BY THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, many adults were willing to play the role of victim. At the same time, many children were being raised to believe that they should not and could not, on their own, rise to the challenges that life would likely present. On the advice of psychologists, parents of the 1990s and 2000s worked hard to give their children setback-free childhoods. They supervised their children’s play to prevent mishaps, and when accidents nevertheless happened, they cleaned up the resulting messes rather than expecting their children to do so. Likewise, when disputes arose among
...more
