A brand new REVOLUTIONARY radical way of parenting tries to let kids get out of the house and try things for themselves. This is known as the “Let Grow Philosophy”. It gradually pulls anxious kids out of their anxious shells.
Just 30 years ago, calling normal life a “philosophy” would have been unimaginable. I’ve always been anxious, always prone to catastrophizing, but the tendency didn’t get much exercise** when I was outside digging in the dirt or playing with other kids or walking to the store to fetch something for Mom. My parents were HAPPY to have me out of the house so they could get adult stuff done without me underfoot.
There were a few helicopter parents, but they were regarded as odd. Nobody imagined that the overprotecters would become the standard default norm.
I expect the old norm still holds in small towns and Dixie.
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** 2020 was an Olympic marathon for catastrophizers. I constantly imagined the worst thing Demon Trump and Demon Inslee could do next, and they constantly broke through all previous boundaries of cruelty and sadism. After the two-year marathon, the tendency is still strong.
Polistra's Mill 