19yr old daughter doesnt want to get a job

The wife and i have been putting more and more pressure on our 19yr old daughter to get a summer job between school years,now at 19 and an upcoming n4 years in university its time to cut the bull and go get a summer job,problem is she absolutely refuses to go and look for a job and when we really push she just breaks down in tears and cries for a few hours.
I dont know what the problem is or how to deal with it as in all other respects she is good looking, a joy to be around,smart, and has no bad habits.
I'd push her more but i cant stand the grief it brings her and in the back of my mind i wonder if i'm not pushing her in a direction that she may do something really stupid to avoid getting a job once and for all..

 

Maybe - Find a job for her?
Knowing what interests her :-
i.e.
((Animals: Farm, Vets
Children: Sports coaching, Teaching Assistant
Music: Stores, Studios))
Though at 19 one would think she should have a mind of/for herself - Sometimes it is the presentation of such which can be the spur - This is what you like, and here is an interest of yours that can be profitable (???)
- Maybe?

 

Stop giving her money. Tell her if she wants money, she'll get a part time job, that way she can have her own money to buy things she needs.

 

she cries?? boo fucking hoo.. time to cut the cord. tell her to go out and apply for a job at 10 places every single day until she gets a job.

 

Stop giving her money. Or just don't pay for her phone bill. Things that cost, she cares for, but she doesn't know that somebody else pays for them. When you get a job, and have to pay for these things, it hits you the most. Nothing is free.
(but love of course )

 

I have a completely different opinion of the matter. I don't think you should pressure her. Instead, ask her what her plans are for the upcoming summer, but DO NOT do so condescendingly. She's still young, and about to start four years of university in the coming fall, correct? I mean, positive encouragement to work is fine. But I personally don't see pressuring a child into something will solve anything. Instead, give her some freedom this summer. The more you pressure her, the more she will resent it. The more you assume she isn't willing to work, the worse her resentment will be. Allow her to figure out for herself what she wants to do work-wise.

Perhaps she could go travelling this summer and discover new things she can be passionate about. Some of those things just might become her future career choices. But if you keep pushing her into the directions she doesn't want to go, then I fear that she might never grow to be a happy adult and start a happy family of her own. Furthermore, she just might someday pressure her own kids just like you're doing to her now, and they might in turn become unhappy adults, too. Is this your idea of "life"? Surely it isn't. Your daughter will eventually figure something out, but she's still got plenty of time. She's 19, and she's going to be a full-time(right?) student. Sounds like she's got a lot of work ahead for the next four years anyway, if you ask me.

Just my opinion. I wish her all the best.

 

this has got to be the truest hippy response i've ever read on this website, or for that matter in real life.. This is what it means to be a hippy. kudos for you..


However I disagree completely..

let her do absolutely anything she wants
give her not a single penny
pay for her college or whatever, but not a penny more,
she'll figure it out..
progress is born out of necessity

as far as the crying goes, that's grounds for a backhand in my opinion

 

At this point she's lost her computer privileges, she lost her cell phone some months ago and we arent replacing it we dont give her any money and her house hold chores have increased dramatically still she refuses to go out and work menial minimum wage jobs like burger flipping or gas station attendant.
She's not generally a lazy type and i'm wondering if she doesnt have some inner conflict with rejection or self esteem issues.The wife wants her to go see a psychiatrist or life coach to find out what the problem is..

 

I'm not a psychiatrist, but i think the way to get over her internal conflict is to just go out and do the damn thing, then there will be no more conflict as she will get settled into the new thing in her life which is a job.

 

lifecoach?

wtf



stop babying her and maybe youll get somewhere

 

Jesus man...sure we don't have the same daughters.

 

She might have some anxiety about getting a job but the only thing to do with anxiety is aversion therapy, meaning - get a job.

A therapist might help. Life coaches are bullshit.

 

Toss her ass on the street hard love man

 

My guess is that she is scared that life will get difficult. She's starting uni, I don't know what degree she's doing, but she may fear that she will have a lot more to learn. And then comes the real world. So maybe the reason she refuses is that she wants to enjoy this holiday before it all gets harder? I don't know, it's just a guess, but you could ask her. Did you actually ask her why she doesn't want to get a job??

 

LOL, you seriously think she has gone without a cell phone for months?

Your currents strategy isnt isnt going to work if someone else is paying for her phone and other things

But you probably dont want to know who that is

Amusing part is your wife may know, but will still drag her along and get you to pay for a therapist to cover it up.

But I'm sure I'm just being cynical. Just remember it is you that thinks either of them arent smart enough to be a few steps ahead of you

 

Haha. Yeah. When I read about the phone and the computer I chuckled.

 

This is pretty much exactly what I was about to post. Seeing a therapist might help if it is anxiety... but in the end, she is going to have to suck it up and do it.

