Just something I've been thinking about now that I'm 40. A complete lack of leadership and mentoring from the boomers.
Parents were just focused on academic success and getting me off to college. Never learned to use tools, tend to plants and animals, do sports or hunt.
In my career, I was just given lots of responsibility and risk. No mentoring or leadership. No actual control to go along with the responsibility.
Was it like this for anyone else? Now that I'm middle aged and see the problem, I'm trying to be different for the younger generation.
I stopped working for my Dad when I realized he was only ever using me to save on taxes.
I'd been doing jobs for him since I was twelve, but he never trained me on anything. I was told to do something (usually clean up) and yelled at if it wasn't done correctly. I figured that this was just how work was (and, yeah, pretty much).
It came to a head when he outright refused to train me. I was working part time for a contracting business he had, prepping the work area for the main machine and feeding it, while he ran it and did the finishing. He was starting to feel his age and had some medical incidents that made it hard to work so I offered to learn the rest of the job so I could take an assistent and do them without him, and he could focus on advertising and paperwork. First he told me he didn't want to risk messing up a customer job, and fair enough. But then we had an opportunity to do a job on his own property, so I asked him and he just says "I'm going to do it (the job)".
I realized he never had any intention of training (or raising) me to become as competent as himself, that he was actually jealous of me and saw my success as a threat to his position.
After that I said fuck it, I'll find someone else to work for who actually wants me to succeed (which I have, multiple times) and never worked for him after that.
Edit: On the actual mentors, I didn't meet them until my mid thirties, in trades. I never saw anything like mentorship in STEM.
Usually I would only work for a company for a year or so just to get it on my resume and find a place paying better. When I started at this company, I had gotten my first raise (12%) in the first four months. I was specifically chosen to work with the pro crew; the one that would be tapped for particularily difficult or sensitive jobs and the crew chief was my favourite boss ever. He'd been doing the job for decades and knew it inside and out. He had all sorts of tricks and tips but, more importantly, an attitude towards work: "it takes as long as it takes, but we're a premium company; it has to work, and it has to look good". He never cut corners to get out early, always made sure to leave sites (read: the customer's homes) in mint condition, and encouraged us to answer any questions the customers had, even if it meant taking a bit longer.
The company thrived and I worked there five times longer than any other place I'd worked. Until the boss sold and it went under new management.
Sounds like my boomer Mom. Hated her kids once they were more successful than her at anything in life.