The Idolization of Children Is the Hatred of Them

Permanent, irresponsible adolescence permeates modern Western society, from those adults who spend more hours in the day on Xbox than they do talking to loved ones, through to those for whom the failure of a sports team is grounds for serious depression and even, in extreme cases, thoughts of suicide. At least in the West we live in a world where the battle simply for survival is, by and large, over, or at least not imminent: few of us do not know when and whence our next meal is coming; there are no famines in Britain and America as there have been in Africa; and ethnic cleansing is not something that many of us experience on a daily basis. We have plenty of material possessions and do not struggle in the way that even our grandparents may have had to do in the twenties and thirties. Yet we live in a world where anxiety levels are high, where suicide is not that uncommon, and where the national bill for anti-depressants is awe-inspiring.

Why is this the case? Mohler suggests, and I think he is right, that the coddling and over-protection of children has created a generation many of whose members have no sense of proportion, no ability to take responsibility for themselves, and no capacity for handling set-backs and contradictions. Just look at the blog world, where all kinds of crazy, extremist rhetoric is used about absolute trivia. Then just reflect on emails you have probably received, how rude and abrupt and extreme people are prepared to be electronically, compared to how sycophantic and spineless they often are face to face. The virtual world is a mirror of reality: a place where everyone demands to be heard on anything they want to speak about, yet where nobody has to take responsibility or face the consequences of their actions.   Read it all HERE

Boys Adrift

Last week I posted a review of The Death of the Grown-Up by Diana West, a book that takes a hard look at our cultural obsession with immaturity. That review garnered quite a bit of attention, so I thought it might be interesting to go into the archives and pull out a review of another book I read some time ago, one with a fair bit of overlap—Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax. It takes a look at what may well be some of the background to some of this immaturity.

Something strange is going on with boys today. My memories of boyhood revolve around the great outdoors—running through fields with hockey stick guns, climbing trees, playing any and every sport, getting sunburns, heatstroke, ticks, sprained ankles and all the other bumps and bruises guaranteed to come to an active, rambunctious boy. Though today I live in a neighborhood filled with boys, rarely do I see them out and about; rarely do I see them engaging in the activities we’d expect of them. Something has changed. So many boys are inactive and unmotivated. Continue Reading>>>