America’s youth are in crisis. Raised by well-meaning but overprotective parents and coddled by well-meaning but misbegotten government programs, they 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 percent of college students drop out after the first year, and only four in 10 graduate. One in three 18- to 34-year-olds lives 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.