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The Fragile Generation: How We Created these Terrified, Joyless, Delicate Monsters

A combination of fear mongering and parental concession produced a ‘fragile generation’ of terrified, joyless, delicate monsters. Now what?

Living with The Fragile Generation: The Consequence of Scaring the Hell out of Children

A combination of fear mongering and parental concession produced a ‘fragile generation’ of terrified, joyless, delicate monsters. Now what?

READ: ‘The Fragile Generation‘ at Reason.

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69 replies on “The Fragile Generation: How We Created these Terrified, Joyless, Delicate Monsters”

Random thoughts prompted by this:
Revoking degrees… leftists don’t seem to understand the concept of some certification of some sort not being a reward, but a recognition of something you achieved. It’s not a pat on the head for being a good boy, it’s, “yes, this person has done these things, and done them to _____ standard.”
Do the people demanding that Cruz’ degree be revoked think that because he’s a Republican, somehow that undoes those things he did to earn his degree?
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Failure is not an option: IT IS MANDATORY. The option is whether or not failing is the last thing you do.
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I am sometimes guilty of mixing sayings. The hybrid that popped into my head in response to ‘happily ignoring SJWs to their faces’ was, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but it sucks to be you.”
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“Don’t prepare the path for your child, prepare your child for the path.” One of the many, many things I love about my wife is that when she was talking to a new mother who was worrying about baby-proofing her house, she said, “Don’t baby-proof the house. House-proof the baby.”

Sorry I was late to this thread and have enjoyed reading the comments. There are people in our society who believe that the job of parenting is to raise healthy, well-behaved kids. Then there are those of us who believe that the job of parent is to raise healthy adults who can contribute to and be part of our society.
The ones who think they need to raise kids usually find that that is exactly what they have wrought, full-sized kids without ability to cope with life.

Unfortunately there is a large segment of the population possessing mediocre or worse intellectual capacity — Who now think they’re all bloody geniuses because they managed to slave through a few years of criminally expensive, abysmally unproductive and ridiculously dumbed-down “education-cum-indoctrination”.

I could not even begin to guess how many times in the years since the internet became a consideration I’ve had to tell someone, totally justified and without snark, “If you paid for that education you’re so proud of, you were robbed and should try to get your money back.”

Even as simple a thing as mastering spelling, in a age of spell-checking software, is beyond most of these types. They have not learned any sort of objective, critical thinking skills and are strangers to the basic principles of logic. You can recognize them everywhere you see them attacking any deviance from their sycophancy. Which boils down to the idea …

“We are tolerant as long as you agree with us. If you do not agree with us we cannot defend our positions with facts and reason so we’ll just shout you down until we get you cancelled.”

Which is the ultimate expression of the exercise of raw, bigoted, unreasoning mob power in the modern world. These low people of low mentality are exactly the same people who made up lynch mobs in decades and centuries past. They are the witch-burners and the book burners. They are the concentration camp guards and the whip wielding task masters. They’re not bright enough to come up with any sort of new and structured evil, they are the minions and the followers of evil — They are not new nor original monsters, they are merely mutants of the monsters that have always been among us.

Well written and spot on. My history of very similar comments on YouTube since 2017 is the reason I was cancelled there in late 2020. I’m only surprised I lasted as long as I did. One fairly recent term for the more “educated” among these folks is “midwits”. They think they’re smart, but are incapable of any independent thought or reasoning, and as a result, tend to be easily led. They are, of course, today’s “useful idiot” class, but have considerable sway in society by virtue of their self-touted “educations”. And they flock to careers as educators, journalists, HR functionaries, social media moderators and executives, and politicians…where they can do the most possible damage.

The problem with the elites, as someone pointed out not too long ago, is that now there are too many of them. Get a college education and you are an “elite” worthy of having your opinion reach millions and never be questioned. In days gone by a high school diploma, and then a BS or BA degree, were real accomplishments, suggesting some capabilities or abilities above the average. But now “everyone is qualified” to the point that almost no one is truly qualified to pontificate with real knowledge and insight on any topic (especially social and political ones). And they become cowards afraid to expose their views to honest constructive criticism that might diminish their self esteem or merely show them to have been mistaken on some minor point.

