I think there is something to the idea that in the U.S., each subsequent generation is more infantilized, whether by less economic control leading to stunted growth (delayed home ownership, marriage, etc.) or simply by an entire market trying to tickle their childhood nostalgia by creating consumer products and content that appeals to less-than-adult tastes. Or simply the further absence of multi-generational households, where at least new parents could readily receive knowledge and wisdom from experienced adults.

But we should also remember there's nothing new under the sun. This passage -

> A whole category of responses could be labeled “self-loathing goblin mode”: Parents who still act like teens, despite themselves, when they’re at home. Lying in bed with a hangover while the kids watch TV (which I’m pretty sure was a cornerstone of parenting through the mid-20th century at least and gave rise to an entire genre of television, Saturday-morning cartoons), letting the house get real messy, and serving “subnutritious meals,” as one parent put it.

- reminds me of this passage by Dave Barry: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dave-barry-the-greatest-party-g...

archive: https://archive.is/Uyrys#selection-2693.0-2696.0

> My mom, like my dad, and millions of other members of the Greatest Generation, had to contend with real adversity: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, hunger, poverty, disease, World War II, extremely low-fi 78 r.p.m. records and telephones that—incredible as it sounds today— could not even shoot video.

[...]

I do know this: Unlike the “Mad Men” characters, the grown-ups back then had fun. A lot of fun. And it didn’t stop just because they had kids. My parents had a large circle of friends, and just about every weekend, throughout my childhood, they had cocktail parties, which rotated from house to house. I loved it when the party was at our house. Dozens of cars filled our driveway and lined the narrow dirt road we lived on, and dozens of couples poured into the house—the men in suits and ties, the women in dresses and heels, everybody talking, shouting, laughing, eating hors d’oeuvres, smoking, heading to the lineup of bottles on the kitchen counter to pour another drink.

[...]

Above all, they did not worry about providing a perfect, risk-free environment for their children. They loved us, sure. But they didn’t feel obligated to spend every waking minute running interference between us and the world. They were parents, but they were not engaged 24/7 in what we now call “parenting,” this all-consuming job we have created, featuring many crucial child-rearing requirements that my parents’ generation was blissfully unaware of.

[...]

Whereas we modern parents, living in the era of Death by Handshake, rarely pause to celebrate the way our parents did because we’re too busy parenting. We never stop parenting. We are all over our kids’ lives—making sure they get whatever they want, removing obstacles from their path, solving their problems and—above all—worrying about what else will go wrong, so we can fix it for them. We’re in permanent trick-or-treat mode, always hovering 8 feet away from our children, always ready to pounce on the apple.