I don't see these things here. There were a few spoiled rich kids where I taught, but not many. Those families'd threaten you with lawyers if the sons (never daughters) flunked from laziness.
Most of the kids (now in their early 20s) were a fit, hard working bunch. They kind of held to the 'if you work hard you'll get something for it' world view, and may have to adjust when that gets them less than they expect, but other than being a bit naive, they weren't like what's being described. We had a few feral kids raising themselves, often the children of small business owners. Restaurant owners, with the long hours. But they were a minority, even if they were a handful to deal with. Most families were reliable and very hands on.
When I first became a steelworker, I remember the second Tuesday, I pulled a bicep hauling steel plate into the cutter. My partner had been doing it for years, before which he'd been a pro baseball pitcher. He figured out I seemed to be using everything I had, and at the end of the shift asked if I was hurt. I said no. He laughed and hauled harder til the weekend came. By Monday, I was fine, and could hold up my end. If I had said I was injured, he would have been merciless. I would have been seen as looking for sympathy.
I don't know how many kids now would have gotten that, but many would. Maybe it's a cultural difference.
I live by a trades city, with a paper mill, a refinery, a port, a nuclear plant and a scattering of manufacturing. It's an old school, rust belt north kind of town. There's an unfortunate mirror to the seventies when I started working in that there's a bit too much drug use going on in the boring jobs. And the drugs now are a lot more dangerous. We've been spared the kind of opioid nightmare we read about in US and west coast sources here, for now. It'll arrive when a recession hits.
jabbering on about back in your day...you lot sound like this...
