Book
Recommendation: The Vanishing American
Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance
by Ben Sasse
This
book should be read by everyone, but I think it’s a “must read” for parents,
educators and policy makers. (For folks 15 to 25 too, but how to get them to read
it?) Though Sasse is a Republican senator, it is not a political book. Senator
Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate, said, “The book is practical,
helpful and conversational. I wish it had been written 20 years ago.” We’ve all
bemoaned the lack of resiliency in todays “emerging adults,” like the story of
the two female college students who discovering a mouse in their apartment and
called the police. And after the police trapped it, the girls went to therapy!
Sasse goes through all of that snowflake mentality and puts the blame where it
belongs, not on “millennial slackers,” but on the parents and educators who
took the toughness out of life. Sasse offers a lot of solutions. (Though I very
much fear it is too late to save the country.) It starts with hooking kids on
reading, and not junk, but enough serious non-fiction to expand their horizons.
I was fortunate in that I developed a love of reading very early. I still
remember books I received for Christmas in junior high. How I’m almost 72 and
read a book a week…and have shelves of unread books waiting, mostly history (I
have a master’s in it, probably why I like Sasse so much.). If there is a weakness
in Sasse’s book, it is that a lot of his solutions, like encouraging
international travel while in school, work for the affluent upper middle class.
The single mom who’s feeding the kids fried baloney and is two months behind on
the rent isn’t thinking about how to send the kids to France. But there is a
route open to them to develop into adults: military service, the tougher the
better. And, yes, it doesn’t work for everyone, what does? And the services are
being undermined by the PC wave, meaning the results won’t be as strong as 20
or 40 years ago. Perhaps the military didn’t occur to Sasse because he didn’t
serve and can’t imagine his kids doing so. But these “emerging adults” need to
develop a work ethic, resiliency, tenacity and self-discipline, to learn to
take responsibility for their actions and to focus on the mission, on getting
the job down. I got that at Parris Island in 1964 from my Marine Corps Drill
Instructors Sgt. E. Owens, Jr, Sgt. M. P. Martin, and Sgt. W. H. Harris., and
because of them, I’ve had a long, successful and happy life. They are still
hiring. With that addition, I still highly recommend Sasse’s book.
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