College students are proclaiming their fragility, tweets Camilio Ortiz, a clinical psychologist, reporting from his son's dorm.
A front-page Washington Post story urges young people to improve their mental health by avoiding stress, he writes. "Give yourself a break" is not good advice, Ortiz argues. Instead: "DO DIFFICULT THINGS. Challenge yourself regularly, and whether you succeed or fail, the mental health benefits are practically endless."
(My local library has signs saying: "It's OK to not be OK.")
Jake wonders why liberal arts colleges "center" their black students by "encouraging them to experience college as a source of 'racial battle fatigue'."
I envision kids watching the The Little Engine That Couldn't on their phones: "I think I can't. I think I can't. It's too hard. Climbing mountains is a vestige of white patriarchy! Look how brave I am for being able to say that I can't! I thought I couldn't!"
American culture treats "successful people like they somehow cheated to get there and poor people as if they’re noble by virtue of being poor," writes John Hawkins, in another response to Vivek Ramaswamy's "culture of mediocrity" critique.
Parents should be pushier, he writes. Kids aren't "pieces of glass that will break if they’re pushed too hard."
People who raise successful children are loving -- but also demanding, Hawkins writes. They expect good grades, and don't accept excuses. They do not treat their children as though they're fragile.
Successful adults "work HARD," he writes. "They do things other people don’t want to do. They’re not whiny or easily offended. They network. They’re consistent. They’re willing to take risks and try new things."
"If we don’t build a culture that encourages and rewards success, learning, and morality, it’s not going to just happen on its own," Hawkins writes. "If other nations do a better job of encouraging and rewarding their populations for pursuing productivity, decency, patriotism, and education, they will eventually pass us."