It’s not weird. Kids in the US do this too. The article is written by an author who doesn’t seem to get out much: she’s extrapolating her experience to stereotype the entire American experience, when really she only knows about her experiences in San Francisco. “Europeans are better” is a genre of writing that’s usually done by a generally frustrated left wing, upper-middle class white woman lamenting how “bad” their lives are in the United States after about 10 minutes of experience with something foreign and sufficiently “socialist.” It’s classic confirmation bias: the person’s preexisting beliefs (that America is “worse”) are validated by some experience with a non-American system.

I’ve lived extensively in both Europe and the US and it’s interesting how preexisting assumptions get confirmed when you first start living in a new place, but given enough time, you quickly realize that what you thought was “better” really isn’t. It’s just different — with different advantages and disadvantages.