There are fewer and fewer true elites that most people can look up to, or aspire to equal. Once the exalted reputations of the woke universities and major commercial firms decline due to mediocre performance of their graduates and/or employees, maybe there will be a reckoning. But I am not sure of any way to hurry that “social justice” along to completion. It might still take a decade or two?

That’s an excellent point. One other thing about our “educated elites”; in previous generations when far less people went to university, only the brightest (in a book learning sort of way) went to university. In other words, College was for smart people. Once they graduated and joined the work force, this knowledge that they were able to absorb improved the general welfare and well being of the entire population.
Now, the majority of people who reach college age actually go to college. We (as a nation) have come to believe that college makes you smart. This is a fallacy that dooms this cadre of college educated numbskulls with dumbed down degrees purchased as great cost, often financed and at a loss of 4-6 years of wage earning in a more appropriate profession.
In summary: College is for smart people, college doesn’t make you smart.

College can’t be for smart people as so many of them are ignorant and stupid. Unless it is STEM and the stupid has even contaminated the STEM. But we still need engineers and physicians and scientists.

Hi Bill,
Excellent analysis and commentary. It sounds like you and I had very similar childhoods. Most of the college students I teach here in the Midwest grew up in a way closer to what you and I did but I have certainly seen the type you described in this video. However, outside of the Midwest (and even on other campuses of the college I teach for) I know there is a higher concentration of the students you were describing. I am deeply concerned for our country if those students truly represent the majority of the next generation.

Ah, this ‘un has the fire and pacing of a good ol’ Firewall. I like all the MB2As, but this one has something extra in the delivery.
A couple ruminations of my own…
When I was a lad, growing up in the 1970s, I never knew how good I had it compared to the over-parented kids of today. Out all day playing with my friends, out of reach, out of earshot, out of all contact, with anyone over the age of 12 until the end of the day. Exploring forest wildernesses. Walking to elementary school, and walking back again. My best friend was ‘latchkey,’ as they would call it later. He loved having the whole house to himself until his mom came back from work. I never felt endangered, I never felt unsafe or unloved. I knew every single family on our street, and they knew me. Most of them had school age children. I knew that if I ever got hurt or in trouble I could go to any one of them. With all that time outside playing, my friends and I never got into smoking, drinking, drugs, or sex to pass the time, either– we never saw the need, because we were never bored.
Everything is cyclical. Maybe it’ll take a couple generations, but after the baby boomers and the genXers sail west, the grandchildren of the Delicate Monsters will rediscover what it’s like to play outside.

As a retired test pilot, I am pessimistic and cynical by nature. it is baked in at this point.
I’d like to think this will blow over, but what is different between “now” and “then” is how much differently the world looks from one generation to the next. A child from 1000 AD dropped into 1900 AD would fit right in with hardly a hitch. A child from 1970 (like me) dropped into 2020 would find himself in a bewildering world where he would no doubt find himself ostracized and isolated in minutes. Add to this the unknown damage being done to them by the China Virus lockdowns and I am concerned.
Finally, in previous generations, the ability for a cultish or destructive mentality to penetrate the population at large was negligible. Now, thanks to social media and the click bait main stream media, the ability for one idiot to influence millions or even billions of people is a key stroke away.
Unless I see this pendulum swing hard and fast in the other direction in the next couple years I think we are doomed.

We were always doomed. Crashes and extinction of culture are cyclic. I just didn’t want it to happen during my lifetime.

