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The Overprotected American Child

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Re: The Overprotected American Child

#51

Post by aphextron »

watwut wrote: post #34
aphextron wrote: post #25

You can always tell when someone grew up like this. They are always afraid of doing anything that might even remotely be considered outside the box. They lack that ability and drive to find things out for themselves, and instead rely on others for help and guidance to a fault. Professional occupations are full of these people who were coddled from birth, through college, and straight into a high paying job with zero…

If they ended in high paying profession and are reasonably happy then maybe their decision to follow advice given to them was right.

>If they ended in high paying profession and are reasonably happy then maybe their decision to follow advice given to them was right.

Absolutely. These people make fantastic employees. But the world needs more than just employees.

Re: The Overprotected American Child

#52

Post by watwut »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #43
toomuchtodo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily, these people rarely have enough confidence to stay in positions of real responsibility.

#silverlining But I don't know how much that mitigates the damage. If good leaders spend all their time cleaning up the mess left behind, it goes pretty far in preventing anything really good from happening.

This seems orthogonal. You project incredibly lot to parent description that basically described someone boring - your average worker that does his job and causes no problems to anyone. Not all that great innovative improvement either which seemed to be his complain.

People who don't follow advice and insist on going out of box all the time tend to generate even more mess behind. And are not great leaders either.

Re: The Overprotected American Child

#53

Post by taeric »

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #36
watwut wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they ended in high paying profession and are reasonably happy then maybe their decision to follow advice given to them was right.

Until some minor setback happens. Then they have a mental breakdown.

Is this something that actually happens, in large? I'd be interested in studies that show this happens more. Meltdowns are far from a new thing in the world.

I mean, they make a nice narrative to shame people for overprotecting their kids. But this basically culminates in three of the major things that give me pause. a) Nice narrative, b) appealing argument without presented evidence, and c) shaming. Combine those and you typically have someone pushing or falling for an argument that has not been proven.

And yes, we all fall for those. All the time. I am not exempt.

Re: The Overprotected American Child

#54

Post by taeric »

aphextron wrote: post #25

You can always tell when someone grew up like this. They are always afraid of doing anything that might even remotely be considered outside the box. They lack that ability and drive to find things out for themselves, and instead rely on others for help and guidance to a fault. Professional occupations are full of these people who were coddled from birth, through college, and straight into a high paying job with zero…

Can you? Or do you just have good selection bias? Or do you just like not liking people?

Reality is most people rely on others for help. And there isn't a damned thing wrong with that. Indeed, the implication of the problem there is that it is not right to help and guide others. How is that ok?

Would it be great if we were all more self sufficient? I think so, but I don't have anything to back that belief. Especially knowing we are social creatures. And, all evidence is we have succeeded in large because we are social creatures. Even the giants among us relied heavily on social influence.

Re: The Overprotected American Child

#55

Post by spamizbad »

aphextron wrote: post #25

You can always tell when someone grew up like this. They are always afraid of doing anything that might even remotely be considered outside the box. They lack that ability and drive to find things out for themselves, and instead rely on others for help and guidance to a fault. Professional occupations are full of these people who were coddled from birth, through college, and straight into a high paying job with zero…

The fact that they tracked into a high paying job despite their risk-aversion and limited ability to think abstractly seems to vindicate their parent's method of raising children.

Most parents aren't trying to raise the next brilliant artist, entrepreneur, or intellectual[1]. They just want their kids to have a stable, safe, happy life.

[1] And those that try often don't know what they're doing and end up inflicting emotional damage, so the best case: A successful but absolutely miserable adult.

Re: The Overprotected American Child

#56

Post by taeric »

closeparen wrote: post #15
viburnum wrote: post #3

Child poverty is the real problem. https://peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/02/16/americas-bizarre...

> "20 percent of US children live in families with incomes below 50 percent of the national median income" This is a bizarre metric. If richer families started having children at a higher rate, or poorer families slowed down, the problem would be fixed? What if we simply cut the pay of the upper 50%, not even redistributing the income? That would lower median income, and therefore shrink the "less than 50% of median…

Well, yes, if richer families started having children at a higher rate, this would almost fix itself.

Two major problems, though. a) By and large, rich people don't have more children and b) having a child is a good way to destroy your wealth. That is, many that are just barely in the "rich" category won't be once they have children. More, most wealth in the US does not survive generations. (And this is generally agreed to be a good thing, I believe.)

For the second, ok. Cut the pay. How? That sort of suggestion is literally "wishful thinking." If everyone could get by with less money, everyone would. Folks do grab for the advantages they can get, though, and most rise in costs and pay are ascribable to scarcity. Only wishful thinking will make housing and energy costs flat across the board. Same for social mobility. Or physical mobility.

Re: The Overprotected American Child

#57

Post by a_imho »

dang wrote: post #49
a_imho wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a place to give feedback to ycombinator or voice your opinion? I'm very well could be in the minority here but I would rather paywalled articles were discouraged.

Yes there is: email us at hn@ycombinator.com. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . The paywall question has long been decided though, and there are lots of previous posts that explain why: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Still would rather posters were encouraged to post an archive link straight or add a [paywall] tag especially with GDPR hurdles, but fair enough.

Re: The Overprotected American Child

#58

Post by ourmandave »

A wallet-sized Let Grow “Kid Card” is meant to be carried by children when they are out on their own, to calm the fears of overly concerned adults.

https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-AQ358_INDEPE_M...

^This here.

Except the Concerned Adults will never get a chance to read it because they'll call the police to rescue the 12-year-old dropped off at the mall by her mom.

https://www.brainchildmag.com/2014/01/guilty-as-charged/

Re: The Overprotected American Child

#59

Post by anonymouskimmer »

closeparen wrote: post #15
viburnum wrote: post #3

Child poverty is the real problem. https://peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/02/16/americas-bizarre...

> "20 percent of US children live in families with incomes below 50 percent of the national median income" This is a bizarre metric. If richer families started having children at a higher rate, or poorer families slowed down, the problem would be fixed? What if we simply cut the pay of the upper 50%, not even redistributing the income? That would lower median income, and therefore shrink the "less than 50% of median…

It's bizarre because it's not parent age adjusted and number of parents adjusted.

If only 20% of children are members of age-adjusted & number of parents adjusted families with income in the bottom half then that means that the bottom half of families are being slowly genocided through the cost to have and raise a child.

But we have no way of knowing that from the national median income statistic.

Re: The Overprotected American Child

#60

Post by anonymouskimmer »

taeric wrote: post #56
closeparen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "20 percent of US children live in families with incomes below 50 percent of the national median income" This is a bizarre metric. If richer families started having children at a higher rate, or poorer families slowed down, the problem would be fixed? What if we simply cut the pay of the upper 50%, not even redistributing the income? That would lower median income, and therefore shrink the "less than 50% of median…

Well, yes, if richer families started having children at a higher rate, this would almost fix itself. Two major problems, though. a) By and large, rich people don't have more children and b) having a child is a good way to destroy your wealth. That is, many that are just barely in the "rich" category won't be once they have children. More, most wealth in the US does not survive generations. (And this is generally agr…

"b) having a child is a good way to destroy your wealth."

I'd like to see a comparison between childless families and families with children, economic starting point held constant. There is the fatherhood bonus and motherhood penalty after all.

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