A Nation Of Wimps

by Hara Estroff Marano - Article from November 2004 - Psychology Today

Parents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the bumps out of life for their children. However, parental hyperconcern has the net effect of making kids more fragile; that may be why they're breaking down in record numbers.

No one doubts that there are significant economic forces pushing parents to invest so heavily in their children's outcome from an early age. But taking all the discomfort, disappointment and even the play out of development, especially while increasing pressure for success, turns out to be misguided by just about 180 degrees. With few challenges all their own, kids are unable to forge their creative adaptations to the normal vicissitudes of life. That not only makes them risk-averse, it makes them psychologically fragile, riddled with anxiety. In the process they're robbed of identity, meaning and a sense of accomplishment, to say nothing of a shot at real happiness. Forget, too, about perseverance, not simply a moral virtue but a necessary life skill. These turn out to be the spreading psychic fault lines of 21st-century youth. Whether we want to or not, we're on our way to creating a nation of wimps.

No one doubts it, and yet we seem unable to do anything about it. That too is a sign of this nation, dominated by Judges who have rigged everyting to be decided by our courts, and with no one accountable for anything. Someone else can be found to sue for any failure that you experience. It is not your fault. It is the fault of all those other people who made you fail or should not have kept you down.

How dare they.