Not Everyone Needs a Therapist. Some Just Need a Job. | The American Spectator

When I was 13, I got my first taste of work. Not work in the abstract. Not homework, not group projects, not “life skills” seminars. I mean actual work. Hands raw, neck burnt, jeans stained with grass and dirt. I mowed lawns, trimmed hedges, painted fences, scraped gutters — anything that paid. Then I came home and put in more hours on the farm.

I learned that painting a garage in July heat will humble even the cockiest teenage boy. I grew up in a modest home where, if you wanted a new pair of cleats, you had to earn them. A new bike? Pick up the phone, start knocking on doors. Offer to weed, sweep, rake, haul. My parents didn’t give speeches about hard work; they showed me. You learned fast. I didn’t need a motivational talk (maybe the odd shake at 6 a.m.). I had my iPod, a lawnmower, a rusted rake, and a client who paid in crumpled bills if the lawn was cut clean.

That kind of experience is fading, and it’s fading fast.

What used to be a rite of passage — your first paycheck, your first boss, your first miserable shift counting down the minutes to clock-out — is now becoming a rarity. According to the latest reports, teen unemployment is climbing. Fewer than a million summer jobs are expected to materialize for 16- to 19-year-olds this year — the lowest figure since 2010. A generation raised on the idea that hard work pays now gets ghosted with a smile. “We’ll call you,” they say, and never do.

At first glance, this might seem like a minor problem. Maybe teens should just keep their heads down, focus on school, chase internships, or pad their college applications. That’s the prevailing wisdom in 2025 — why waste time flipping burgers or folding shirts when you could build a resume by the age of 15? But that way of thinking misses the mark. And the damage, while slow, is starting to show.

Summer jobs did more than fill wallets. They built character. They taught punctuality, humility, basic financial literacy, and the art of swallowing pride. You learned to deal with difficult customers, lazy coworkers, and bosses who didn’t care about your “potential,” only your output. You learned that no one owes you a gold star just for showing up. That lesson is disappearing — and with it, the early inoculation against entitlement.

What takes its place? Teenagers today, many of them desperate to work (yes, really), are being shut out not by laziness but by structural shifts. Automation has eliminated a range of entry-level jobs. Adults are now filling the roles once reserved for teens, often out of economic necessity. A cash-strapped father will take that McDonald’s shift over a 17-year-old any day. And employers, wary of training short-term hires, lean toward older applicants who might stay past August.

We’re witnessing the slow erosion of something elemental: the connection between labor and reward. It’s one thing to be told about hard work. It’s another to feel it — sweat in your eyes, aching arms, your first $20 tip. That feeling anchored you. It tethered your wants to effort. Without it, desires float free of discipline. And that’s where resentment festers.

A boy who earns his sneakers appreciates them differently than a boy who unboxes them after whining long enough. One builds pride. The other builds expectation.

This is more than nostalgia. It’s sociology. Take away a job, and you take away agency. Take away agency, and you breed helplessness. Teenagers need to know the world runs on more than likes and algorithms. That someone mops the floor. That someone flips the switch. That you can be that someone, and there’s dignity in that. When teens don’t work, summer changes shape. It stops being a season of growth and turns into one of stagnation. We say kids are addicted to screens, anxious, unmotivated. Maybe the answer isn’t another mindfulness app. Maybe it’s a lawn to cut and a grumpy neighbor to win over. I still remember the first time I got paid in full for a full day’s effort. No allowance. No birthday envelope. Just cash in hand and tired limbs. It wasn’t much, but it was mine. And it meant more than anything handed to me. Now, kids send out dozens of applications and hear nothing. They’re not lazy. They’re being locked out. Trapped in a world that talks about opportunity while quietly fencing it off. 

This isn’t just about jobs. It’s about who we become when they disappear. Summer work didn’t just teach tasks. It taught us to show up. To take criticism. To get better. To push through boredom. To understand effort. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t always fair. But it was real, and real is what we’re losing.

A society without working teenagers doesn’t just lose productivity — it loses something deeper. It forgets a simple truth: effort changes you. You’re not owed results. You earn them in the doing. But what happens when kids are never given the chance to try?

You get a generation trained to curate, not to cope. To optimize, not to endure. You get boys who don’t know how to shake hands and girls who’ve never had to hold the line behind a counter. You get millions entering adulthood with no calluses, no stories, no scars. Just the quiet ache of never being tested.

It’s not just jobs we’ve lost. It’s grounding. No TikTok tutorial can replace what we gave up when we stopped handing kids a rake, a rag, or a broom, and let them figure it out for themselves.

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