The Vanishing American Adult

April 15, 2017
Heartfelt advice about how to raise engaged citizens.Sasse, a junior Republican senator from Nebraska and former president of Midland University, a liberal arts college affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, makes his literary debut with an earnest critique of American youth. A father of three, he worries that the nation's children "are not ready for the world they are soon going to inherit." Too many are passive, insular, and coddled, lacking a strong work ethic, moral center, and sense of initiative. The author blames a variety of factors, including broken families, a culture of overconsumption, the social upheaval of the 1960s, and ubiquitous "screen time." How, asks Sasse, can parents ensure that their children will become "fully formed, vivacious, appealing, resilient, self-reliant, problem-solving souls who see themselves as called to love and serve their neighbors?" The author does not look for answers from schools, which he criticizes for failing to inculcate strong moral values, resulting from the progressive educational ideas of John Dewey and the banning of school prayer. Sasse presents advice that seems most applicable to the affluent and educated: distract children from peer culture by enhancing family time (dining, singing, memorizing poetry together); emphasize the difference between want and need; engage in travel as learners rather than merely tourists. The author thoughtfully underscores the importance of reading, "a necessity for responsible adults and responsible citizens." His recommended books include those about God; "Homesick Souls," a category that includes The Canterbury Tales and Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica; Shakespeare; the American idea (the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents); markets (Adam Smith, for one, and Milton Friedman); books about totalitarianism, to protect against "the newfound popularity of socialism among millennials"; books that offer a "humanistic appreciation of science"; and canonical American fiction by authors such as Willa Cather, John Steinbeck, and Ralph Ellison. Sasse makes a host of debatable assertions, but he also makes a simple, sensible call for an informed electorate.

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April 15, 2017
The nouns parent and even adult are now used as verbs. Our society speaks of parenting as the act of raising a child so that he or she accumulates traits of maturity like so many game points as she or he practices adulting. Without sounding like a curmudgeon from the village of Mayberry, U.S. Senator Sasse of Nebraska posits that this semantic transition points to a greater underlying condition, one that does not adequately prepare young people for the very real responsibilities they will face as they grow older. From the philosophical agility that provides a basis for personal norms of behavior to the emotional acuity that enables a person to understand diverse points of view, Sasse addresses the basic skills young people must possess and offers ways the older generationparents, educators, even employerscan help to instill these values and behaviors at an early and appropriate age. Deeply thoughtful, delightfully personal, and bravely ecumenical in scope, Sasse's guide for stemming the tide of delayed responsibility showcases what is both practical and possible. Media appearances will stoke demand.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)