Bill – I was also a latchkey kid in the 70s. I will relate two quick anecdotes.
When I was in the 2nd grade, my mother was already back in the workforce and one of the neighbors, whose son was my age, would meet the bus. One day, he gets of the bus and she asks, where’s Ron? Oh, he decided to walk home from school. I was 7 and it was 2.5 miles. She freaked out, jumped in her car. They found me as I was walking into our neighborhood. Made for an entertaining story at family gatherings. I didn’t think it was a big deal, it was a nice day. Now kids in my neighborhood can’t walk to the school that is 0.3 miles away.
The second jumps to Jr. High when having the house to myself came with a couple of perks. One, when friends came over we could dabble with my dad’s liquor cabinet. The second, more interesting life skill was the note I found from my mom telling me what to make for dinner, for the family not just myself. I had some skill and this was my mom’s way of nurturing that and also making her life easier. We ate some not great stuff, but I have never had to rely on someone else to cook for me and if needed could get a job in a decent restaurant.

Lol, my Dad had a liquor cabinet too … Made from an old console TV set with the guts removed and a bit of Dad’s magic woodworking skills applied. He put this cute little lock on it but … the doors had hinge pins that were incredibly easy to remove.

I’ve always been amazed that some people think their male children do not need to learn “housework” chores. Like cooking and doing their own laundry. You’re not really, fully a man unless you can fend for and maintain yourself in whatever environment you find yourself in. I’m not saying anything about apocalyptic survivalist skills here, I mean bachelor survival.

Even when you’re married there can be times when you and your spouse are unavoidably temporarily separated. I think it’s demeaning to both man and woman for a man not to be able to cook his own meals, do his own laundry and keep his living area sanitary and at least somewhat tidy.

… and I personally know people like that. I have a friend who’s a doctor and retired Naval Medical Officer, rank of Captain, who is like that. It’s pathetic and I tell him so every chance I get.

I was having this discussion with my neighbor whose grown grandson (a surly little twit who at that time was attending a civilian flight school) was standing there while we were talking. I tried to include him in the conversation by asking him if he knew how to do his own laundry.

He said “No, but I know how to fly a plane.”

I replied “I know how to fly a plane too, and I can do it without stinking up the cockpit wearing dirty clothes because I know how to do my own laundry AND fly a plane.”

LOL – I have an older brother and sister. For each of our 10th birthdays my mom’s gift was a laundry basket and laundry detergent. She was done doing our laundry at that point. As a freshman in college, there was one guy who went home every other weekend with his laundry for his mom to wash. We were fairly merciless with him. 2 years later, he was my roommate. We had a full sized washer and dryer in our apartment. I taught him how to do his own laundry and clean a bath room. Tried to teach him to cook, but some skills are too hard for some people to learn.

Yey, we finally got the padded playgrounds episode.
It covered lot of ground, but I think plenty still left so looking for a part 2. Also it would be nice to get some advice too on what to do about it, for most other episodes the solution is fairly straightforward just requires the resources/will to engage. Not for this. Even for the still “active” cases it’s a territory covered with landmines. And most of the spoliling already happened in the past.

Of course he doesn’t. If he really wanted to know more all he had to do was click the citation link to the article this video is based on. Read my reply to him above. There are some great ideas on what to do and organizations of people who are doing those things, only a click away.

Seriously, watch this Paul Balrog guy. “Insidious” is a word that comes to mind. I could be wrong and it won’t be the first time but he seems to me an awful lot of what he says is like the Serpent in the Garden saying “Yes, but did God say …?”

I have no patience with fork-tonged sophistry and my views are my own, I’m just pointing out what I see after several exchanges with this person.

Then again, someone who claims to be “From the Central EU” yet won’t even say what country they’re sitting in tends to make my suspicious nature flare up. He’s not avoiding his government, they already know where his butt is planted. He’s avoiding tell us, which is suspect as I can see no reason to do that even with all my internet privacy paranoia.

Bill and Co cited the article this video is based on. If you had done your due diligence you’d have clicked that citation, read the article, watched the embedded video and thereby have your questions answered — Rather than expecting to have everything handed to you on a silver platter …Which suspiciously resembles what Bill is talking about above. Had you done that you’d know about FIRE, Let Grow and Free Range Kids.

