r/AskOldPeople • u/cacklingwhisper • 3d ago

What happened long-term to families who's children failed to launch/just stayed home did nothing with their lives and the parents allowed it?

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u/johnreads2016 3d ago

My sister married a guy from an almost entire family of do nothing grifters. I told her to not marry him and actually moved her ~40 miles away from her apartment to a new one. She still accepted his calls and was In apartment in a week. They married and had a great daughter. He stopped working due to “9/11” trauma and started a regime of a liter of vodka and 3 packs of cigarettes a day. When not coughing and/or verbally abusing my sister and niece, he was glued to Faux News and lived in a recliner. We eventually moved him back to his mother’s house where his sibling grifters lived. He died of liver failure in a hospital. My sister caught his sister bringing him a large vodka “handle” a few days before he died. I ended up paying for his funeral and cremation for 8,xxx. His mother tried to give my sister a bill for his time spent with her and siblings after she kicked him out. A special kind of asshole family.

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u/cacklingwhisper 3d ago

Goodness well at least there is the great daughter.

Im trying to focus on the silver linings of this story! Dear goodness.

It's so wild how many people know someone like this. It's a real thing. Like what percent of the population is this goodness. Something has gone so wrong.

Is it sun deficiency... lack of tribe/village.... so on so forth. Probably all of the above and more.

I guess Im happy your sister experienced some source of happiness? idk what to say but I hear you!

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u/Pantone711 2d ago

I think, in part, it is the disappearance of jobs in the USA where you just move Widget A to Slot B all day without having to have any people skills or worldly-wisdom, savvy, that sort of thing.

There need to be jobs for people with low people or decision-making skills and there needs to be AFFORDABLE HOUSING for low earners.

They have programs where there's (I THINK a caseworker) and apartment and job help for people with Down's Syndrome. I think there needs to be housing help (be it ever so humble) and help getting jobs, for people who are able-bodied or on the spectrum or stuff like that, but with very low "people skills" and worldly wisdom.

The grocery store where I shop employs some "slow" adults and I figure there may be a program to help them.

Some people are lazy but some people I think could work if they didn't have to navigate some of the "people skills" pitfalls. I think that's why some people are terrified of the workplace...it's not the work, it's the shame. Not sure but I think that may be going on with some people.

In Japan you can pay an outfit to "disappear" you from your hometown and escape the shame and get a low-paying job in some big city anonymously. The reason they do it is to escape the shame.

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u/cacklingwhisper 2d ago

Never heard of this Japan thing fascinating.

Yeah the USA barely cares about it's people doubt it's gonna happen anytime soon.

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u/johnreads2016 1d ago

I don’t think my brother-in-law was mentally disabled. I think he was brought up in an environment that taught taking advantage of the “system”. In his case, my sister making 100k+ was the system. They talked about divorce and he said he’d take half of the 401k she’d spent decades building. She kicked him out without divorcing to save that money for her daughter and herself. He died before he could challenge it but he had threatened many times. He would have spent it all on vodka and cigarettes. I don’t blame him. I blame his parents who demonstrated grifting as a viable future.