How Do You Protect Your Children from a Future of Wage Slavery?
The path of the Great American Worker Bee, from school desk to corporate cubicle.
What’s a wage slave, you ask?
It’s a person living paycheck to paycheck whose ratio of income to expenses has them feeling trapped in their job. It’s a state that we were groomed to accept as “normal” from the first day of public school—good boys and girls follow the rules, sit still in one place, listen unquestioningly to the teacher, conform to a schedule not of our choosing, and stay indoors during the sunniest time of the day.
When we grow up we will simply replace our teachers with our employers, and conform to the same set of expectations.
For wage slaves, work should be sustained over several hours at a time. Breaks should be confined to fifteen-minute intervals, just like recess was in school.
Good future wage slaves are taught to know that work is always more virtuous than play. You can be proud of your work. However, what you do for fun and enjoyment is often something you’ll end up feeling guilty about when you’re a grown-up, especially if you do it for too long. Working, however, is never a cause for feeling guilty. You might feel a bit like a martyr for putting in long hours, but there’s no need to feel guilty. Work is virtuous. In fact, that is the whole reason you were assigned homework in elementary school. You were conditioned from childhood to accept the necessity of bringing your work home with you, so you’ll grow up to learn to work overtime without expecting extra pay.
And no matter how many books hit the best seller list about the power of creativity
and play, those ideas are only virtuous if they eventually serve a wage slave’s career.
Sound familiar?
Parents, think about this: If your kids are in public school, they could possibly spend most of their day sitting at a desk in front of a laptop from first grade until retirement.
Automatons. Worker Bees. That is what wage slaves are.
Do you believe you’re not a wage slave because you have a little savings or some investments? Many of us may appear to be driving new cars and moving into new houses, but underneath the plastic façade made in China, most of us are living paycheck to paycheck just like everyone else. Appearing to live a high-dollar lifestyle when we’re actually swimming in debt is, in my opinion, one of the worst forms of self-deception we can model to our children.
When I overhear parents complaining about how their kids don’t know the value of a dollar, I want to hold a mirror up to the parents’ faces and remind them that everything their kids believe about money was modeled to them at home.
Fortunately, the conversation about work-life balance is very popular right now. Even Great Britain is about to experiment with a national four-day work week. But as our economy takes a nosedive just as fast as inflation is rising, it’s imperative that we make a plan to teach our kids to thrive, not just survive.
Be brutally honest about the way you exemplify happiness for your children.
What sort of an example are you setting for your kids about a human being’s ability to be truly happy on this planet right now? Are you showing your kids a work life balance that you actually like? Would your kids say you’re happy? I’m not suggesting a corporate approved schedule that would make your boss happy, but a balance of work, play, hobbies, creativity, and contribution to others that illustrates to your kids what you hope their future lives will be.
I know, that’s a tough one.
Do you complain about your stress level more than you talk about the joy you derive from your career? Do you martyr yourself for the benefit of your family, working like a dog all week so they can have the latest iPhone and new sports gear? Do you secretly, or maybe openly, believe you are a victim of a broken system? When new friends ask if you have hobbies, do you laugh at the thought of having that sort of time? Do you sacrifice your sleep and your health to get more work done?
If the answer is “yes” to any of these questions, please remember that you are encoding in your children the exact same attitude about work that you have. Even if they act like lazy little moochers right now, their future beliefs will most likely be carbon copies of yours.
Am I suggesting you should fake it a little better? No.
I’m suggesting you might consider doing something radical, so you don’t have to.
The Plandemic had so many silver linings--namely the mass awakening to the Globalist agenda and brainwashing that purposely turned us into wage slaves. For many it inspired radical change. Millions have literally broken camp and relocated to a greener pasture (or a redder state). Some people who lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandates admitted they needed that kick in the pants to try something new. Last fall I was volunteering as a legal advocate (not a lawyer), helping employees fight the vaccine mandates imposed by their employers. Many who were faced with the possibility of being fired told me that in the end, they decided to stop fighting so hard for a job they didn’t like to begin with.