So …

Your disinterest in further exploration of presented reference materials hardly compel a new episode on this topic. This looks complete enough to me and considering limited resources on the part of billwhittle.com I see no reason to add more to this topic simply because you can’t be bothered to click a link that contains what you want to know.

Well, except the article does not even attempt to answer the practical questions like how to get anything through the MOTHER — and all the organisations that are trigger happy to intervene on all the invented dangers. So your heavenly voice again falls flat.
Those who HAVE actual children and found a way around this common madness could actually share some tips instead of just bragging about being on top of it.

What do you mean “get anything through the MOTHER…”? That doesn’t make any sense in English.

Do you mean “how to convince mothers not to do this to their kids?”

If so, good luck with that. If people who do this to their kids were susceptible to reason and logic this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.

As far as we who have (or had, mine are all grown up now) kids giving people tips … Don’t follow the lights (quoting Gollum telling Frodo how not to drown in the Dead Marshes …)

What country do you live in?

I wonder if the seeds of this thinking were planted with stories like The Bridge to Terabithia and The Day of The Last Rock Fight. These stories are read over and over by teachers to young kids, and are grim as heck kids drown or have their heads crushed by stones. Add satanic panic, serial killers, and the drug war and you have a recipe for parental terror.

I gave birth to my first child when I was living in Atlanta in the early ’80s and the fear was palpable… I decided it was safer to raise a child in Israel… ironically… and my Israeli husband really didn’t want to stay in North America… Children here still have a fairly free early childhood (even in Corona time) and learn in rustic kindergartens whose yards are often filled with junk and a place to plant… not sure when it became a law but children under 9 are not allowed to cross the road themselves… and then during high school they go to pre-army camp for a couple of weeks out of their comfort zones… the army definitely prepares you to deal with crap and stupidity but you also learn to function in a system and to just get your work done…sometimes it creates bonds that can last a lifetime and a network for future endeavours… certainly for the men who go on to do reserve duty till age 45… my husband loved his yearly “jaunts” and didn’t quit till they forced him to retire…
our kids can’t afford to be fragile… neither can we…

There were/are safer and more decent places to raise kids in the US than Atlanta. I’m not faulting your choice to move to Israel I’m just pointing out that not everyone has such an option.

I’m not Jewish but I lived in Israel for a while — So I have a good scope of understanding regarding that nation and agree that for you it was probably one of the better choices. I left some things and some people behind there and often wonder these days what might have been.

I raised my two sons in a small-town upper Midwestern rural agrarian area. We lived in the country. It was a great place to raise kids. They had to use their imaginations and that being the days before internet they usually had to invent their own entertainment. Coming from those roots has served them well.

By that time longitudinally speaking I’d already been around most of the world. Weirdly my wife always looked at our little backwater community and bucolic rural lives with disdain. Though she was born and had spent her life within a few dozen miles of where we lived she considered it “no-where-ville”. Having had no other experience in the larger world she literally could not see the forest for the trees and did not grasp how blessed she was. She was always talking about getting out of there and moving somewhere more cosmopolitan and I was always saying “No, you don’t know what you’re asking for. This is a good place, count your blessings.” The grass is rarely greener on the far side of the hill.

Shalom.

My grandparents lost their house in the Depression. After years of scraping by, my grandfather got a good job offer 250 miles away. When he and my grandmother left to set up housekeeping there, they left my dad with family friends to finish out the school year. To join them, my 15 or 16 year old father rode his bike (one speed, of course) the 250 miles to join them. That was sometime in the early 1940s. Today, my 30 something neighbors admit – without the least bit of embarrassment – they are afraid to go up higher than the second or third rung on a ladder.

First of all, I’d like to say I don’t like Rumble because I don’t care to watch whatever they decide to show after your videos and you have to be quick it cancel them.

