My generation grew up on several cusps.
Two of them were cusp of the transition from the pre-internet world to the internet-centric world, and the cusp of the resurgence of the globalization that dominated the pre-WWI era.
The cusp that’s most notable, though, because it’s one of the biggest cultural changes of late, that until recently hadn’t been much-remarked upon, is how differently children are treated today. That had begun in several regions in the country already, but where I grew up was (and still is) twenty years behind the times, so I didn’t get any of it.
I had more freedom as a child than is comprehensible to most parents today. I wandered where I wanted. I rode my bike wherever it could take me. I didn’t have to report into my parents. And I wasn’t alone in this. Most everyone I grew up with was expected by their parents to behave the same way. It would’ve been odd and notable to both their parents and peers if they’d done anything other.
Now, things are vastly different and that transition has occurred in an amazingly short time. Some of the things that were taken for granted when I was growing up might land parents in jail for negligence in many places now.
Lately, though, most people have been noticing and decrying this trend toward helicopter parenting and taking away any shred of autonomy and independence that children once enjoyed.
Here’s one by Roger Ebert.
Here’s another by Lance Mannion.
Here’s one more.
There are others, including a really good one in the New York Times that I cannot locate right now.
In my opinion, this change has been the largest cultural shift since the late 1960s. Why it has ocurred, I am not sure. The world is safer now than it was — by far — than it was when children wandered freely.
Its effects will probably be children growing into far less independent adults (IMO, this is already observable), who are more obeisant to the capitalist system, and who don’t make waves. And that may be the whole point.
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