Have we done our children wrong?

After a couple of years on Reddit providing wisdom and advice to the younger generations, this M70 has come to ask himself a question that I dread the answer to. It seems to me that parenting prior to my generation was largely about training children to fulfill their responsibilities in the world. It wasn't about protecting children - although that often was the mother's role - and it wasn't about growing their self-esteem and teaching them how special they were. A successful life was to be had through toughness and discipline and fear of God. My generation, and the ones that have followed, seem to have emphasized encouragement and support and love of humankind. Did we make a mistake?

It seems that since we abandoned the harsh view of child rearing, our children have suffered and our society has declined. The institutions that made America strong - and I am limiting my comments to American society here - were established by a different kind of America. They knew how hard life is and they built a country designed to stand up under its weight. We seem to have abandoned that view of life and focused on a goal of a sort of Utopia that might have been a fantasy. The old Coca-Cola commercial saying "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony" was bullshit. We strived to build a world of love and we have reaped a world of hate. Our children are not prepared.

Let me ask the young adults here: If your parents were born after World War II, do you feel they did right by you? Do you feel capable of coping with the harshness of life? Do you have the internal fortitude to face the difficulties and opposition that the world will throw at you? Do you have the dignity and self-respect to demand that the world meet you on your own term? Do you have a strong sense of right and wrong? Do you feel like a conqueror or a victim? The world is shaped by conquerors - never by victims. Our ability to know what is right gives us conviction and dignity and fortitude. Are you ready to fight and build the world of tomorrow? Or will some other conqueror victimize you?

Parents of young adults, look back on your parenting philosophy and ask yourself if your children are prepared. Did you do right by them? Would you want to live in the world that they are going to build?

I hope we can have a good discussion around this. When you get to be my age, questions like this weigh on your mind.