On the H1-B Visa Progam and Raising Your Kids

ON THE H1-B VISA PROGRAM

As far as twenty years ago I would never have foreseen myself writing this. It was about the time I had about six friends who worked for Disney in tech and they had all been “redundant to service” laid off and forced to train their replacements from India who spoke almost no English. Several of us in a tech forum suggested that they train them “just enough” but not teach them trouble shooting or how to really fix anything.

It’s telling that they were all working for a pittance compared to what my friends had been making for years, if not decades. I suggested they keep in mind the axiom; you get what you pay for, at the front of their minds. Disney were not hiring the best. No, they were hiring the dregs who couldn’t even work at call centers running Windows scams. Many of my friends went on to work at Social Media companies. It’s telling that most of them no longer do so. Only one remains and the site she works for is hardly used by the social media mad Millennials and Gen Z folk.

This is the hard fact all of us must accept. We coddled two entire generations into complete uselessness. There is a reason employers won’t hire anyone from an Ivy League school or is in those two generational groups. They don’t want to work.

Why? Because we as parents and teachers told them they didn’t need to, then proceeded to do everything for them. And now we sit back, mouths agape because our precious little snowflakes can’t get and keep jobs. It’s all the fault of those mean employers not seeing how delicate and gifted our darlings are, right?

I was born in the first year of GenX. I was expected to graduate high school, get out of my parents’ house, go to college, get married and have kids. If I managed to have a career, so much the better. I did as was expected and spent most of my time raising my kids uneducating them. They started school during the whole “self-esteem” bullshit. Yes, you are important, but not the MOST important to anyone outside yourself. You see, our educational system taught our children to be self-absorbed whiners and we let them. Well, you let them. I fought it every step of the way up to and including being at their schools volunteering in their library and being active in the PTA.

But our children are going to be rebellious and do the opposite of anything we tell them. My boys went into the Marines, went to war, and came back people we no longer knew. They both had problems back in society. They worked but, hard, but not in anything you would consider as anything more than a filler job. Then they both got into jobs where they were expected to learn and grow and boy, did they. They both work hard, in the same field no less, and I could not be prouder of how they take care of their families. I don’t see that as what I did, I merely gave them a good foundation to build their own lives.

Neither of my daughters went to college and they both have careers, not jobs. My eldest has a family, and a husband. I know, gasp and swoon. Her children delight me so much.  My youngest daughter, well she got married right out of high school, had kids, then abandoned it all for a party lifestyle without kids or anything that could keep her from taking off to the next exciting place people on social media are going. Three out of four ain’t bad. Statistically, I beat the odds of having great kids.

As parents, we all want to smooth the way for our kids. What we don’t realize is that we actually render them incapable of solving problems or even making their own choices. Allow me to illustrate.

When my best friend’s daughter was ready to go off to college several hours away, she had to accompany her to the orientation process. During this process, they culled the students from parents and the students were then taken to a hall where they could signed up for the freshman classes. My friend’s daughter watched as one girl, presented with making her own choices, completely broke down, unable to cope and she and her mother were escorted away from the others. Since she never saw the girl on campus during the first term, we all supposed the girl went to a community college so that mommy could go to class with her.

You think I joke. I do not. You can take your mommy to boot camp. No freakin’ lie.

My boys sat rolling their eyes as my husband explained that they had not experienced “The Real Crucible”, blah blah blah. In my husband’s day it was 72 hours of pure hell.  When my boys went through it, Hell lasted 72 hours, but some of the actions changed to be less challenging. Now it’s a 54 hours of brushing the hair on your My Little Pony while watching training films.

We always think we went through much worse than our precious little snowflakes could ever know. I’m not entirely sure how I survived not experiencing Woodstock and “free love” but I managed and have lived a successful life full of love and adventure.

I say all of that to say this; we now need H1-B visa holders more than ever, because we’ve coddled our children into puling little whiners who freak out when confronted with 8 hours a day of work and just want to be You Tube influencers.

We will bring in foreign workers, with strong work ethics, the most important thing of them all. My kids works hard, but among their peers, they are as rare as hen’s teeth. Kids today don’t want to work hard or otherwise. Foreigners who come over, knowing that staying here is based on their worthiness to their employer will be more motivated to do their jobs without whining or demanding thirty days a year of mental health days.

They were able to go to school and learn a skill whereas most millennials and GenZ, if they stuck it out past freshman year, wound up with useless liberal arts degrees that aren’t recognized by any Fortune 500 employer in this nation. I’ve been watching head hunter and employer recruiting videos, reading articles and such and without exception, every single one of them admit Millennials are as useless as teats on a boar hog and GenZ is just about the same. Entitled is their favorite descriptor of those two generations.

Why? These are the Participation Trophy and Day Care Generations. They were just given things if they were the ones screaming the loudest just to shut them up, not because they had earned or deserved it.

We only have ourselves to blame. Even though my children are the exception of their generations, I blame myself for not being more judgmental of my peers and their parenting styles. I should have spoken out more… nah, who am I kidding? No one listens to me, so I kept to myself and raised my kids and hoped they turned out right. They did, so I’m accepting it.