Op-Ed Sections, Threat or Menace?

Really, I half-expect the NYT to have a position open soon for HR Rep/investigative reporter focused squarely on newsroom issues.

 

Wouldn't hurt to bring back the Public Editor to address it.

 

“Young adults who are coming up through the education system are less accustomed to this sort of open debate, this sort of robust exchange of views around issues they feel strongly about than may have been the case in the past."

 

All of whom were raised and educated by Kahn's generation.

Where did he go wrong?

 

I’m not sure he did in any extraordinary way. Phones and social media are extraordinary cultural disruptions and silo makers.

 

With many coddling their kids and helicopter parenting up the wazoo.

 

And then Joe Biden forgave all of their college debt. That’ll teach ‘em.

Unless they’re wealthy, the kids of non-helicopter parents often lose to the kids of helicopter parents whose coddling creates strong resumes and perfect grades. If helicoptering didn’t produce meritocratic results, it wouldn’t happen.

The matter lies more with the institutions that repeatedly reward that behavior.

 

Those "institutions" are us.

The culture is us.

 

Yes it is.

I was countering the idea that parents are largely to blame. They’re somewhat to blame. But our institutions encourage helicopter, coddling parenting. Unless they are rich, parents who let children learn lessons the hard way choose a riskier path. Your child suddenly likes baseball at 13 and wants to play? Too late - you should have forced it on them at 8. Ditto with many (not all but many) extracurricular activities.

Prefer a free range approach that doesn’t persistently structure play time? Good luck with that; many parents recoil from that. Want a kid to be emotionally resilient and able to roll with punches? Today’s neurotic institutions respond (and possibly prefer) to tantrums and selfish behavior.

 

I would push back on the theory that kids with helicopter parents usually or always beat kids that dont have helicopter parents. When the economic and opportunity factors are close to even, I dont think that’s accurate.

 

They’re often not even. Lower and lower middle class parents don’t have nearly as much time to helicopter as do upper middle class and upper class parents. Helicoptering is an elitist pursuit.

At any rate, again, Biden wants to wipe out the debt of the coddled kid generation so they’ll vote for him. Maybe he’ll mail a ribbon to each one, too.

 

Agreed on the debt.

The advancement of the coddled isnt about the helicoptering. More often than its all the other stuff.