PUNISHING “DEVIANT” PARENTS:  George Will’s latest column offers numerous astute observations about the litany of ridiculous attitudes toward “kids” today:

Today’s saturating media tug children beyond childhood prematurely, but not to maturity. Children are cosseted by intensive parenting that encourages passivity and dependency, and stunts their abilities to improvise, adapt and weigh risks. . . .

[I]nstitutions have also decided that although undergraduates can cope with hormones and intoxicants, they must be protected from discomforting speech, which must be regulated by codes and confined to “free speech zones.” Uncongenial ideas must be foreshadowed by “trigger warnings,” lest students, who never were free-range children and now are as brittle as pretzels, crumble. Young people shaped by smothering parents come to college not really separated from their“helicopter parents.” Such students come convinced that the world is properly devoted to guaranteeing their serenity, and that their fragility entitles them to protection from distressing thoughts.

Yep. By hovering over children and scheduling their every waking moment with “organized” activities, we prevent them not only from making mistakes (and learning from them), but from tasting freedom, and hence, individuality and independence.  No wonder so many of them grow up to be delicate, oversensitive snowflakes.