What are the expectations of youth?

Overheard on the TV news this morning there was coverage about a firm of bakers who are simply unable to get young people to learn the trade by working for them for one year, so they hire people from overseas. There is, according to them, a skills shortage

I understand it normally takes a four year apprenticeship at present to become a qualified baker.

So I can also understand when young person on the dole simply does not want to spend a year (or four years) learning a trade in which they will have to have long and unfavourable hours of work. It's true, bakers do have to get up very early to ensure that your "daily bread" is actually available on the supermarket shelves in the morning when the stores open and you want your fresh bread.

So let's assume for a moment that they do not want to become bakers. What do they want?

Some comments overheard on the program went like this:

When our parents came to Australia they had little education and they knew that they would have to work hard to survive. So they worked hard, they took on the dirty smelly jobs if needed and survived. Then they worked even harder to do better than just survive. They made a home for themselves, for their families and their children. We, the children of those parents appreciated their hard work and learned from them. We also worked hard and when we had the opportunities to get an education we took it and worked hard there too. We started off being the coffee boys and worked our way up. The children today? They have all the money they need, they get support from the government, they don't see the need to work hard, they expect to become the managing director of the company upon graduation. They have lost the plot and no longer want to work at the tough jobs. they expect life to be handed to them on a platter.

Well, my question is, if this really is the case then who is to blame? Is it the children, is it society, is it the media, is it the companies who sell leisure as a way of life, is it the parents?

I am of the view that everyone should take a part of the blame, especially parents.

When your young child gave whined about what a tight fisted parent you were and why OTHER children had more pocket money or were able to buy the latest clothing, footwear, iPod, game etc or were able to do X Y and Z what did YOU do as a parent?

Did you tell them "Too bad, so sad get a life and work for what you want!" or did you just reach into your pocket and give them money to buy what they said they wanted? Are the media at fault for making claims that a person simply cannot exist without a Game Boy or a particular brand of sneakers or a fashion accessory or some toy or other in their lives? Is it the advertising companies that are to blame? Is it the manufacturers who are to blame? Is it our politicians who are to blame? Is it the do gooders in society who have pressured governments to make laws that protect children and provide them with income support to get out of abusive relationships who are to blame.

At the end of the day I think it does not matter. What does matter is that we have children who are bored witless because they have never learnt to fend for themselves, who drink too much, smoke too much, take drugs too often, who have learnt to stay up all night and 'hang out' who are normless and in a state of anomie.

Let's banish the do gooders into some asylum of their own for a while and let's teach children some discipline and some responsibility for themselves. Let's try and undo the culture of supporting them to the stage where they can believe that the world owes them a living and maybe we will start to rectify the problems that have been created by overindulgence and an earnest desire to 'help' people when the biggest lesson in life has to be to learn to help yourself WITHIN the rules of the society you are choosing to live in.