Well, I hate to put it so harshly, but maybe parents and kids in the US are realizing that life isn't all play and fun, and that's how the rest of the world has

Well, I hate to put it so harshly, but maybe parents and kids in the US are realizing that life isn't all play and fun, and that's how the rest of the world has to live each day. And they'd better keep up. This is what happens when the economic / political barriers to competition are pulled out, and you find out that the rest of the world is ready to outcompete your kids, and the cushion you had being the largest, fastest growing, most resourceful country, no longer holds as much as it did in the past. Sometimes life makes you work hard. And if you give in too much to nostalgia and think that kids' lives ought to be lived in a blissful world free of stress, you're going to be eaten alive by kids whose parents (and who themselves) want better for themselves and are willing to sacrifice a little play time in exchange.