the parents of Baby Boomers were strongly influenced by the writings of childrearing expert Dr. Benjamin Spock, who taught that “children should be permitted to develop at their own pace, not pushed to meet the schedules and rules of adult life.”37 Spock encouraged parents to relax and let children be children, and indeed, Baby Boomers and GenX children were generally given the freedom to roam around their neighborhoods and play without adult supervision. But Putnam notes that, beginning in the 1980s and accelerating in the 1990s, “the dominant ideas and social norms about good parenting [had]
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