Lazy days of summer

Teens are having a tough time finding summer jobs, reports the New York Times. More entry-level jobs are being filled by adults, especially where minimum wages are high. Some have been automated. (I never used self-checkout at the supermarket, and not just because I don't want to learn a new skill. I'm saving jobs!) You'd think that the campaign to deport undocumented workers would free up jobs, but perhaps that hasn't had an effect yet.

In affluent families, many teenagers spend their summers in in camps, classes and enrichment activities designed to pad their college applications rather than scooping ice cream or delivering pizza. But some parents are going in another direction, reports Hannah Seligson in the New York Times. They're saving money and reducing stress by embracing "kid rotting," letting kids do nothing in particular. If the kids are bored, they say, that's OK.

Of course, "the nostalgia of an older generation for playing outside with the neighborhood kids on hot summer days can come up against the reality of our modern age, where hours spent doing 'nothing' can mean time spent in front of phones and TVs," writes Hannah Seligson. "Rotting" might be a little too on point.

When my daughter was 15, she tried to get a summer job but was told she wasn't old enough. A hard-working student during the school year, she asked for a free summer. We agreed she'd explore her interest in photography, but that proved ephemeral. Really she was sleeping late, hanging with her friends, reading (it was the pre-screen era) and chilling. Or, as they say now, rotting. And it was OK. As she'd predicted, it was her last chance to do nothing.

For overparented children, a lazy, unscheduled summer is a good idea, as long as parents can keep them away from screens, writes Naomi Schaefer Riley of the American Enterprise Institute and at the Independent Women's Forum. "These are kids who need to be outside, need to get real jobs, go hang out with friends and play in some unorganized fashion."

But some kids "should not be rotting over the summer because they are experiencing too much rot the rest of the year." The underparented need summer school to catch up on academics. They need "adults who will keep them out of trouble." They need structure.