June 4, 2025

135: Between School Structure and Adult Freedom: The Invisible Gap

Send us a text Watching my daughter graduate high school recently prompted deep reflection on that critical transition when structured school life ends and "real world" responsibilities begin. This moment represents both exhilarating freedom and terrifying uncertainty for new graduates entering a world without bell schedules and syllabi. Young adults today face a unique paradox. They possess technological advantages we millennials never had—smartphones, AI tools, instant information access—y...

Send us a text

Watching my daughter graduate high school recently prompted deep reflection on that critical transition when structured school life ends and "real world" responsibilities begin. This moment represents both exhilarating freedom and terrifying uncertainty for new graduates entering a world without bell schedules and syllabi.

Young adults today face a unique paradox. They possess technological advantages we millennials never had—smartphones, AI tools, instant information access—yet many remain completely unprepared for basic adult responsibilities. How do you pay rent? What's involved in getting insurance? How do you create structure when nobody is enforcing your schedule? These questions plague new graduates who've been sheltered from these realities throughout their educational journey.

As parents, mentors, and community members, our responsibility doesn't end at graduation—it transforms. Rather than pushing these young adults out to "sink or swim," this moment calls for a different kind of support: open conversations without condescension, guidance without control, and creating a safe space where they can discuss their fears and questions. The relationships we build during this transition period often determine whether they'll seek our wisdom when facing important decisions or struggle alone through challenges. My conversations with my daughter taught me that our graduates don't need us to solve their problems, but they desperately need to know we're available when they inevitably stumble.

If you're supporting a recent graduate or preparing for that transition, remember that balance is key. Allow them space to make mistakes, but remain their safety net. Recognize that generational differences exist in how we approach adulthood, but the fundamental need for wisdom and guidance remains unchanged. Share your experiences, listen more than you speak, and create the kind of relationship where nothing is off-limits for discussion. What support are you providing to the young adults in your life as they navigate this critical transition? I'd love to hear your stories and strategies.

This podcast is sponsored by Starvelle Talent Group. Our goal is to help the culture build Wealth Assets Prosperity. We appreciate you taking the time to listen to this episode and share the content if you find value.

00:00 - Welcome to Millennial Entrepreneur Podcast

01:00 - Life After High School Begins

04:45 - College Planning and Real-World Skills

08:00 - Supporting Young Adults' Transition

13:50 - Building Communication and Understanding

17:00 - Closing Thoughts and Podcast Goals

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Bienvenidos a Ideal Millennial Entrepreneur Podcast, the podcast for millennial entrepreneurs, where each week, I share financial tips on how to improve your finance, increase your income and your mindset as a millennial entrepreneur.

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Thanks for joining me in today's episode, empecemos.

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Welcome to the Ideal Millennial Entrepreneur Podcast and I am your host, amir Estimo.

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Thank you for tuning in today's podcast episode, because you could be doing anything in this world, but the fact that you are listening to today's podcast episode it is much appreciated.

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Second, I would like to say last week I was not able to do a recording due to just being very busy with my daughter graduating high school.

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So this leads me into today's topic, where we're discussing where the topic would basically be about life after high school, when the real world begins.

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And the reason I'm having this as a topic is because me and my daughter and, of course, her mother, we have all been in discussion and what it's like for someone to graduate high school and the reality of life really begins.

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And that could be whether going to college, that could be maybe not going to college, that could be just going in, looking for a job or working, and how is the feel of when you graduate and what is your mindset, are you scared, are you excited?

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But a lot of these graduates that seem to graduate after life, after high school, sometimes don't really have a quite understanding of what is about to happen in this real world.

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For them, I believe, when you are in high school or in that nature, you are very shielded from what's really going on in the world.

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You have a routine that you do you get up, you go to school, you come home, and you've been doing this for so long, whereas probably me and you, who are millennials, we've been doing this for so long where we've been getting up, going to work, paying bills, all that's jazz, right.

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And now for someone that's graduating high school, the reality of life is is not really what they see, is not really what is really going on.

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Because the reason I'm saying this is because even for my daughter, she has not paid Any bills in the house, of course, because we always wanted her to focus on her education, and now that she's about to graduate and that she did graduate, it's been one of those things where now she's she's like man, mom, dad.

