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The 1 case I've known up close where this has happened was mental health issues that were not properly addressed as a teen.

Not properly addressed? WTH does that mean. You think that mental health issues are easily fixed? You are clueless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's harder now than it used to be for folks with limited motivation, skills, and stamina. When it was easier to have a middle class lifestyle on a single salary, women who didn't want to work could get married and keep house (maybe not very well). Men could work in a factory or something else very structured and unchanging, with a simpler application process and less education needed. And they didn't have to do much around the house because their wife did it...and they didn't have to struggle to find a wife because women had fewer options (it was harder to be single or lesbian) and lower expectations for how men would act.

So the folks who look like duds today still existed back then, but it was easier for them to appear functional.

These people you deride so easily ARE functional. What an entirely hateful, elitist topic. You people are vile.

[Anonymous]

I went to a 25 yr high school reunion.
Sadly a group of special Ed grads were talking about all the funerals they had been to from their drug or unmanaged mental disorder friends from high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's harder now than it used to be for folks with limited motivation, skills, and stamina. When it was easier to have a middle class lifestyle on a single salary, women who didn't want to work could get married and keep house (maybe not very well). Men could work in a factory or something else very structured and unchanging, with a simpler application process and less education needed. And they didn't have to do much around the house because their wife did it...and they didn't have to struggle to find a wife because women had fewer options (it was harder to be single or lesbian) and lower expectations for how men would act.

So the folks who look like duds today still existed back then, but it was easier for them to appear functional.

These people you deride so easily ARE functional. What an entirely hateful, elitist topic. You people are vile.

They WERE functional because it was much easier to be functional then, that's the whole point. Lots of people who "could" function then can't function now. I know, my father was one of those people.

[Anonymous]

Dysfunctional were always and today, propped up by their mothers or wives or adult daughters. They are very dependent on functional adults. Hopefully they are kind about it too.

[Anonymous]

In my family, it's almost always due to untreated ADHD or ASD.

[Anonymous]

[quote]We have one in our neighborhood. The son has serious mental health issues. When they developed, I don't know. But it took a happy empty nester couple and has wrecked havoc on their lives. [/quote]

[quote]There's more than one. Parents often don't talk about their struggling children. My friend has an adult son who quietly transferred from a 4 year to community college. He was a commuter student before so still living at home. Looks completely normal but suffering from social anxiety and won't participate in most family outings. Developed this in late teens/early 20s. [/quote]

Yes, there's a lot of us out here. My son is taking, what we hope to be only a semester off from college so he can get his mental health stable. Still I fear this is a life long road for him and us. I just can't see him growing or medicating out of it. His mental health seems to have stalled his development to young adult (some of his comments and thoughts are closer to a middle schooler). Arrested development in real life. It's not fun for any of us, so please be kind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my family, it's almost always due to untreated ADHD or ASD.

+1

Some personality disorders prove out too

[Anonymous]

We have neighbors who are both double MIT grads, wealthy and very successful. Their two children are also Ivy grads who lived at home until 32 and 34 and continue to be in entry level jobs.

It's a combination of a few things from what i can tell. First, the kids were catered to and infantilized their whole life. All the planning, organization, tutoring done by a tiger mom. Secondly, by the time they finished college they were burned out by the parental pressure. The youngest has developed severe anxiety. Thirdly, they grew up in a wealthy neighborhood and expect multi million dollar inheritances.

They are not duds, just wholly underachieving adults.