Lukianoff, Greg and Jonathan Haidt. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. New York: Penguin Press, 2018. 338 pp. $28.00
One of the funniest memories I have from growing up is how nervous my Mom would get on weekday afternoons, especially in the spring or early fall. We were homeschooled, and the morning had been spent memorizing lines of Dickinson, charting the countries of South America, or pulling our hair out at Algebra.
Aside from the pajamas, there was nothing about our school mornings that really made us different than our public schooled friends. Afternoons were a different story. The local kids arrived home from school a little after 2—3 at the latest. Our homeschooled regimen, though, built in time for free play and activity in the early afternoon. But Mom was always nervous about our going outside. “Don’t go outside until later,” she would say, before offering this priceless line that has been repeated in our family for years: “You’re in pretend school.”
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