https://time.com/3910020/the-over-parenting-trap-how-to-avoi...
> So imagine how surprised I was to discover among my more affluent, well-connected students a growing number who seemed to be lacking the ability to make their way independently in the world, as, frankly, 18-22 year olds always had been able to do and just as crucially, used to desire to do. I’m deliberately being vague about what exactly was missing in so many students because frankly I couldn’t quite tell at first. Something was just off. Odd. It took most of my ten years as dean before I figured out what exactly the problem was.
For starters, each year my students were more and more and more and more accomplished. The grades, but not just the grades: the scores. And not just the grades and the scores but the awards, and the accolades, and the activities, and community service, and leadership, and, and, and, and, and, every other prospect for perfection. Yet each year I noticed that more and more could tell you what they’d done but not so much why they’d done it.
I’m old enough that helicopter parenting wasn’t a thing when I was a kid. I find the whole phenomenon incomprehensible.
But, yeah, I imagine people used to accomplish more before everyone got so damned risk adverse.