22. The outlook this time is not so clear. Starved for jobs at adequate pay, the millennials tend to seek refuge in college and in the military and to put off marriage and child-bearing. Those who are working often stay with the jobs they have rather than jump to better paying but less secure ones, as young people seeking advancement normally do. And they are increasingly willing to forgo raises, or to settle for small ones.

29. Where is Aunt Viola today? Well, she has now been a widow for twenty-odd years, and she has five grown-up children—five separate households—all clamoring to share her, and to have her come and live in their homes!Her children adore her; they never get enough of her. Out of“gratitude”? Nonsense!It is love ---sheer love. Those children breathed in warmth and radiant human-kindness all during their childhoods. Is it any wonder that, now that the situation is reversed, they give back love?

28. We must remember that our children are very much what we make them. For example, my mother's sister—Viola Alexander, of 144 West Minnehala Parkway, Minneapolis—is a shining example of a woman who has never had cause to complain about the “ingratitude” of children. When I was a boy, Aunt Viola took her own mother into her home to love and take care of; and she did the same thing for her husband's mother. I can still close my eyes and see those two old ladies sitting before the fire in Aunt Viola's farmhouse. Were they any “trouble” to Aunt Viola? Oh, often, I suppose. But you would never have guessed it from her attitude. She loved those old ladies—so she pampered them, and spoiled them, and made them feel at home. In addition, Aunt Viola had six children of her own; but it never occurred to her that she was doing anything especially noble, or deserved any halos for taking these old ladies into her home. To her, it was the natural thing, the right thing, the thing she wanted to do.

27. She thought she was sparing her sons, but in reality, she was sending them out into life with the dangerous idea that the world owed them a living. And it was a dangerous idea—for one of those sons tried to“borrow”from an employer, and ended up in jail!

26. Who was to blame? The boys? Yes; but the mother was even more to blame. She thought it was a shame to burden their young lives with “a sense of obligation”. She didn't want her sons to “start out under debt”. So she never dreamed of saying: “What a prince your stepfather is to help you through college!” Instead, she took the attitude: “Oh, that's the least he can do.”

25. Did he get any thanks? No; his wife took it all for granted—and so did her sons. They never imagined that they owed their stepfather anything—not even thanks!

24. I know a man in Chicago who has cause to complain of the ingratitude of his stepsons. He slaved in a box factory, seldom earning more than forty dollars a week. He married a widow, and she persuaded him to borrow money and send her two grown sons to college. Out of his salary of forty dollars a week, he had to pay for food, rent, fuel, clothes, and also for the payments on his notes. He did this for four years, working like a coolie, and never complaining.

23. If our children are ungrateful, who is to blame? Maybe we are. If we have never taught them to express gratitude to others, how can we expect them to be grateful to us?

22. But why should children be thankful —unless we train them to be? Ingratitude is natural—like weeds. Gratitude is like a rose. It has to be fed and watered and cultivated and loved and protected.

21. Parents have been tearing their hair about the ingratitude of children for ten thousand years. Even Shakespeare's King Lear cried out:“How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

20. Here is the second point I am trying to make in this chapter: If we want to find happiness, let's stop thinking about gratitude or ingratitude and give for the inner joy of giving.