Now as I remember my childhood, we had to be home at 5:00 for dinner or not get it, then if we went out after dinner, we had to be home as soon as the streetlights came on. Other than that, we could basically do whatever we cared to do. The only “playdates” I had was during my dad’s squadron parties when all the kids from the pilot’s families were thrown together and had to “be nice” to each other. The moms would occasionally check on us, but not unless there was a ruckus going on. Saturday was game day when all the neighborhood boys got together and played sandlot hardball with no supervision. You could tell how popular you were by how you got chosen for sides. Nobody wanted to be the last man chosen. It only made you want to play harder!

We had a fistfight happen one day at a game and one kid went home bloody. His dad came back with him and asked what happened. We told him and explained that his kid was the one who instigated the whole thing. He actually was satisfied and lit into his son right there! That shocked us all because we thought WE’D get in trouble. You don’t find parents like that today.

I raised my son basically the same way I was, but he’s 31 years old now. I feel sorry for today’s kids.

My suggestion would be to not watch the video on Rumble. Watch it on Bill’s website. There is no follow-up, or pre-advert, or any advertisement of any kind. But then that requires you to be a member. Not a member? Then stop complaining. Oh, and then sign up to be a member.

Add an ad blocker extension to your browser or use one that blocks ads as a feature, like Brave or Dissenter.

I don’t think you can read the blog or post comments if you are not a member. Therefore, David is a member as he is posting to the blog.

Thank you for that. I’m running Ad Blocker Ultimate and Kaspersky Total Security, but if it’s posted on Rumble on the website, you have no choice. I also have Dissenter and use Gab as a social media. Any more questions?

It was Thomas Walton who mentioned advertisements. Others here might not know how to avoid them so I mentioned my methods.

I think some wires got crossed in the conversation above. Rumble auto-plays the next up video whether you watch it on this site (billwhittle.com) or not. The next up video is not an advertisement, it’s just the next video Rumble thinks you would be interested in.

I’m not interested in their selections for perpetual video play and it’s annoying as hell. It’s a function of Rumble and the HTML interface between this site and Rumble.

YouTube has a button control you can set to stop auto play. Rumble does not. It has to be done on the website link and it’s out of our hands. Several others and I have looked into this and the upshot is — Until Scott or whoever is operating the site gets that figured out we’re stuck with auto play.

I’m still digging into it so if I turn up anything useful I’ll post it in a blog. I HATE auto play.

I hate it with you. It was bad enough when I couldn’t get it to shut off on Youtube a couple of years ago. Even now with a movie playlist.

This is spot on and explains so much about how surprisingly compliant and excessively and abnormally (at least regarding our history) fearful so much of the American population has become and naively believing in so-called “experts,” as well as in mainstream media. This explains how in such a brief time we went from living normal human lives, as in keeping with eons of our history, to being willing to wearing masks, becoming germophobic and willing to destroy our whole economy and businesses and culture in fear of a virus. This is after being told that it would just be for 15 days! Yet it turns out probably more like 15 months, if not more, if not unending. Over a year ago Americans would had scoffed at the idea that in a few months we would be clinging to mask wearing (like a cult fetish that our society can no longer do without). So much for the bold and tough American. Some of my relatives, skiers, adventures and ocean travelers have turned into scared rabbits who are literally afraid to go outdoors or to eat in restaurants. How tragic and pathetic. Thanks, Bill, you have kept your promise to provide more and better content as myself and others have financially given you ongoing support. Blessings!

One of my greatest laments is that my grandchildren will not enjoy the same freedoms and relative autonomy as I did as a child. The richness of my childhood experiences still resonates. I would have had it no other way.

I think so, too. I’d never heard it before this morning, but apparently it’s been around a while. And has also apparently fallen out of use, looking around at what’s going on.

