The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
"Former college president and now U.S. Senator Ben Sasse reads with the clarity and confidence of a voice pro in this friendly warning aimed at America's parents, teachers, and governing officials." — AudioFile Magazine
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER — read by the author.
In an era of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and an unprecedented election, the country's youth are in crisis. Senator Ben Sasse warns the nation about the existential threat to America's future.
Raised by well-meaning but overprotective parents and coddled by well-meaning but misbegotten government programs, America's youth are ill-equipped to survive in our highly-competitive global economy.
Many of the coming-of-age rituals that have defined the American experience since the Founding: learning the value of working with your hands, leaving home to start a family, becoming economically self-reliant—are being delayed or skipped altogether. The statistics are daunting: 30% of college students drop out after the first year, and only 4 in 10 graduate. One in three 18-to-34 year-olds live with their parents.
From these disparate phenomena: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who as president of a Midwestern college observed the trials of this generation up close, sees an existential threat to the American way of life.
In The Vanishing American Adult, Sasse diagnoses the causes of a generation that can't grow up and offers a path for raising children to become active and engaged citizens. He identifies core formative experiences that all young people should pursue: hard work to appreciate the benefits of labor, travel to understand deprivation and want, the power of reading, the importance of nurturing your body—and explains how parents can encourage them.
Our democracy depends on responsible, contributing adults to function properly—without them America falls prey to populist demagogues. A call to arms, The Vanishing American Adult will ignite a much-needed debate about the link between the way we're raising our children and the future of our country.
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Reviews for The Vanishing American Adult
29 ratings3 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a mix of insightful and unclear. It highlights the problems of moral decline but fails to provide clear solutions. The book documents the progression of Americans to the current generation and raises questions about the effectiveness of efforts for the next generation. Overall, the book offers valuable historical perspective but leaves readers wondering about practical solutions.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Incredibly inciteful and and historically documented progression of Americans to the current generation. Will all the money and effort spent on the next generation be effective? How does it compare to the past and does that even matter?
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Ben Sasse just abandoned the principles of "character" he lectures us about in this politically self-serving, conservative values-claiming book. He voted to support Trump's fake "emergency" in the Senate on 14 March 2019.
Twelve other Senate Republicans saw that this was constitutional overreach to circumvent the power of Congress. Sasse capitulated to Trump.
The vote was 420 to ZERO in Congress. Emergency powers cannot be used unless they are: "necessary, sudden, urgent, unforseen and not permanent", as GOP Senator Susan Collins noted in voting against it.
In sum, Sasse repeats the obvious about moral decline in this book -- but does not live by it himself when he exercises his own power to vote in the Senate. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Many of the problems are correctly identified, but it's unclear how the solutions can be made to work.