Supply chain problems, gas prices and talk of food shortages have made us take stock of what’s important and have shown us where we have become too reliant on resources not within our control. “Getting back to the land” memes are all over social media, and not just for the romance of it.
Ideological and political break-ups with our family and friends have taught us, collectively, two important lessons: face-to-face connection with others is more vital to our happiness than our Iphones--and wow, it turns out that’s not just a cliché! Also, maintaining fake relationships with shallow people is hard, and pointless.
Consumer spending has changed because our values have changed, finally! And no amount of health safety guidelines from the CDC can justify our governors restricting us access to the great outdoors.
Making radical changes in lifestyle is now totally en vogue. If you ever had a dream to do something your parents would call crazy, now is the time. Do you want to sell everything and move the whole family onto a sailboat, or a yurt? It’s yard sale season, baby! Always wanted to live in a sustainable community? Try it! Wishing you lived closer to family or friends whom you could raise your kids with? Why don’t you? Tired of a job that keeps you away from home? Quit.
Seriously. Just quit.
I know, I know. It’s not that simple. There are mortgages and expenses and contracts and obligations, ad infinitum; ad nauseum.
But you’re getting my meaning. If you have ever desired to color outside the lines, now might be the time.
Socialism vs. Capitalism: Teach your kids how to spot the lie wrapped in truth, otherwise known as the candy-coated turd.
Universal basic income is not the antidote to wage slavery. Our last two years collecting unemployment during the pandemic was meant to give us a taste of socialism. It was specifically geared to the working class who could be bribed to give “communism light” a try.
Check out the meme below. It’s a great example of the Globalist message being spoon-fed to our kids at present, especially if they’re in their 20s. Brainwashing only works if lies are mixed with truth. The whole message of this meme plays on your heart strings and draws you in with the gut-wrenching reality of how true it is for so many of us. As you read the meme from the top to the bottom you find yourself shaking your head in agreement, until you get to the end of the message in the far-right corner.
Is this meme honestly describing Capitalism?
No, not at all.
But if you’re an ignorant American kid, you will believe the zombie in the meme is a victim of the American economic system. In truth, this poor zombie has simply succumbed to the carefully designed, Globalist long game to legislate and brainwash the population into such exhaustion that they are too tired to fight back. Our current mortgage, gas and food prices are not the natural byproduct of a free market economy. They are the intentionally orchestrated outcome of controlling elites who create inflation to puppeteer the population. Make sure your kids know the difference between organic changes in the economy, and orchestrated manipulation.
Your children won’t learn unbiased economic theory in school anymore, so you have to take on the responsibility to teach classic economics yourself. Then, make your kids watch the film The Killing Fields (if they’re old enough), so they can see what happens when young socialist politicians turn into Communist dictators. It’ll be brutal, but we have to stop complaining that the generations who grew up after the Vietnam War will never have an opportunity to understand Communism. Show it to them.
Don’t expect your kids to understand these lessons right away. It’ll take them earning a few degrees from the School of Hard Knocks for everything to sink in, but when it counts, they’ll remember your wisdom.
I was born in Canada to a Canadian father and an American mother. My father moved us to the US when I was little because he wanted to start a small business. He found the American economy far more conducive to a young entrepreneur than his home. His second religion was Capitalism, and he made sure all of us kids knew that his ability to be financially generous with others was a direct result of living in a free market system.
My father was my hero. Yet, when I went away to college, I couldn’t help but get drawn into the heady intellectual debates extolling the virtues of socialism. My mother is convinced I went into college a Conservative and graduated a Liberal, even though I called myself a Libertarian. In truth, I was too young to understand politics. I wasn’t anything but an impressionable sponge, as we all were.
It wasn’t until later, when I wanted to start my own small business, that I understood the true value of a free market.
