my grandson is aroun 38 these days, married, two kids. He grew up in his early years dirt poor, moving around the country, multiple stepfathers, an absolutely horrible childhood. Except for the summers he spent with us. He graduated summa cum laude from an engineering school, paid for by himself, although we provided food and shelter. next day he pinned on the bars as a secont lt. in the airforce, i now have those bars hanging on the wall in my living room. He later went on to get two advanced engineering degrees, is a major in the air force, and doing stuff i don't want to talk about on here. Has no debt other than his house morgage, puts aside about 20% of his gross income, and doesn't ever want to be poor again. some of his brothers raised in the same condition live paycheck to pay check, or have absolutely no life goals. he structures his life so he can tell you where he wants to be five years, ten years, fifteen years from now. I went through college in the 60's and 70's no real help from anyone. My mother sent me 25bucks a month and thought she put me through college. In a way she did, when she was sending me that money making .75/hour waiting tables. My wife kids i was trying to figure out how to retire before i left school. LBJ was a disaster, i lived through the vietnam period, i remember the drills of hiding under your desk when the bomb dropped. But life was as you made it. Some young people are still that way, others are not, similar to my generation. It's just some have brains and personal drive, others do not.
one thing i do know is that i come from really poor people. Each generation tried to do better than the last. I now have a "few" assets and sometimes get questioned about whats going to happen to them. For sure they are not going to those that played the blame game to make up for poor personal decisions. I still want after i am gone that one of the future ones will make it into the really wealthy class. that in a nutshell is what America is about. Having the ability to dream, to work for your own future, and to make life easier than the last generation had it.
You have done well with your Grandson, that little lift is all it takes.
That said, it is our job to provide that lift as we are here to do what we can to make the next lot better than we are...it is not our job to baby them and coddle them in cotton wool and rose petals, that would be a disservice to both them and ourselves.
