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Dr. K's avatar

Heather, This is the pithiest yet generally complete writeup on this subject I have seen. A fine piece of writing and thinking. Many thanks.

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Modern Discontent's avatar

Another thought provoking post Heather! I do wonder what exactly is happening to mine and younger generations. I think it's an issue in which we assume that people should have things figured out, or that we don't want kids to suffer or have to deal with adversity so we try to remove barriers without knowing if those barriers are the proper ones to remove, or if they even exist (Chesterton's fence and all).

I've thought about writing a cultural piece asking about what happened to the "coming-of-age" films that were so pervasive in the 80s up to the early 2000s. Even when I was in my early 20s there was something about watching films even about high schoolers who couldn't figure out what they wanted in life but sort of understanding that it's ok to not have it all figured out and that's how life goes sometimes.

But now that doesn't appear to be the message we send kids. It's no longer OK to be confused or uncertain, which is a bit ironic given the fact that that's the argument us millennials tend to launch at the older generation who thinks we should know what we want in life.

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