Please teach your kids how to critically think about economics, even if they have zero interest in business. Turn it into a dinner time debate or a conversation on a road trip. Make the effort to counter the propaganda. It will affect how your kids vote someday, how their career unfolds, how they choose friends as an adult, and maybe even who they marry.
Be the Hero: Show your kids that you’re brave enough to buck the norm.
What can you do now to demonstrate to your children that you’re not waiting for life to get better before you live with more freedom? Show them you’re not waiting for the 2020 election to get overturned so Trump can come back and lower gas prices. You’re not waiting for Elon Musk to get us off this rock and start a colony on Mars. You’re not waiting for retirement to finally follow through on the dream your kids all know you have been holding close to your chest for decades. And you’re certainly not waiting around for the Rapture. We all know God helps those who help themselves.
Waiting for someone else to fix our situation is exactly what the ruling class want us to do. They believe Americans are too dumbed down to wake up and spring themselves free of the wage slavery prison. Teach your kids to be smarter than the Globalist elites. It’s not that difficult to do. The Globalists are rich, one-trick ponies. Fortunately, we’re getting skilled at predicting their tricks before they use them. (I’m convinced the whole alien invasion narrative hasn’t taken off because Patriots predicted the liberal media would use it a year before it was tried.)
Don’t be a hypocrite: If you tell your kids that they can grow up to be anything they want to be, then figure out how to be the anything YOU wanted to be
I’ve been a career coach for 18 years. I’m not just a “rainbows and crystals” life coach who spews touchy-feely cliches about self-esteem and the art of reinventing yourself. I’ve been in the trenches with hundreds of laid-off workers, or miserable corporate climbers, who got conned into taking out a home equity line of credit to pay for my coaching services. No kidding. One of my best and worst jobs was a position I held at a corporate career counseling firm that gave a money-back guarantee to clients if I didn’t place them in a new job within 90 days.
The firm advertised that we had a network of corporate insiders and decision-makers that didn’t actually exist. Desperate people looking for a Hail Mary would sign over their savings to one of our firm’s smarmy salespeople, and then they’d be delivered into my care for me to work miracles, or lose my shirt trying. I earned a handsome fee for every new client, but if they discovered that our firm didn’t actually have the resources we said we did, the client could ask for a refund. The first time this happened to me I went a month without a paycheck.
Once I figured out that my boss was a crook, I dropped his corporate playbook.
The trick I had up my sleeve was to counter the con job with authenticity so raw and real that my clients had no option but to succeed—but, maybe not in the way they had originally planned.
“Why do you think you’re here?”, I’d ask.
“Have you ever asked yourself what the purpose of your life is?”
“If you had a bottomless bank account for the rest of your life and never again had to worry about money, what would you do with your time?”
I talked about God. I made people cry. I held people in my arms. I encouraged them to do “unreasonable” things, like sell their oversized houses, start small businesses, relocate somewhere amazing, kick their loafing adult kids out of their homes, and tell their current employers the truth in ways they never dared before.
If they had a pattern of leaving every job for the same personal conflict--just repeated with different players--I’d tell them that there was no point in looking for a new job until they’d solved the conflict in their current job. I wouldn’t even begin to work on their new resume until they did their homework to clean up their interpersonal problems. I become a marriage counselor, a money manager, or a spiritual coach. I added assignments to their homework that included self-care, changing their diet, exercise, going fishing, reconciling with their spouses--whatever it took to eliminate excuses holding them back.
I saw over 300 clients in 11 months. What I discovered was that 98% of them had a solid dream career they rarely talked about with others. Very few people don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. They may say they don’t know, but that’s usually a smokescreen for fear of rejection. People almost always know. They just need permission to say it out loud to someone counterculture and un-brainwashed.
Not a single person asked for a refund after I took them down my rabbit hole. And to this day I still get emails from former clients who thank me for daring to get in their face with the truth. I am proud to say that the majority of them moved onto positions they enjoyed far more than the last, and a surprising number of them took extraordinary leaps of faith that ended up with beautiful results.
