This is a direct result of being treated like a priceless Faberge egg their whole lives.

When my parents graduated high school, they both went right to work while attending college. My dad dropped out and went on to a fine career anyway due to his before-his-time interest in working with computers. My mom finished her Associate's degree in secretarial studies (!) and went to work for a bank. My dad had some business with the bank, and that's how they met. They were 21 and 23 when they married, and I was a honeymoon baby. By the time my brother was born 2 1/2 years later, my parents were homeowners. My dad cared for me days while working graveyard, and later my grandmom stepped in to provide day care for the couple of hours when my parents job schedules overlapped. That is the extent of any parenting my grandparents did of their adult children.

When my dad was laid off, they made it work. They didn't move home, and neither set of my grandparents had any money to give or lend to them even if they wanted to.

So to recap, 23 and 25 years old, a high interest 1970s mortgage over their head, a toddler, and an infant.

Throughout their 41 year (so far) marriage, there have been some bad times, but at no time did either of them run home to mommy.

So if I got in trouble at school, or was misbehaving with the neighborhood kids, or I repeated a bad word I'd heard, there were consequences at home. There were stern talkings-to. There might have been wooden spoons applied to the back of my legs.

My parents were my biggest supporters when I was right, but they sure as hell allowed me to be wrong and suffer the consequences.

Baby boomers are often maligned, and usually fairly, but at least when they were adults, they were adults.

There were things my cohort and I did that would get parents arrested now. I was a latchkey kid from the age of six, I played outside in the street after dark, and I walked to and from school starting when I was a four-year-old kindergartner. And I felt stifled! Baby boomers were the original helicopter parents, but my parents had their family young. Boomers who were older and already settled in their lives before they had kids, the ones who raised millennials rather than Gen X, they would've been the type to call the cops on my parents.

Man, it's gotten so bad now that as I read Beth's post there, I could hear the SJW's voices in my head about how they likely had all kinds of privilege and stuff that needs to be checked.

Or some other complete crap.

Ironically that story is pretty close to my family. My dad did the Air Force for several years, in comms.. then worked in telecomm the rest of his life. My mom worked as a secretary (other than the few years she raised my sister and I) most of her life.

We walked and/or rode bikes to school until HS... yet even today while walking, I saw the huge line of cars of parent's picking up their kids (short days on Wed for some reason) at the local elementary school, all of whom live very nearby.

Someone once said: "College prolongs adolescence. The military truncates it."

I wonder if the second part of that is still true - and if so, for how much longer? In the Marine Corps it might still hold.

Talk to strangers? My older kid was born talking to strangers. He's never met anyone he couldn't strike up a conversation, in any language.

Love the Fabergé egg comparison. Perfect.

"I wonder if the second part of that is still true - and if so, for how much longer? "

From what I've seen in the Army, they still whip you into shape in basic. After that, it can get dodgy depending on where you go. A lot of the Pentagon has been eaten up by PC claptrap, going back to the Clinton years. But the enlisteds, the NCOs, and the lower levels of the officer corps are still regular guys and gals for the most part.

Walked to school from kindergarten to HS. In nice weather vanished from home except for meals, climbed trees, rode bikes, played sports, went to beach as soon as I could ride a bike that far with no parent in sight--they were too busy and I certainly didn't ask for or need any helicopters. Kids today don't get enough exploring and nature.

Concur with all of the above... at one apartment complex we lived in , I was a "latchkey" child without a key. Our apartment was on the second floor, and to get in, I climbed up on to the first-floor balcony, stood on the rail, pulled myself up onto our balcony, and then let myself in through the balcony door, which didn't have a lock.

Regarding bike riding: When a lot of us here were children, neighborhoods all interconnected. You could ride for miles through a residential area. I could literally ride my bike across the state line (about 10 miles away) and I only had to cross one main road. Nowdays, neighborhoods are all chopped up into little pieces, each of which only has one entrance directly from a main road. For security reasons, dontcha know. You can't ride very far without encountering heavy traffic.

To be fair, when we were kids, you didn't have idiots yakking on a cell phone or texting while driving an SUV.

My mother used to send us out in an Elmiran winter (think 30 below). She'd be arrested today.