20. Today's Dropouts

In the United States today there are more people like George who drop out of the work force than in earlier times. What leads them to give up their work? Would George's father understand them if he were alive today?

George's case is not unique. In the last fifteen or twenty years, quite a number of men and women have chosen to drop out of the working world to try a different kind of life. Most of them are in their thirties and forties, often well educated, although all ages and backgrounds can be found among them. A variety of reasons have led them to give up their work and the security it provided.

Some, like George, have given up a career that was demanding too much from them. Others couldn't stand the pressure and the competition. A thirty-five-year-old woman, who had a high position in her company, decided to leave when she found herself suffering from allergies that made her life miserable. She had two children and no savings; but even her anxiety about the future couldn't spoil her feeling of relief and her new peace of mind. Her health improved. She may never work again; if she does, she says that she will take small temporary jobs.

Some people, on the contrary, have quit jobs that were boring or meaningless to them. An office employee who has been pushing papers for years may start wondering whether those papers are achieving anything. An engineer in a large company, aware that he could be replaced by any man with the same training, may come to feel unimportant as an individual. Such people leave their work in the hope of finding stronger interests and a sense of personal worth.

There are also people who leave their work to fulfill an old dream, such as writing books, painting, sailing to remote islands, or growing fruit trees. An army officer left the service at thirty-eight to build doll houses, and another one, who had always been interested in archaeology, did the same at forty-five to dig ancient Indian sites. His wife was delighted—instead of keeping house, she was going to satisfy her own dream of learning to make paper.

But most of the men and women who drop out of the working world have no special interest and no desire to take up any occupation. They want only to enjoy their freedom, their independence, and their leisure. No more rushing to catch a morning train, no more commuter traffic, no more anxiety to please a boss, no more meetings, no more obligations to behave and dress according to the rules. This endless vacation does not necessarily bring happiness; many of those who have chosen it as a style of life admit that leisure, too, can become boring. But they still prefer it to their former existence. The main problem remains the lack of financial security, for, with few exceptions, the "dropouts" are not wealthy. And so they survive by selling their possessions, by borrowing from friends and family, and by taking an odd job now and then for a short time when it becomes absolutely necessary.

Sam would never have understood their attitude. In the first place, he had never been unhappy with his occupation, and he had never felt any conflict between his work and his personal life. Neither had he ever dreamed of doing anything but selling groceries and chatting with Fred. And there was yet another factor. Today's dropouts can always find some small job to do when they are in need of money, or perhaps they can get unemployment compensation from the government for a while. But Sam had lived through the 1930s, when work of any type was almost impossible to find. In those days a job, no matter how unpleasant or poorly paid, was a man's most precious possession. Losing it was a disaster; not looking for another one, a shame. As for not wanting to work at all, it was unthinkable, for society was not used to loafers then. A nonworking family man would have lost the respect of his friends and his place in the community of responsible men.

George might have tried to explain to his father the new point of view, to tell him that people have a right to be free, independent, and to watch birds all day if they want to. But he would not have convinced Sam, for whom independence and leisure were luxuries that had to be deserved through hard work. Sam himself had enjoyed a vacation once in a while, and he had been happy to rest in the sun without his tie. But that was only because, having earned his fun, he could enjoy it with a good conscience.

It would have shocked Sam to learn that those "shameless" people who choose to live in unearned idleness have a good conscience too.

From A Changing Scene, ed., Lucette Rollet Kenan,

New York, 1982.