The other side, also known as “The Left”, has weaponized control in the home. The idea that parents can and have been imprisoned based on nothing more than other peoples opinions and armchair parenting.
This child welfare system funds/supports the investigators livelihoods. So it is their best interest to justify their jobs. Also they are given god like powers to determine right and wrong without any recourse if determined to be wrong. Good luck proving that you didn’t endanger your child when, like cops, the welfare investigator has preferential status and treatment by the system and courts. Courts, prisons, prosecutors, social workers, and all the “The Left”, are all invested and intertwined in a self sustaining circle of control and support funding.
Good luck standing up to something that under child abuse laws starts with this simple fact, “You are presumed guilty and have to prove your innocence”. Sounds crazy right, its not the American way, it can’t be legal right? It was set up this way to “protect the children” and if you don’t support it you are evil. Forget that you can’t defend yourself nor will they even necessarily tell you what you did or even didn’t do. Right now you can go to jail for not supporting your 5 year old’s desire to change their sexual preference.

In addition many of these “investigators” are childless themselves so have little or no experience with children and methods of raising them. They are similar to the “experts” in the education departments of government who have never actually taught in a classroom. So many of their edicts just don’t work in any practical sense.

The megaphone of the media, and the slavish attention paid to it by too many people, is a huge part of the problem. Of course, the Karens out there are ever vigilant to rat out, in the interest of safety of course, any child over the age of 4 having fun, doing kid things, learning important lessons, social and basic living skills, and just possibly running a .00001% chance of serious injury.

Part of the problem, too, is that parents are opting to only have one child, maybe two, increasing their sense of investment and importance of the little queen or king into which they divest all their energy, money and time – helicoptering in order words.

“Megaphone of the media”, I like that term. And to define the problem further, there’s the repetitive nature of the media, showing the same story and the same video clip over and over and over for weeks on end. Small wonder that parents think that there’s a sexual predator hiding behind every shrub, a kid being run over in every crosswalk or a school shooting every day. I can still see the images of the kids running out of the Columbine High School in Colorado, and that happened more than 20 years ago.

Your observation about “only” children is absolutely correct. I know so many who have parents hovering over them, and long past what was traditionally known as childhood because their well-meaning parents have no other identity other than being “(insert child’s name) parent”.

I remember when I was much younger watching a TV show where some woman was complaining about Dodge ball and how unfair it was and how it harmed her child’s self confidence. Even then they were teaching that you give kids this and that it isn’t earned. It’s been getting worse ever since.

We moved to a rural mountain community when our 3 kids were still in grade school so we could raise them in an environment that was safer, and one that would let them roam free. We had a few trips to the emergency room when the rock-throwing contests or tree-climbing adventures ended up with a mishap, but over all they enjoyed the freedoms we had as kids.
When they became parents, 2 out of 3 of them went the over-protective route. They happily joined the Helicopter Parent Brigade. The one who chose to raise his kids closer to how he was raised looks at his nephews and shakes his head. His siblings look at him and can’t understand why he didn’t micromanage his kids they way they did-and still do. By the time they had kids, they’d swallowed the line that we had been derelict parents, exposing them to all kinds of dangers.
We look at all of this and see that even though we raised them with a fair dose of personal freedom, they were heavily influenced by the culture and by their peers. Culture is a very insidious and powerful force. To change it, we need to be prepared for battle at all levels, and willing to put up with abuse of all kinds, especially from people we care about. Because 2 or our kids see us as incompetent parents they feel free to be disrespectful and critical. Although they say they love us dearly they often feel betrayed by us. It makes for contentious conversation at times!

My son was about 10 at the time and one day he says to me “Shut up.”

It was the last time.
He wasn’t beaten but I did make clear that everything in this house–my house–belonged to me and everything he has he got from me and I would remove all but the basics and he’d be living in an empty room until he got a clue. No more legos, no more video games, no more computer, no more bed. None of that needed to be done however. None of that behavior came up again.

He did have a problem with slamming his bedroom door. I just took it off the hinges and put it out in the shed. He had to create a solution for himself so he could still have some privacy. The door is still in the shed and my son now lives in his own apartment after earning two Engineering degrees and working in his chosen profession.

