Wednesday, August 14, 2019

The Loneliness Epidemic


In City Journal, Kay S. Hymowitz explores what has become an international problem. An excerpt:


In a 2018 survey of attitudes of 10- to 19-year-olds by PerryUndem Research and Communication, three-quarters rated having a successful career as “very important.” Fewer than a third said that marrying or having children mattered that much. Notably, boys and girls had almost identical answers.

This doesn’t surprise me. My boomer acquaintances, college-educated professionals and devoted parents, nudged and prodded their kids from elementary school through college and beyond to prepare for the Big Career. When it came to that other crucial life goal—finding a loyal, loving spouse, a devoted mother or father for their children—their lips were sealed. Such traditional aspirations would have seemed an imposition on their children’s authentic desires rather than a piece of learned wisdom. Yet learn it they had: they danced euphorically at their children’s weddings and are now putting dinner companions to sleep rattling on about the grandkids.

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