Children Who Refuse To Grow Up
The Boomerang Generation: Selfish Entitlement Issues
There's an ever-increasing number of children growing up with a selfish sense of Entitlement, children refusing to grow up, thinking the world owes them what they desire.
Young children throw temper tantrums in grocery or department stores in a far-too-often (and successful) attempt to get what they want. Teenagers pressure their parents to keep them dressed in the latest name-brand fashion fads, having no thought or care as to the true need or affordability of these items.
Adult adolescents, children who have passed the age of eighteen, often expect their parents to continue with financial assistance despite their having jobs of their own, preferring to spend their money frivolously. Even married adult children, perhaps with children of their own, expect their parents to “chip in” on a recurring basis due to making poor money-management choices.
The Boomerang Generation
Extended dependency on parental assistance well past the legal age of consent manifests itself in what has become commonly known as the “Boomerang Generation”. The Boomerang Generation refers to young adults who choose to move back in with their parents or grandparents after college, or those who have never moved out in the first place, often for the selfish benefit of not having to be responsibly independent. Debate continues as to whether adult children should be allowed to live with their parents for an extended period of time, intensified by common Asian and Hispanic cultural beliefs where many adult children live with their parents throughout their lifetime.
Manifestations in Children
Several manifestations of adult children refusing to grow up can be found in chronic job-hopping or lengthy unemployment, developing a lot of debt, poor motivation to even begin looking for a job, lack of respect for any form of authority (including parents), low self-esteem, difficulty in establishing or maintaining relationships, rude and ungrateful behavior, verbal and physical abuse of parents, perhaps even going so far as to create one crisis after another in order to avoid real-life consequences of decisions made.
Selfishness at the Core
Adult children who refuse to grow up and are possibly raising children of their own are, by example, teaching their own children how to use, abuse and manipulate others for their own selfish desires. Adult children who have moved back in with their parents no longer have to worry about how the rent or mortgage will get paid, whether there will be working utilities, where their next meal will come from, when or how the home or laundry will be cleaned. The adult responsibilities are taken care of by the parents, thus allowing adult children to continue as perpetual minors, with the freedom to come and go as they please, living their lives as if it were a life-long party.
The selfish attitude of children who refuse to grow up, having the “you owe me” attitude, often becomes even more clear at Birthdays and Christmas when some adult children believe it is their right to receive numerous, even expensive, gifts for themselves, spouse and/or children. Oftentimes, these adult children make no effort to stay in close contact throughout the rest of the year, but routinely make an appearance to their parents' home when expecting their “obligation gifts”.
Some parents and grandparents have found themselves in the unfortunate position of rarely seeing or hearing from their children or grandchildren until times of the year where gifts are routinely exchanged. Even then, it’s rarely an “exchange” of heartfelt gift-giving, but adult children and grandchildren arriving for a brief stay to pick up gifts purchased for them, to then leave and not be seen or heard from again until the next required date of gift-receiving.
Tough Love Required by Parents
Parenting has never been an easy job, but it is a responsibility parents must always take seriously, setting clearly-defined boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors, whether for young children or those past the age of eighteen. Children who refuse to grow up, whether by choice or years of lax parenting, must learn to become independent, responsible adults and no longer be allowed to take advantage of parents. Parents who are tough, remaining firmly resolved in their children standing on their own financially independent feet, will reap the benefits of a legacy of respectful, grateful, highly-regarded, successful children and grandchildren.
