I live in the land of uber-entitlement and you see it rear its ugly head in all kinds of places, but most negatively on the roads, where young locals think (probably subconsciously) that they are entitled to more of the road than the rest of us. If your car literally won't fit in a lane even when you are perfectly centered, it's too big. And forget parking that behemoth in a parking garage.
By giving your child everything they want in life (says the woman with no kids, so I know more than the rest of you - HA!) you are not doing them any favors. This may be where the average girl - smart enough, cute enough but not super duper anything - can actually succeed in rush and in sorority life where that "best girl" can't. She's never had to except anything less than exactly what she wanted, and isn't prepared to start now. And she will have a diminished experience because of it. That's too bad.
I don't know if this is new or just more apparent in the communication-laden world we now live in, but it SEEMS worse to me than in the past.
I also think there's something to consider about too much attention paid to not hurting a child's self-esteem. Of course we don't want kids growing up depressed and feeling worthless, but isn't failure, disappointment, rejection, all that nasty stuff, part of the growing pains of life? And don't we come out the other end better people for having gone through it? I don't know, but you can add that to the thesis and I'll look forward to reading it.
