The Age of Coddling Is Over

Learning what hardship has to teach us.

Over the past decades, a tide of “safetyism” has crept over American society. As Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt put it in their book “The Coddling of the American Mind,” this is the mentality that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. The goal is to eliminate any stress or hardship a child might encounter, so he or she won’t be wounded by it.

So we’ve seen a wave of overprotective parenting. Parents have cut back on their children’s unsupervised outdoor play because their kids might do something unsafe. As Kate Julian reports in “The Anxious Child and the Crisis of Modern Parenting” in The Atlantic, parents are now more likely to accommodate their child’s fears: accompanying a 9-year-old to the toilet because he’s afraid to be alone, preparing different food for a child because she won’t eat what everyone else eats.

Meanwhile schools ban dodge ball and inflate grades. Since 2005 the average G.P.A. in affluent high schools has risen from about 2.75 to 3.0 so everybody can feel affirmed.

It’s been a disaster. This overprotective impulse doesn’t shelter people from fear; it makes them unprepared to deal with the fear that inevitably comes. Suicide rates are way up, depression rates have skyrocketed, especially for girls. As Julian notes, a staggering number of doctor visits now end with a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication, like Xanax or Valium.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/opinion/coronavirus-medical-training.html

Helicopter parenting.

It is a problem.

But on the other hand it's mostly something I read about, not something I see with my kids and their peers.

Maybe it's because rednecks use different parenting skills.

Maddog wrote:Helicopter parenting.  

It is a problem.

But on the other hand it's mostly something I read about, not something I see with my kids and their peers.  

Maybe it's because rednecks use different parenting skills.  

Interesting. Do you think there is a religious background factor to this in Texas generally?

Thorin wrote:

Maddog wrote:Helicopter parenting.  

It is a problem.

But on the other hand it's mostly something I read about, not something I see with my kids and their peers.  

Maybe it's because rednecks use different parenting skills.  

Interesting. Do you think there is a religious background factor to this in Texas generally?

Hard to say. Texas is less progressive. Does religion play a part? Probably. But we have pretty diverse religions too.

I think we are often what is referred to as "old school". There are still districts here that paddle kids with parental permission.

God, I’ve been saying this for years! Parents have mutated into these weird human beings that aren’t creating independent humans but little pansy, anxious humans.
I also blame the whole PC culture for this too.

I know a woman who has three sons ranging from 20, 23 and 25. They have jobs but all still live at home. She still irons their clothes! They can’t even cook for themselves. I totally do not get it. My son has been ironing, cooking and independently able to look after himself since the age of sixteen. Of course, when he’s back from uni I still cook family dinners but he will often come in the kitchen to season the meat for himself and Ben, or cook chips from scratch.

I worry for the future of these wrapped-in-cotton-wool kids.

Perhaps Maddog doesn't mix with the same kind of Texans as I have, but I've seen parents there who are of the helicopter variety and parents there who the opposite extreme, negligent and/or ignorant. You really can't generalize.

Ideally, parents would be astute enough and sensitive enough to guide their kids through childhood with the right mix of protectiveness and exposure to negative experiences. But it's fucking hard to do, and I find it hard to fault anyone in particular for screwing it up at least now and again. I also think that we learn lessons when our parents screw up.

Ben Reilly wrote:Perhaps Maddog doesn't mix with the same kind of Texans as I have, but I've seen parents there who are of the helicopter variety and parents there who the opposite extreme, negligent and/or ignorant. You really can't generalize.

Ideally, parents would be astute enough and sensitive enough to guide their kids through childhood with the right mix of protectiveness and exposure to negative experiences. But it's fucking hard to do, and I find it hard to fault anyone in particular for screwing it up at least now and again. I also think that we learn lessons when our parents screw up.

I mix with every kind under the sun. I would say that my circle of relations is about as diverse as they come.

The redneck comment was a bit tongue and cheek for the forum fool that uses that term to generalize people around here.

But, statistically, we are more conservative, even our minorities and immigrants. Texas attracts people of a different mindset than other places, even if we are not all rednecks.

Maddog wrote:

Ben Reilly wrote:Perhaps Maddog doesn't mix with the same kind of Texans as I have, but I've seen parents there who are of the helicopter variety and parents there who the opposite extreme, negligent and/or ignorant. You really can't generalize.

Ideally, parents would be astute enough and sensitive enough to guide their kids through childhood with the right mix of protectiveness and exposure to negative experiences. But it's fucking hard to do, and I find it hard to fault anyone in particular for screwing it up at least now and again. I also think that we learn lessons when our parents screw up.

I mix with every kind under the sun. I would say that my circle of relations is about as diverse as they come.

The redneck comment was a bit tongue and cheek for the forum fool that uses that term to generalize people around here.

But, statistically, we are more conservative, even our minorities and immigrants. Texas attracts people of a different mindset than other places, even if we are not all rednecks.

Conservatives don't necessarily coddle their children less than liberals do. Some of the worst cases of helicopter parenting I've seen have come from dyed-in-the-wool Republicans.

Scientifically speaking, the conservative mindset has been strongly linked to tendencies such as obsessive cleanliness and avoidance of novel experiences, both of which don't always help children.

Ben Reilly wrote:

Maddog wrote:

I mix with every kind under the sun. I would say that my circle of relations is about as diverse as they come.

The redneck comment was a bit tongue and cheek for the forum fool that uses that term to generalize people around here.

But, statistically, we are more conservative, even our minorities and immigrants. Texas attracts people of a different mindset than other places, even if we are not all rednecks.

Conservatives don't necessarily coddle their children less than liberals do. Some of the worst cases of helicopter parenting I've seen have come from dyed-in-the-wool Republicans.

Scientifically speaking, the conservative mindset has been strongly linked to tendencies such as obsessive cleanliness and avoidance of novel experiences, both of which don't always help children.

I said more conservative. Do you consider schools with high black enrollments, that still allow for paddling, to be bastions of conservatism?

But I don't disagree that conservatives tend to place more structure in a kids life. But structure and coddling are not the same.