Helicopter Parent, Meet Coddled Adult

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n The Coddling of the American Mind, authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue that “safetyism” is rendering American young people ever more fragile and less resilient. As parents strive to protect their children from every possible danger, no matter how remote — no unsupervised play, no walking or bicycling to school, no trips to the park without a parent present — they are actually making their children ever more vulnerable.

Peanut allergies serve as a metaphor for the process. In the mid-1990s, about four out of a thousand American children under the age of eight had such allergies. But by 2008, that number had more than tripled to 14 out of a thousand. The explanation for that dramatic rise turned out, ironically, to be parental efforts to protect their children from any exposure whatsoever to peanuts or products derived from peanuts just in case they might have or develop an allergy.

Researchers divided up 640 infants considered at high risk of developing peanut allergies into two groups. One group avoided any exposure to peanuts or peanut products. The other group was fed a product like Bamba, the popular peanut-based children’s snack in Israel (where peanut allergies are much rarer). By age five, 17 percent of the first group had developed a peanut allergy versus only 3 percent of the group exposed to peanut-based products.

As Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the best-seller The Black Swan, explains, there are many complex systems that are “antifragile,” like the human immunological system. But in order to develop their capacities to learn, adapt, and grow to face outside threats, these systems require exposure to stressors and challenges. Without those challenges, the systems atrophy, just as muscles atrophy without exercise and movement. “Neurotically overprotective parents,” argues Taleb, “are often hurting us the most.”