1957 A year when kids were raised to be adults.

I was born in 1957. Obviously, I don’t remember a single thing about that year itself. I don’t remember the music, the headlines, or what was happening in the world. But I do remember the lessons that came from the era I was born into, and in the end, those matter far more than any date on a calendar.

What I know about the year I was born is this: it was a time when children were expected to adapt to the world, not the other way around. Parents didn’t hover, negotiate, or explain everything to death. They taught lessons early, set boundaries clearly, and believed their job was to prepare kids for adulthood—not to keep them happy every minute along the way.

And I carry those lessons with me to this day.

I’m sure every generation, when they reach my age, worries about the younger generation. I’m certain people said the same things about us. “Kids these days…” isn’t new. But I also believe something important has changed—and pretending it hasn’t is one of the biggest mistakes we’re making.

This time really is different.

When kids are very young, parents today tend to focus on big experiences—grand adventures, expensive gifts, once-in-a-lifetime trips. Disney World is the classic example. Parents pour time, money, and energy into these moments believing they’re creating lifelong memories. The truth is, kids don’t remember those things the way we think they do. Most people don’t form lasting, detailed memories until around six or seven years old. Before that, what sticks isn’t the trip or the toy—it’s the bond, the structure, the lessons, and the sense of safety being built underneath it all.

Those early years aren’t about memory-making.
They’re about development.

And somewhere along the way, a lot of parents lost sight of that.

The job isn’t to keep kids happy all the time or make sure they’re never upset. That mindset sounds loving, but it actually works against healthy development. Kids need boundaries. They need to hear no. They need frustration, boredom, disappointment, and consequences. That’s how resilience is built.

When I was young, parents didn’t panic over a little whimper or crying. If I cried for no real reason, my father would look at me and say, “Keep crying and I’ll give you something to really cry about.” You don’t hear that much anymore. Today, a raised voice or a few tears often sends adults scrambling to negotiate, explain, apologize, or cave in. Kids learn very quickly who’s in charge—and in many homes, it isn’t the parents.

Parenting isn’t about raising happy children.
It’s about raising capable adults.

Many young parents today are far more well-off than their own parents were at the same age. They have resources, convenience, and access to things earlier generations never did. And with that has come the belief that being a good parent means giving children anything and everything their heart desires—including adult freedoms and adult decisions far too early.

Kids today even have special meals tailored to what they like or won’t eat. That concept would have been laughable in my house. When I was young, I ate what my mother put on the table—or I went hungry. There was no second menu. No alternatives. No negotiations. Funny thing is, none of us starved, and somehow we all learned to eat just fine.

If I didn’t want to do something or go somewhere, the answer was simple: too bad. I did it anyway. I went anyway. I had chores every single day. Not when I felt like it—every day. And my father never had to say something twice. He didn’t yell much. He didn’t explain endlessly. He didn’t negotiate. He meant what he said.

That structure didn’t harm me.
It grounded me.

Somewhere along the way, saying no became something to avoid. Discomfort became something to fix. Boundaries became something to negotiate. And that’s exactly where things start going off the rails.

On top of that, parents are now trying to teach children complicated social, historical, cultural, and even health issues without proper context or real historical grounding. Kids are being handed conclusions before they’re capable of understanding the questions. History gets reduced to slogans. Moral complexity gets flattened into sound bites. Generations of sacrifice get ignored, rewritten, or dismissed.

The result is a distorted sense of right and wrong.

Young people are forming strong opinions without having the tools to discuss them, debate them, or even fully understand them. They inherit certainty without wisdom and outrage without perspective. Most have little idea what past generations—including their own parents—sacrificed to create the stability and comfort they now live in. They see the result, not the cost.

You can’t teach judgment without context.
You can’t teach responsibility without reality.
You can’t teach fairness without understanding cause and effect.

Parents also used to be better at teaching kids to think through permanent decisions. Some choices made when you’re young can’t be undone later, and kids today are often taught—directly or indirectly—that everything is reversible.

I still remember something my father used to say to me: “Go ahead, get a tattoo. It’ll make it easier for me to identify your body at the morgue.” That comment sent shivers up my spine. It wasn’t about tattoos—it was about finality. About thinking long-term. And I never got one.

Let me be clear—I have nothing against tattoos or people’s right to get them. That’s not the point. The point is that someone slowed me down long enough to make me think through a permanent decision. I sometimes wonder what a person looks like at 70, covered in tattoos, and whether anyone ever helped them consider that future version of themselves. Not the tattoo—the thinking behind the decision.

Those skills don’t just appear.
They are taught.

And now we get to what truly separates this generation from all the ones before it.

Technology—and now AI—has changed everything.

Kids today are exposed to things we never were. They see images and videos online—real or AI-generated—that we could have only dreamed up in nightmares growing up. Graphic violence. Pornography. Horrific scenes. Distorted realities. And once those images get into a young mind, they don’t simply disappear.

A developing brain isn’t built to process that level of input. Adults struggle with it. Kids are being flooded by it.

At the same time, they’re being taught distorted versions of history and forming illogical, emotionally charged opinions without the reasoning skills to support them. They aren’t taught how to debate, how to listen, or how to engage with opposing views. So when challenged, they don’t respond with thought—they melt down.

And we stand back and ask, “What’s happening to our world?”

What’s happening is this: we are overwhelming developing minds and calling it progress.

We’re giving children adult-level information without adult-level reasoning skills. We’re exposing them to the worst parts of humanity before they’ve even formed a stable sense of self. We’ve replaced guidance with affirmation, boundaries with approval, and wisdom with volume.

That’s not growth.
That’s corruption.

Not intentional—but real.

Kids don’t need more information. They need filters.
They don’t need more freedom. They need frameworks.
They don’t need to be told what to think. They need to be taught how to think.

That responsibility doesn’t belong to algorithms, schools, influencers, or screens. It belongs to parents.

If we don’t slow this down, restore boundaries, reintroduce context, and start protecting developing minds instead of throwing them into the deep end, we’ll keep seeing the same result—young people who are anxious, angry, confused, and cracking under the weight of things they were never meant to carry.

What I know about the year I was born isn’t found in a history book.
It’s found in the lessons passed down, the boundaries set, and the expectations placed on me early in life.

And I’m grateful for every one of them.