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A recent discussion about this between Sam Harris and Johnathan Haipt is a good piece about this. Haipt is a professor and he talks about why now. I'm seeing th

A recent discussion about this between Sam Harris and Johnathan Haipt is a good piece about this. Haipt is a professor and he talks about why now. I'm seeing the perfect storm of coddling and often enabling leftist faculty and administration, expensive universities, helicopter parents all comes into play.

dalke 11y ago
There is no perfect storm. Those complaining about the helicopter parenting of today forgot that their grandparents complained about how "kids these days" expect things given to them on a silver platter. The phrase changed, which makes it seem like the concept is new. But it isn't. When this came up before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10404752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10404752 ) I found quotes like a 1960 PTA magazine: > 'I've known a lot of kids who were treated like little heroes. Afterward, they expected everything to be handed them on a silver platter— and it wasn't. They couldn't adjust.' "Beyond any doubt, the boys in Williamsport last week were treated as ... A Boys' Life article from July 1937: > We want to teach them not just to sit back and expect things to be handed to them on a silver platter but with confidence, based on their training, to go out and get what they want. We need to stiffen a moral flabbiness that has been affecting our youth. Life Magazine, March 29, 1949: > We have reared a bunch of weaklings in our young marrieds of today. Too much has been handed to them on a silver platter without their having had to work for it, and they lack the intestinal fortitude to meet life as a challenge. Nor is there some recent spurt of left-wing faculty. I think faculty is more centrist than, say, the 1960s. I'll cherry pick https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics as the first page which agreed with me ("Professors lean left, but major new study of faculty views finds more centrism and less radicalism than critics of academe see -- with growing moderation among young academics.") YMMV.

dalke 11y ago

There is no perfect storm. Those complaining about the helicopter parenting of today forgot that their grandparents complained about how "kids these days" expect things given to them on a silver platter. The phrase changed, which makes it seem like the concept is new. But it isn't. When this came up before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10404752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10404752 ) I found quotes like a 1960 PTA magazine: > 'I've known a lot of kids who were treated like little heroes. Afterward, they expected everything to be handed them on a silver platter— and it wasn't. They couldn't adjust.' "Beyond any doubt, the boys in Williamsport last week were treated as ... A Boys' Life article from July 1937: > We want to teach them not just to sit back and expect things to be handed to them on a silver platter but with confidence, based on their training, to go out and get what they want. We need to stiffen a moral flabbiness that has been affecting our youth. Life Magazine, March 29, 1949: > We have reared a bunch of weaklings in our young marrieds of today. Too much has been handed to them on a silver platter without their having had to work for it, and they lack the intestinal fortitude to meet life as a challenge. Nor is there some recent spurt of left-wing faculty. I think faculty is more centrist than, say, the 1960s. I'll cherry pick https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics as the first page which agreed with me ("Professors lean left, but major new study of faculty views finds more centrism and less radicalism than critics of academe see -- with growing moderation among young academics.") YMMV.