She's right, but the trend is growing. Rosenbloom rightly ponders: What happens when these kids enter the work force? Will they be irritated when their managers don't partner with them and seek their advice on all of the company's decisions?
But I'm betting that one big reason for this shift is one not mentioned in the piece: the demise of religious tradition. The more we as a culture walk away from the latter and think we can do life on our own, the more we have to think our children come into the world inherently wise and virtuous _ because then that means we do, too.
Well, "As for me and my house," to borrow from the Old Testament's Joshua, I know that no matter how chaotic it may get around here, my kids are kids _ not my "partners" _ I'm the mom, and it's for their sake that I have to care a whole lot more about whether they like me when they are 30 than when they are 13.
Betsy Hart
Betsy Hart is a nationally syndicated columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service. Her column on cultural and family issues, “From the Hart,” is distributed each week to hundreds of newspapers cross the country. Betsy’s first book, "It Takes a Parent: How the Culture of Pushover Parenting is Hurting out Kids – and What to do About It," was released in September, 2005, and was a top seller for its publisher, Putnam Books.