The Vanishing American Adult
Our Coming-of-Age Crisis - And How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
In an era of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and an unprecedented election, the country's youth are in crisis. Senator Ben Sasse warns the nation about the existential threat to America's future.
Raised by well-meaning but overprotective parents and coddled by well-meaning but misbegotten government programs, America's youth are ill-equipped to survive in our highly-competitive global economy.
Many of the coming-of-age rituals that have defined the American experience since the Founding: learning the value of working with your hands, leaving home to start a family, becoming economically self-reliant—are being delayed or skipped altogether. The statistics are daunting: 30% of college students drop out after the first year, and only 4 in 10 graduate. One in three 18-to-34 year-olds live with their parents.
From these disparate phenomena: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who as president of a Midwestern college observed the trials of this generation up close, sees an existential threat to the American way of life.
In The Vanishing American Adult, Sasse diagnoses the causes of a generation that can't grow up and offers a path for raising children to become active and engaged citizens. He identifies core formative experiences that all young people should pursue: hard work to appreciate the benefits of labor, travel to understand deprivation and want, the power of reading, the importance of nurturing your body—and explains how parents can encourage them.
Our democracy depends on responsible, contributing adults to function properly—without them America falls prey to populist demagogues. A call to arms, The Vanishing American Adult will ignite a much-needed debate about the link between the way we're raising our children and the future of our country.
Customer Reviews
Responsibility becoming a taboo word
I have not yet read the book (so I cannot rate but the subject and synopsis) but am unsurprised that the first comment depicts the exact point of the book: where has the sense of responsibility gone? The term itself is literally barred from the public discourse. Far easier to call hard-working folks -even those working on solutions to this- condescending, and victimize everyone ese, way to go!!
Great book
Very relevant
People are thick
Asking a generation of people to take responsibility for changes in economic practice that were completely beyond their control. The world is not falling apart because Mr. Rogers told children that they had inherent self-worth. More people drop out of college now, but more people attend college now. More people live at home with their parents now, but housing prices have doubled multiple times in the last 50 years while wages have increased at a much slower rate. This premise is based on a fiction that life has always looked like it did in the 1950s and 60s.