So those children got over-parented. As a result of the degree of control they suffered, particularly during adolescence, they never developed a full adult maturity. Now they're having kids. And they're not mature enough to handle it.
Parenting is the hardest, but most rewarding, thing a person can do in their life. Your job (and most parents today would be shocked to hear this) is to take a child and turn it into an adult. Not a larger child. Mere aging does NOT cause a child to develop. Experience is the exclusive means through which new neural connections are formed. Intense and novel experience in particular is the most useful for development. In their absence, development does NOT occur. So as a parent, you have to expose your child to these things that will change them. The child you love more than your own life will be turned into an individual who wants to leave you and has no need for you. How mature do you have to be to put your own feelings aside and accept that this inevitable heartbreak on your part is in the best interest of your child and therefore you will pursue it actively? Very, I'd say.
The next time you hear a parent remark that their child is "not ready" for something, whether its watching a scary movie or dating or whatever, ask them what they are doing, as a parent, to MAKE their child ready for it. You will typically get a blank stare.
For all I know a 4 year degree will cost $500k in the next 10-20 years. I have 4 kids. Do the math.
Big win, in my book!
I grew up in the 80's in the North of England (not a time our schools shone) and but for a single good teacher I'd have ended up in the equivalent of the remedial group (likely for the rest of my school career), she understood that the reason I wasn't learning wasn't because I wasn't capable but because I wasn't interested, she realised I liked science and computers so she binned the assigned books and got me reading about those instead.
30 years later I have a solid career as a programmer and I still love science.
This "teach the test, pass the test, teach the next test" style of schooling is fucking absurd, Daniel had to study for SAT's for FFS.
Standardised testing at 7 is insane, just the way school years are broken up means you have kids nearly a year apart in age at that age so the variance from that is huge.
Most governments are happy with rule-following drones who do as they are told and pay their taxes.
Rather give them a secure and happy family than materialism.
GP's comment sounds like that's precisely what they're doing. They're using the money to give their kids a fun and memorable childhood.
I'm choosing to not sacrifice all sorts of opportunities so that they can grow up with an austere existence and get a probably worthless loan-free college education.
You do you though!
Now, there is an increasing arms race where more and more over-educated and over-training young people are competing for fewer jobs that pay less. The slope of the income distribution is getting steeper and steeper. Your kid is going to enter a job market with fewer opportunities and less pay, meanwhile they will be surrounded by tons of other kids all feverishly competing for the same jobs.
If your kid doesn't have the right grades to get into the right school to get the right degree and thus the right internship, it's very easy to slip into poverty (and the crippling student debt on top doesn't help).
The anxiety around parenting in some ways reflects a rational observation that the world we are preparing our children for is not as welcoming as the one we grew up in.