Raise Your Own Damn Kids

Abigail Shrier’s Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up is not really about therapy. Instead, it’s about parents who let competitors for their authority usurp their role in raising their children and the harm such people can cause. Shrier focuses her journalistic instincts and love of research on a clear problem: the therapeutic industry is larger than ever yet has failed to improve mental health. Instead, the rising generation appears to be the least capable of self-government on record. Shrier identifies at least three forces that threaten to replace parents: therapists, teachers, and the culture of psychiatric study. These options allow parents to outsource their authority to someone else, and Shrier contends that such outsourcing harms children. The solution is simple: parents need to parent, for the good of their children.