By Matthew Hosier Wednesday 6 March With unprecedented help from mental health experts, we have raised the loneliest, most anxious, depressed, pessimistic, helpless, and fearful generation on record. How did the first generation to raise kids without spanking produce the first generation to declare they never wanted kids of their own? How did kids raised so gently come to believe that they had experienced debilitating childhood trauma?
How did kids who received far more psychotherapy than any previous generation plunge into a bottomless well of despair? But because we are so enthralled to the worldview our response is to try and solve the problem by adding ever more therapeutic parenting, therapy, counselling, and drugs. The issues Shrier is grappling with are relevant for us all, not least Christian parents and those in pastoral ministry. The greatest danger that I perceive in the therapeutic worldview is its tendency to drive us towards narcissism.
We are too easily too consumed with the self, something the Bible warns us against explicitly 2 Tim This curving in on the self is dangerous spiritually, as it turns us away from God. It is also dangerous personally, as the evidence clearly suggests that the more time we spend thinking about ourselves the less happy we become. And it is dangerous to community as, by definition, it prevents us from thinking about the wellbeing of others.
Shrier illustrates this last point:. About a year ago, I was on a flight, seated behind an American family of four — two parents and two little girls. Her father, red-headed and bearded, a gentle giant, attempted to calm her down. He asked her what was wrong. He inquired about the reason for her anger toward her younger sister. He told the younger one not to pinch or whatever she had done. He urged them to reconcile. He never once mentioned the other passengers on the plane.
He never mentioned that we were all sharing this space in the air, and we all had a job to do: be good neighbors for the length of the trip. He never troubled his daughters with thoughts of us. If you are committed to the therapeutic model of parenting you might find this illustration offensive. A recent post on the TGC site helpfully explored the pros and cons of gentle parenting.