“None of that needed to be done however. None of that behavior came up again.”

Because well disciplined children not only require very little punishment but the punishments they do earn are correct, proportionate and irrevocable. Clearly your son was aware or became aware that no amount of whining, temper tantrums, pouting or cajoling was going to put that door back on its hinges. Ergo in the shed it still resides to this day.

My two boys knew that no meant no, end of story, no appeal, no whining, no tantrums and anything like that meant not only “no” but further disciplinary action. I would cringe watching kids wheedle a “yes” out of a parent who said “no” and even more so if they managed to get their way by doing so.

We (their mother and I) did not deal out “no” without hearing them out. The rule was to state your case as best you can. Then if I said “no” it was no. If your mom says “no” it’s no. If I say no and you go ask your mom and she says “yes” then it’s still no. If you ask your mom and she says “no” then you come and ask me and I say “yes” … It’s still “no”. Once “no” has been spoken, it’s the default and the rule. If we learn more or see where we have made a mistake that could change but you can’t change it. Only we can do that and we’re not inclined to do so.

On our property their mom and I were co-Tyrants. Live with it. Or not but in either case do it quietly without damaging anything or outward tantrums that will get you both “no” and disciplinary action. We lived in a big, old, very solid multi-story farm house that had copper pipes in the basement and brass door knobs everywhere. I bought Brasso by the case, take “no” in any way we disapproved of and you may end up polishing every pipe in the basement, or every doorknob in the house or both. This will give you much time to reflect on the wisdom of tantrums and whining, and why that works on other parents but not on us. Because you won’t be going anywhere but necessities (school and later school and work) until your assigned polishing task has been finished, inspected and approved.

Today one is an Electrical Engineer and one is second in command of a US Naval Base. Seems like they weren’t horribly scarred by the parenting they got.

The thing about kids raised this way is that they are happier, more well-rounded, more capable human beings. You are given a small human shaped blob of lipids, calcium, proteins and trace elements when they are born. It’s up to you to mold that into a person and not just a human-shaped animal. The methods for this successful molding process are well known as they have been developed and refined over thousands of years.

This is the great advantage of conservatism. We stick with what we know works and tweak it to fit the situation or improve the technique. Leftists pretend they have superior all new radical solutions and never acknowledge that their methods are not new, novel or original just because they changed some labels.

An interesting story. For me, it was the reverse: I was brought up by some of the original Helicopter Parents — a rare phenomenon back in the early 60s. They meant well but they also sent a very mixed message. They wanted to know where I was at all times, and with whom, and what we were doing or planned to do, but then they expressed surprise that I was reluctant to go out and knock on a neighbor’s door and make my own play dates (instead of waiting for a friend to come looking for me). I wasn’t allowed to have a skateboard as a kid because some doctor on the news had said that they were too dangerous (“Listen to the science!!!”), yet there was dismay that their kid ended up being a non-athlete in school. So it’s also a matter of consistency, practicing what you preach. I don’t look back at my parents as incompetent or derelict. I just think that they tried too hard and, in the process, let a lot of their fears and hangups get in the way.

Oh, Bill, Bill, Bill … It’s even worse than you describe.

One of the very most insidious “course corrections” in the parenting world was the pervasive idea among certain more “progressive” groups of parents that said “I wanna be my kids best friend”.

Being a parent is not the same as being a friend. It’s better, closer and more rewarding than any friendship, even the deepest and most enduring friendship. Being a parent is better than being a friend. Being your kids friend is a downgrade and a drastic one.

Friends are peers, always. Think about this, how many actual friends do you have that you would not consider your peers? Is it right to make a peer out of your young child? Does your son or daughter share the same depth of life experience and the concurrent gained wisdom that you have? Will a child listen to perfectly good, sensible reasoning when confronted with something they don’t like, don’t want to do or want to do but you won’t let them?