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I'm really afraid because now I'm about to be, I'm going to have responsibilities and then she's going to go off to a community college, have to have responsibilities, and then she's going to go off to a community college.

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You know she wanted to do a university but of course nowadays college is so expensive that when you go to college you really have to have a really game plan.

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You got to go in there and really be focused and I think for me and my wife us really telling her and really having these discussions with her as she led up to her graduating is us who are parents.

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This is a great time for us to talk to our kids, and not in the manner of condescending or degrading them and then or letting them know you didn't even know, you don't know, and blah, blah, blah, none of that to that nature but having a healthy discussion with them of what is it that they really want to do, because they probably never thought about that.

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Because in high school, again, things are so laid out for you.

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You know that you're going to go to class, there's a syllabus, this is what they're going to be doing, and it's the same thing when you go to college.

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But I think the difference is in college you can at least choose what path you want to go.

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Now some colleges, especially some high schools, especially here in the United States or even Texas that you are, they are now starting off with programs.

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I don't know, compared to when I graduated high school years ago, the things that I saw they were handing out awards for for these type of career, that type of career, this, and that we didn't get these opportunities.

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And to see that has how now in high school, the school system is seeing that, hey, we need to invest more into these kids.

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There are some schools that are really trying their best efforts in providing or having kids being able to have access to tools and information that can be able, even if they decide not to go to college, at least they can go do maybe a trade and do something, or even have the hopefully the entrepreneur mindset to be able to go and start something, a business, whatever.

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And I think for for me is just having these healthy discussions with my daughter we start to learn because we we we now have a high school graduate I graduated, my wife got a GED, I graduated high school, wife got a GED.

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So there was and things change in an aspect of, of course, all this technology that we have now, that we did not have before is really something to where now you have to.

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You can't really think that what things were for you is going to be same thing for them Now.

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College, of course, going to college, and all that hasn't really yes, going to college, and all that hasn't really changed.

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You go to college, you know what you're going to do, but again you have to have a game plan to really go in there and have a level of focus, because you can rack up debts really fast in college.

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And then you find yourself six years, seven years there and you still haven't even you still battling, trying to even get to your graduate, get your bachelor's done, and I was once in that position.

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Your graduate, get your bachelor's done, and I was once in that position.

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And the reason, again, this podcast is is that these kids is this is a great opportunity us as parents, to really be the kid.

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Are these children, these young adults, not children?

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They need our guidance.

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They need us to really guide them because they've been completely, for the most part depending on your household, oblivious to just being in the real world and how to function as a human being in this society, because all you've been doing for so long is going to school, school, school, school, school.

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But now, unless you decide to go to college, you have to become a working person in this society, and then things are up.

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Everything's so expensive now and please don't be those parents, if not, if that's the child's, if that's the young adult's decision, but don't be these parents that are forcing their kids out of the house when they turn 18, because even after they graduate and they turn 18 or whatnot, it's still.

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It's still they still going to need that guidance.

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Because do they understand how does paying mortgage or paying rent, if they decide to buy a house?

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Hopefully at that age they're not already looking to buy a house yet but do they understand paying rent?

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How does that work?

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Do they understand paying water?

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Do they understand?

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Okay, we need insurance.

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How does that work?

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All this stuff is still a level of guidance that is needed, and it is the fact that graduating is one thing, but now the next chapter is where they're now going to start their life, whether they decided to go, maybe, to the military or all this other stuff, whatever, there's a litany of things that they can do outside of that sheltered lifestyle of going to high school and going to school and, you know, coming home and all that stuff.

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But I think for this aspect is that we are now seeing we're seeing a difference in generations, because our generation, as millennials, when we graduated, we didn't have nowhere near the technology these kids have today, and now they have all this to their disposal chat, gpt and they have all this AI stuff.

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Of course, cell phones matured more.

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We didn't have phones where it can take pictures record.

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Now phones do all of that take pictures record.

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It's an internet, it's your personal computer and now there's not really an excuse to be behind in this world anymore.

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So now these kids have to be able to switch that and now have a level of understanding and capacity and also comprehension understanding capacity and also comprehension that they don't go in there and fall and when they fall, life is not going to really unless they have a strong support system.

