Lenore Skenazy

And once you realize that, that it's not doom, it's just a hiccup, then you are way more free.

I'm going to give you two different examples.

One is the workplace.

Eventually, these children go off to work, and I can't be the only one who's hearing the stories about young people at work being very, I'd say, conscientious.

But waiting for instructions.

They've had so much instruction all the time that I've heard in schools, the kids wait to like to fill out their name on a piece of paper.

It's like, do I put my name on the left or the right?

I've heard of schools where they say that a kid's like pencil drops to the ground.

they wait to be either for the teacher to come and pick it up or for them to be allowed to pick it up they're so used to being programmed that they've sort of lost this um get go you know what is it go get them spirit and and that's what we're hearing about at work too you know you have you have good workers but you don't have the entrepreneurs you don't have this amazing american spirit of like let me try this or this sounds crazy but so in the workplace you want kids who have grown up

you know, tinkering and trying things that when NASA had its generation of, you know, boomers retire, and they had these new kids coming in, they were great on computers and great at, you know, problem sets.

But if there was ever an Apollo 13, they didn't know what to do when things went off script.

So you want people who are growing up a little more scrappy, a little more self sufficient.

One thing that's obvious is that when you do have kids,

back out in the neighborhood.

I don't care if you have kids or not.

I mean, my kids are old, but it's pretty sweet.

You see them out there, you hear some laughter, you hear some spats.

It's just a neighborhood that comes back to life and that's a lot more friendly and heartwarming than a neighborhood just completely tumbleweeds up and down the block because the kids are driven and then they're pulled into the garage and then they insert themselves into the house and it's time for the reading log.

if only for just the joy of having a very vibrant culture as opposed to a very locked down culture and for the parents who are just so bored driving their kids everywhere.

Oh my, that's like, so the laws are great.