We just put them out into the dark with no place to go, no light at the end of the journey, without any initiation rite or hero or heroine to identify with, and hope they make it. In our culture we're each left to struggle alone with this. Or, conversely, perhaps they are attempts to avoid the pain of it, and the loss of the known. It's interesting that in materially impoverished cultures a lot of the values and traditions I'm talking about are still much more intact. Much of what you're saying about the value of Story seems to involve personal empowerment.
Story is, and always has been, a telling of good over evil.
Not in a didactic or religious way - it's just the human condition. We want goodness over evil, light over dark, strength over weakness. There's always that opposition in Story. It's built on power, the kind of empowerment you're talking about. It's built on interdependence - people surviving their particular ordeals by getting help from others.