Spirit Lake Consulting Forum

As a young adult myself, I know how hard it is to get into the groove of transitioning to adulthood and having to start working.  It is especially hard when when you have friends are not working either, you just want to hang out with them and try to stay forever young.  I definitely know about this too.  But I think that what helps is to find a job that suits you.  Some people are not the "corporate" type, some have specific strengths and abilities that will flourish in one job and not another.  If you can find a job that you are actually semi-excited about when you wake up in the morning, that will help the motivation process.  It may seem like an obvious suggestion, but I have found that being happy in a job and finding the right one definitely helps me out.  And for my friends with no jobs?  Well I am making money to help myself out and they are not, so score one for me.

I was just working on our latest workshop website on vocational rehabilitation and Erich and I were talking about people who get into a 'non-working lifestyle'. They get up, watch TV, check the mail, visit with friends and none of it is scheduled, there isn't a time to be there, and only so much time for lunch and you need to get this test written or that website finished. To move out of that lifestyle requires change and any kind of change in habits is difficult. Changing a LOT of habits, like when you get up, how late you stay out at night, making sure you have gas in your car to get to work and enough money to pay for gas and everything else - that is changing your whole life. And it isn't easy.

As some other people have suggested - how easy are you making it for your child not to work? I have friends who have supported  their children past age thirty and many more have kids in their mid- to late-twenties who are still living off the Western Bank of Mom & Dad.

I understand that generosity is a strong Native American value, at least in the Great Plains. However, there is a big gap between letting your child starve and buying her a car, giving her gas money, money for the movies, buying her new clothes, giving her money to go out to eat. I know no one wants to be thought of as stingy, but you have to wonder if your child is just using you. It doesn't sound as if there is any reason why she CAN'T work.

Plenty of people with disabilities have jobs.