I respect you highly--you read and you engage and you can write a coherent and thoughtful (and interesting!) comment and that is no common skill anymore.

I agree with you that inequality of all types is making all of this worse, fast. Everyone is fixated on making their kids "safe" or "successful" at any cost to the whole, and that's not right (in my opinion).

Thank you for sharing stories about your family. I sympathize with your experience of having parents who were intelligent but still didn't know all the games that go on in society. Let's be honest--we all want that easier lifestyle and the nice trappings. But wow, they are starting to come at a price.