Agreed. Except now, idealization doesn't only apply to "white picket fence" experiences or "going to college." Now it applies to inner identity, and sometimes aggressive or even militant external identities. It's an impossible situation for a parent. Sometimes, the only way for the parent to survive emotionally is to allow the child to fail and hopefully learn from the failure.

Have to wonder if that identity is the final refuge of generations that feel helpless and worse-off than prior ones.

Which suggests maybe we aren’t doing a good job teaching history.

Or someone isn't looking out the front windscreen to worry about climate change looming ahead...

Or current events.

Are you sure? Because there are more lessons that I have seen people learn from their parents...

* no one cares about your opinions or ideas,

* no one has any actual affection for you; they only appear to when you have something they want,

* in a choice between your physical or mental well-being and their short-term happiness, you take a rather distant second,

* and then you die.

> Kids need to learn that life sucks and then you die and really internalize that in order to bring expectations in line with reality.

I'm convinced that the world is cleanly divided into two categories of people. People that internalize this early in life, and people that never do at all.

Along with learning to be bored, it's the most important life lesson you can pass on to the next generation to ensure a happy productive life.