B-run,

I'm also about as Baby Boomer as one can get, born 48, graduated high school 67. Yeah, there seems to be a lot of entitlement or apparent trust fund babies these days, but I think they're just more noticeable than those who make it on their own. My kids grew up sorta' like Andy's are, only I had two daughters. They've been able to have pretty much anything they've had the initiative to work for. I never insisted they have part time jobs during the school year; I figured their job was to attend school and do as well as they could. My attitude was probably because I worked almost full time from age 15 and had to forego most sports that I would have preferred to participate in.

The girls were bored with school until they had honors and advanced placement course opportunities in high school. Their public school educations paid off with admissions to private colleges and universities. I couldn't afford it, but their hard work earned scholarships, grants, and loans to attend Smith, Stanford, Wesleyan, and Berkeley. They both have masters degrees. Sticking around home was never much on their minds. Both traveled internationally on their own before graduating high school, and have been around the world, unsupervised and unchaperoned, for their undergraduate and graduate studies. And grad school was on awards, costing me hardly a dime.

Since high school, the only time they've stayed at home was either between school sessions or jobs out of state. It was always clear however, that after high school, they could live at home whenever it coincided with going to college. Otherwise they'd have to pay room and board. I doubt that motivator was needed. They see a world too full of opportunity to just hang around home forever. They've always been self motivated to exceed my expectations, so I've never experienced the issues that I hear about from other parents. I never pressured them to excel. My goal was always that they would know how to be independent and take care of themselves. It seems to have worked. My only complaint is that since high school I practically have to make an appointment to see them as they lead busy and active lives and haven't lived nearby since beginning their college freshman year.

The upshot? I don't know, but the only thing my kids probably know about entitlement is what they saw of some of their college classmates who were provided a Visa card by mom and dad and thought nothing of taking off for Tahoe for a weekend of skiing while my kids did work study or another job. So they understand and seem to accept delayed gratification and know that just about anything is within reach if they just work their butts off a bit.

Sg