As a young adults, I’ve come to realize the taunting from middle to older age people has inexplicable roots in vagrancy laws, which essentially punish existing and not working. While you aren’t likely to be fined or jailed for engaging in leisure on a weekday, you’re still gonna get berated by Boomers.
Feel free to expand on what you know of punishing existing & not working, ie vagrancy.
John Steinbeck wrote a good depiction of Vagrancy laws in the beginning of his novel “East of Eden.” Basically, vagrancy laws gave states cheap labor via the 13th Amendment. The 13th reserves slavery as a punishment for crime.
Cops picked up people off the side of the street to work on a Chain Gang for 6 months. The convicts would be released without any aid, only to be arrested again in the county over.
The generational attitude towards work seems to reflect the American “Protestant Work Ethic.” I don’t know if Protestantism lead to harsher vagrancy laws. Always thought Vagrancy laws were just part of slavery’s evolution in America.
Woody Guthrie’s autobiography covers the Hobo lifestyle and politics of vagrancy pretty dang well too.