> where parents sheltered their kids from everything. It seems like all it's done is make people more vulnerable as adults.

I don't agree that this is "all" that it has done.

There are many cases where reducing exposure as much as possible is the correct thing to do. Lead is the best-known example.

As the other reply pointed out, the second-order effect, the nuance that comes later is that sometimes this isn't the right thing to do.

But it would be basically incorrect to reduce it to blanket, binary, "all good" vs "all bad" black-or-white conclusions, just because the there is a smaller course correction when it's found out to be not entirely good. Concluding that "all it's done is cause problems" is a knee-jerk reaction.