Does a friend tell you when your bedtime is and check to make sure you brushed your teeth before bed? Does a friend make you do your homework before you can go play after school? How many of your friends have made you eat your vegetables or clean your plate of the food you took at dinner? Do your friends take your car keys away when you get a bad annual review at work the way a parent might, or ought, when a kid gets a report card grade that is beneath his ability? Etc., y’all get the point by now.

Trying to be your kids very best friend is an abdication of parenthood for something simpler and easier. It requires less thought, less love and less attention than actually being a parent and raising your children. If you are a good parent the day will come when your children are also your friends and much more. If you’ve done your job right as a parent you will always be at or very near the top of the list of your kid’s favorite people. Despite the fact that you disciplined them when they needed it and helped them to learn to discipline themselves. Because while well disciplined children require very little punishment, “very little” and “none” are not the same thing..

One day when my oldest grandson was here a few months ago we were having a conversation. I don’t remember what it was about. During that conversation he said “Grampa, you sound just like Dad” and it wasn’t a complaint. I smiled and said “No, your Dad sounds just like me. If you do a good job with your kids, your son will say that about you and your Dad.”

That was one of the most satisfying moments in my life and I doubt my grandson will remember it … Until as I predicted he hears it for himself from the next generation.

One of the things you said resonated with me, but I feel it needs expansion.
“Friends are peers, always… Does your son or daughter share the same depth of life experience and the concurrent gained wisdom that you have? Will a child listen to perfectly good, sensible reasoning when confronted with something they don’t like, don’t want to do or want to do but you won’t let them?”
To be a friend to your child means to bring yourself down to their level! They cannot operate at the level of maturity you possess, so you would need to basically reduce yourself to the level of their maturity.
That’s not the way an adult should act, and not the way to be an example to a child. the job of an adult is to show, by example, the way in which an adult acts, and makes decisions.
They need to look up to us. they can’t do that if we’re operating at their level.

Exactly so. Trying to be your child’s “friend” is the height of egocentric narcissism, not an expression of real love for your kids but the opposite. People who do that don’t really do it for their kids, they do it for themselves and thereby place their own selfish emotional comfort ahead of the basic needs their own progeny — To the detriment of both parent and child.

When my son Richard was about 12 or 13, he and some of his friends were in front of the house with boards and bricks jumping their bike over them. At one point he came running in and asked me to come a watch. I said, if I come out I will have to stop you because it is not safe to do that, so, do you want me to come out? He thought for a second, then said no and ran back outside. I still watched from inside as I had done from the beginning.

We have to let them take chances and learn.

These spoiled cry babies can demand what they want, but I guarantee that they will eventually meet many of us who actually realize how the world works: life always ends with death and monsters are to be exterminated.

I was commenting to a friend a while back about how you could tell where “the kids” were by looking for the pile of bicycles in a front yard. When I go out bike riding now ( yes, as an old fart ) I am surprised how few kids I ever see outside in a neighborhood. And it was that way *before* Covid.

And the saddest part is it’s our (the generations that “raised” them) fault. Is it fixable once you have a couple of generations of snowflake monsters?

Bravo! My sentiments exactly. I hate this “we” stuff, as though through some magical thinking “we” are all at fault for the collective ills of the world, society and the political state of our nation. WE who have done things well by our families, communities and country should never be included in that collectively blamed “we”.

I pointed this out to Bill a while back. I will not participate in guilt parties.

I don’t tolerate that kind of nonsense and I’m happy to see others who do not either.

Yes, that concept is flawed “municipal” thinking which opens the door for someone else, anyone else, to apply the parenting you and your chromosomal opposite should be applying. It is the excuse that generates the “we’re taking over raising your kids because we know better how to do that than you do.” heresy.

I believe it is. the pendulum always swings back.
Their kids will rebel against the restrictions and monitoring, go off on their own and learn to be kids. They’ll hide the bruises and scrapes so as not to upset their snowflake parents, and deal with things on their own.

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