We did not come to Earth to be automatons or worker bees. You have permission to rage against the machine. But once you’re done raging, do something to make your life better.
Note that I did not say “do something to make yourself wealthier.”
I said, “make your life better.”
Then you will be your kids’ heroes, even if they have to sacrifice getting their cell phone upgraded so you all can work a little less and play a little more. They may not get it now, but they will when they’re faced with a similar choice as a grown up.
Teach your kids that “work” is not a four-letter word.
Recently I took my 11-year-old son to his favorite place to spend his allowance—a store that sells previously loved Legos and Bionicles. The two young men who were working at the store, both in their early 20s, were chatting behind the counter about their weekend. I overhead one of them ask the other about what he did on his recent holiday trip.
“Did you work on the golden castle?”
“No, I didn’t want to bring work with me on vacation.”
The “work” he was referring to was a project he was building with Legos.
I smiled. It was a great example of how one man’s work can be another kid’s play.
Later, after my son was complaining about the list of household projects I had planned for our weekend, I decided to try a different tactic for avoiding the Whine Fest I usually waded through when it came to chores.
“Kiddo, it’s time we change the connotation of the word work,” I said.
I realized how many times I said to my son something like “we can’t watch that movie until our work is done”, or “let’s get ice cream after the work is done”, which drilled into his little head that work is something you begrudgingly slog through until you can move onto something that makes you happy.
This is when it hit me that I was conditioning my son to put all activities into two categories: work (which always sucks, apparently) and everything else you get to do when Mom finally releases you from your list of chores.
So I sat him down and told him the story about what I overheard the two young men discussing in the Lego store.
“When does work become play, and play become work?”
Then I reminded him about all the times I had tasked him with doing the dishes and it took him three times as long as it would take me because he’d fallen into the “zone”. You know what I’m talking about--the expression changes on their face from irritation to daydreamy focus. They start making mountains of soap bubbles or get mesmerized by the detachable sprayer head on the faucet, and pretty soon they’ve cleaned every dish and didn’t even realize they were having fun while doing chores.
One day you’ll tell them to clean their room, for the 14,546th time, and you’ll quietly walk by their open door and see them totally zoned out, absorbed with organizing their toys and knick-knacks just how they want them on the dresser top. You don’t dare interrupt them because you’re just so happy to have a reprieve from the Whine Fest.
And you know this happens to you, too. All the time.
“Kiddo, I screwed up. I actually, enjoy my work and it’s my fault for letting you believe that work is something to resent. When I get to help people in my coaching practice, I feel high afterwards, like I have all the energy in the world! And when I was traveling around the state and speaking to crowds every weekend about parents rights and the Constitution, I was actually jazzed to get up every day. I felt purposeful. I may have seemed stressed, but honestly, I was having more fun than I admitted. So, if I use the word work like it’s a bad thing, I’m sorry. I need to stop that.”
I suggested we try different words, like create, enjoy, produce, and experience. We created a clean home, we enjoyed organizing, we experienced the garden. He told me that loading the dishwasher was like a game of Tetris. We turned up the stereo and rocked out while we vacuumed.
Laundry was a different story. That one is still a chore.
So, my dear reader, to protect your kids from a future of wage slavery all you must do is free yourself and let them watch you. If you honestly are depressed and hate your job, please do one small thing, or one BIG thing, to change it. If you’re strung out with a scary income to expense ratio and feel trapped, please know that there is always a way out. I’m not writing out of my rear end when I say that. I’ve experienced everything from six figure salaries that came at the expense of my soul, to blissed out gratitude from a bag of groceries from the Food Bank. Take it from a single mom. We’re scrappy. We have big faith that there is ALWAYS a way out of a tough situation.
Patriots, we will make it through this Great Awakening with flying colors.
I know we will.
Radical change is all the rage. Sports cars and mansions are out. Backyard chickens are in.
P.S. Want to try my brand of career coaching? Initial consultations are complimentary. Email me at eryn@eryndefoort.com