 

Maybe she intuitively senses that most jobs out there that don't require special training or experience, will be total bullshit 'service' jobs? I didn't go straight to university after high school, but decided to work for a year: nothing but the most soul-crushing, depressing, boring, repetitive 'work' that was on offer in my quarters of the world. I ended up working for two or three months, then lying to my dad 'there just isn't anything out there' - because there really wasn't, except for flipping burgers, working tables or manning cash registers.

My point is that work - and in particular that of the low-skilled variety - is anything but fun. It sucks ass, in fact, and often not even because of the work itself, but because you tend to be surrounded by trolls and losers, some of whom might have worked their way into a managerial position, and therefore might think they wield some kind of power over you, but mostly because the silent despair of all these dull, despirited, depersonalized dregs around you, will tend to rub off on you in some way. I was so glad when my 'computer literacy' got me a job in data entry, sending in brochures on the basis of surveys, because at least I didn't have to deal face to face with anyone. From experience, I'd say a lot of work is on par with sniffing glue, as far as destroying mental faculties and turning spritely human beings into apathetic zombies.

That's not to say it's not a good thing to get acquainted with the reality of work at an early age, because even if you take a university degree and manage to get more specialized, higher paid and 'humane' work, odds are you'll still have to deal with sociopath managers and back-stabbing colleagues - for the rest of your working life. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised at some of the moralistic comments here ('Cut the allowance, MAKE her get a job!). I thought this was a forum for hippie-ish types who might be expected to be at least a bit skeptical about society's proprieties, but I guess this just shows how ideologically integrated everyone is in this day and age.

Probably not the answer you were looking for, but something I wish parents, people in general would be a little more alive to. Look at it this way: most parents would be a bit disheartened, to say the least, to learn their daughter was turning tricks or making pornos for cash. Why is that? Because these are not considered 'respectable' professions - even to call them 'professions' rings absurd; you couldn't even put these on a resume if, later on in life, you decided you wanted a proper white colar job.

Rather, it's the sexual component which is troublesome. Even your Left-liberal-progressive post-hippie parent will hate the idea of his/her daughter prostituting herself, because sex, in its commercialized, commodified form, is robbed of its joyous, liberating potential. It is considered unsanitary and unrespectable, because we all sense that a woman who prostitutes herself isn't just consigning herself to a rational economic transaction and renting her body for cash - she is, on a deep-psychological level, selling her soul.

Well, the exact same argument can be, and has been made against wage labor in general - and certainly under corporate capitalism - where the overwhelming majority of jobs are so routinized, mechanized and rationalized that they really don't require any special skill or creativity on the part of the worker. And without the freedom to put something of yourself into your work (not, although commonly, to be confused with your work putting something of itself into you - in the example of prostitution quite literally, ha), work is deprived of its potential to be meaningfully satisfying for the worker; mind you, this 'Marxian' argument holds for modern low-skilled (or is that de-skilled?) 'service' jobs all the same as the assembly line jobs we've outsourced to the Far East. You might not be renting your vagina for the highest bidder, but in the absence of any personal, creative input, work has this tendency to make you less human and more robo-zombie in the long run. Something to keep in mind, especially in this day and age, where a university degree really doesn't necessarily equal 'respectable' employment later on.

Anarcho-Socialism FTW!

 

Perhaps you should look at things from your daughter's perspective. She was successful in school, didn't cause any trouble, was accepted to uni, lived her life as usual. And out of nowhere came your demands that she has to change her lifestyle overnight or she looses phone, computer, money, itd.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I have a feeling that she never had to work before. Being good in school was her only job, so to speak. And during summer she could do whatever she wanted. This was the norm that you and your wife set.

Now that she is older she should have more responsibilities, naturally, but also more rights and freedom.
You want her to have a new responsibility - work. That's great. But will you treat her as an older, more mature being because of it as well?

From her point of view you are changing the norm and taking away her 'rights' (phone, compuer, etc.), which she has always had.

In your position I would try to talk to her about the good things that she would get if she took more responsibility for herself. For example she could stay out longer, go somewhere for a week before her school year started (she would obviously earn the money for the holiday herself).

Since she's never looked for a job before, she will probably need some help from you.

Do you need her to get a job for financial reasons? If it's not all that important to you that she brings home additional income, but rather that she gets some real life experience and does something productive with her time, she could volunteer to work in the field of her studies.

Your daughter is a young woman, who is still discovering herself. She doesn't need a therapist or a life coach, just your support and stable environment. She needs to know what is expected from her and what happens if those expectations aren't met. She also needs to know that you respect her as a person and will treat her as an adult if she behaves like one.

She needs you to listen to and understand what she feels and help her through the changes that are happening in her life. Be her guide.