Spoiled Rotten (2012)

A year or so ago I was in Wadi Rum, the desert in the south of Jordan, near the Saudi border.<p>I spent a few days with a young bedouin, who in the absence of his parents, maintained the extended family, had mounted a successful business, spoke several languages fluently, hunted, played the jordanian mandolin, was humble yet strong. He was one of the most stable, centered, culutured, balanced and smart people I&#x27;ve ever met.<p>All of this at the ripe age of 19.<p>It made me consider his peers of my EU hometown Paris, and the only thing that came to mind was: Where has it gone so wrong. Western culture is raising generations of weak-minded, watery examples of sloth.<p>Travel really opens your eyes to the fact that determination, culture and independance are muscles that can be trained, apparently like their physical analogues: through reps.

The article never considers that the network effect of humanity may add up to a more productive whole, even if it appears to be made up of less productive individuals. This is the very nature of teamwork, and it&#x27;s a good thing. Young people have to take longer to figure out what they should do, they can play and explore more, and make mistakes that don&#x27;t starve their family.<p>I&#x27;ve observed the exact opposite of the folksyism of this article. Young people with increased play time were able to find more meaningful and more lucrative long term positions due to the luxury of explorations. Those forced to &quot;grow up&quot; early ended up in dead end positions due to suboptimization for short term needs.<p>But the New Yorker is hung up on the trope of individual success, as is the cultural center they arise from.

I have the sense I am a lot older than many readers here. So here are two old man&#x27;s observations for those with young kids, or those looking forward to that who read this article. I don&#x27;t claim these are the most important things, just that they are things I have seen that others don&#x27;t seem to comment on.<p>1) In the US at least so many people are living away from family and often even friends. My wife and I were essentially on our own. We did not have the wisdom of people who had done it and learned (hence this post and I expect the article ..). We had the general idea of helping, but I certainly think we helped too much (our kids are OK, not living at home for one thing).<p>2) At least some of American parenting ratcheting-up is a contest among mothers. &quot;I&#x27;m a better mother because my daughter takes both piano and horse-riding.&quot; It is not a pretty truth, but it is nonetheless a truth.

Anyone who has been China can tell you this is wrong:<p>&quot;With the exception of the imperial offspring of the Ming dynasty and the dauphins of pre-Revolutionary France, contemporary American kids may represent the most indulged young people in the history of the world.&quot;<p>Affluent kids in China are also very much indulged, mostly by grandparents.<p>The main factor at work here is not a mystery: the demographic transition that began in the West around 1850. When families have 20 children, the children are under pressure to prove their worth to the family, relative to all the other children. They compete with each other to show their worth. But when a family only has one child, the parents and grandparents compete to win the favor of the child.<p>There are nuances, that vary from country to country, but the primary force at work here is the demographic transition.

Socrates knew what&#x27;s up:<p><i>The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.</i><p>(I know the quote is not really by Socrates)

Spoiled kids and &#x27;adultesence&#x27; are portrayed here as the same issue. But I think in the latter case, a lot of superficially immature behaviour is just a form of status signalling. It&#x27;s showing that you (or your family) has enough social, financial and educational capital that you can afford to play even in your twenties, when someone with less would be working all hours in a poorly paid job to get by.

well, it is kind obvious - being able to do things vs. being able to demand and command of others to do things - skilled worker vs. manager&#x2F;executive - natural selection rules, it is just selecting for different qualities in the post-post-industrial society than it was doing it in the pre-industrial.

The problem is that actually its not the parents spoiling there kids, its that a whole industry is using them as lever to sell goods and undermines parental authority systematically. You can not win against george lucas, without looking like you are on the dark side.<p>They are so much more enthusiastic consumers, it would be a real shame if those know-it-all parents could hold them back.