Ha, yeah. The first thing that crossed my mind is the incessant news stories about how backpacks harm children's musculoskeletal development. There's a story about that in the news about every other month, especially this time of year. Then there's the possibility of plain old sexism, unrelated to age - before I got hurt, it was a constant bone of contention between me and DH about him wanting to take things I was already carrying - then I got hurt and just had to deal with it.

Pam, that article made sense to me, too. Though it's hard to comment without looking at the data (which I haven't), and one big flaw that I saw in that article is that, I don't think the stereotypical coddled kids would self-identify that way. But yeah, as a product of the "old" kind of controlling/ownership parenting, with all the same emotional struggles associated with the supposedly-coddled modern kids, it makes sense to me. It's the parent seeing the child as nothing but an extension of their ego that causes the problems, and not the particular means they use to enforce that.

Another thing that occurred to me - my mom has taught at an expensive prep school for over 40 years, while my sister has been a college professor for 25 years. My mom has always complained about *some* parents who raise h#!! when their child is struggling, but hasn't seen any increase in that behavior. My sister, on the other hand, *has* seen an increased sense of entitlement among her students (not so much their parents). Her sense of it is that we baby boomers grew up in a golden age of accessibility of higher education. Now that college in the USA is once again mostly a perk of the wealthy, the concentration of people who feel entitled, who feel that any time they're paying someone for a service, that makes them their servant - can only have increased.