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Some of these kids go off and I remember just seeing people that I graduated with and then seeing them five, six years later and couldn't even recognize them because whether they got involved so much in drugs or started alcohol and were heavy smokers and all that stuff, and it just was it.

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Just you always wonder did you have the proper education Did you have the proper support system?

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Education Did you have the proper support system?

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And I guess that's the reason I'm having this discussion is to be more of a support system.

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Don't just shove it down their throats and, well, hey, you need to now start doing this and then start doing that and paying this and paying that and all that sounds good and dandy.

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And again, how your household functions is not how my household functions, but what I'm saying is is having being the support system for them, as long as they're on the right track, is something that could help them, is something that could help them and help propel them as they navigate in the society of where now we have to function.

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Where we don't have that, we don't have that structure.

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We don't have that.

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Getting up, going to school, coming home, doing homework we don't have that structure.

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Now you have to be the author, you have to create that structure.

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Even going to college, you're going to need structure, because college, no one's holding your hands and a lot of this is what is needed, as these graduates try to, as they try to insinuate themselves.

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And now a society where people are short ffused.

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These days, people don't have the patience anymore and people are so willing to give up because people, just these days, some people were beat down.

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We're beat down, you wake up and it's like you're battling.

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You're just trying to stay above water and to me, I've always been a, I've always been someone that believe, long as you're breathing and you're above ground, that's half the battle.

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The rest of it is yours, and that's probably going to be the sentiment that needs to be shared and, hopefully, that they have the listening ears, because in this generation, I don't know, I don't know how many times I told my daughter I said, oh my gosh, this generation, I don't know, man, I lost hope in this generation.

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But, to be quite frank, it's not necessarily that I lost hope, it's do they have the right guidance?

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And what you're starting to find out too, a lot of them don't even want to listen and they don't heed advice.

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You know, I've been reading the Bible and I've been reading chapter, I've been reading Proverbs, and that's a book with so much, so much wisdom that a lot of these kids seem to not heed these advice from the older generations and there's a level of hey, these advice from the older generations, and there's a level of hey, I know it more than you.

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I know it more, but you know what they don't.

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And the thing is is that you're going to have to be able to.

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Some lessons are going to have to be learned on their own, because that's the route they're going to choose.

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But if you create that, if they create that bond with you and have that support system, they should be able to come and talk to you about anything.

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And I know me and my daughter.

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We've had me and my daughter and her mother.

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We've had discussions about anything from relationships to marriage to even sex, and these are things that I know growing up, even being immigrant parents.

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We didn't even have these discussions.

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It was just like, no, you're not going, you're just not going to have kids at this age.

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But then you start to find out there's this whole life that you just didn't know and there was only so much information that was shared with you.

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So I just wanted to record this podcast and hopefully it's a value and just to let you guys know that be there for them, don't give up.

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Let them find their way.

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They're going to make mistakes and the mistakes they make, you're going to be there to be their strong support system, and they need that because I don't know about you or how your household was growing up.

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I had a support system and it really did help just to see me and my daughter is graduating.

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She literally had about four events Me and her mother had to attend in on top of that her graduation and just to let her know that, hey, when all if they're doing this for me, imagine when I'm actually in the world.

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The support system I'm going to need to be able to navigate this world is going to even be more.

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Need to be able to navigate this world is going to even be more.

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And as long as there is a level of communication and understanding, I think both parties parents, child dynamic can still continue to prosper as long as there's an understanding on both ends.

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So hopefully this podcast is of value to you.

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Please share this podcast.

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Share this podcast if you think it's of value.

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Rate and review the podcast.

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I know I say this all the time we're on our journey to 10,000 downloads.

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I know a lot of people are probably thinking, man, you should have probably got that.

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But you know what, at the end of the day, I do this podcast because I just hope that whoever listens to it understands that whatever information is shared on this podcast, that you can learn from it and hopefully put it into use.

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All right, thank you very much.

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Appreciate you guys Be back on it, but we're going back on schedule now.

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Now that graduation, all that is done, we're back on schedule.

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See you guys next week.

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Much love Peace.

135: Between School Structure and Adult Freedom: The Invisible Gap

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