Olivia: A Stanford professor once did the homework for his high schooler, who was doing the homework for the middle schooler, who was doing it for the elementary schooler. Jackson: Wait, what? Like a homework assembly line? Olivia: Exactly. And this wasn't a joke. It was a desperate, late-night solution to a system so overloaded with pressure that the whole family was about to break. Jackson: That is both horrifying and... honestly, a little bit relatable. It makes you wonder, what if our frantic attempts to help our kids succeed are actually the very thing that's breaking them? Olivia: That is the exact crisis at the heart of Julie Lythcott-Haims's book, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success. Jackson: Right, and she's not just some random commentator. She was the Dean of Freshmen at Stanford for a decade. She saw the end result of this parenting style walk through her door every year—brilliant, accomplished, and utterly terrified of life. Olivia: She saw the résumés that could launch rockets, but the humans attached to them couldn't figure out how to solve a roommate conflict or handle a B grade. And that disconnect is what we're diving into today.

Jackson: So where does this all begin? It feels like this level of intense, hands-on parenting has exploded in the last couple of decades. Olivia: Lythcott-Haims argues it starts with what she calls the "checklisted childhood." It's this idea that there's a perfect, prescribed path to success, and a parent's job is to make sure their kid checks every single box. And it starts terrifyingly early. She tells this incredible personal story about her own son, Sawyer. Jackson: Oh, I'm ready for this. Olivia: She and her husband, both Stanford grads, were desperate to get their future child into the prestigious Bing Nursery School on campus. They saw it as the first, critical checkbox. After a long struggle to conceive, Sawyer is born. Two days after they bring him home from the hospital, she—still recovering from a C-section—is in a panic to get his nursery school application submitted. Jackson: Two days old? A two-day-old baby is applying to school? Olivia: They were timing the trip to the admissions office between his nursing sessions, forgot the diaper bag in their haste... It was a full-blown operation. And at the time, she felt like she was winning at parenting. She was providing opportunity! But looking back, she realized she was already putting him on a treadmill, driven by her own fear and a very narrow definition of what success looked like. Jackson: That's wild. It's less like parenting and more like being a high-stakes project manager for a tiny, helpless client. And I imagine this just gets worse as they get older and the stakes, like college, get higher? Olivia: It escalates into what she calls the college admissions arms race. She tells another story about a Stanford student named Kayla who met a mother, Isabelle, while studying abroad. Isabelle relentlessly grilled Kayla and her friends all through dinner, trying to find the "X factor," the secret formula that got them into Stanford. Jackson: Oh, I can just picture the tension. "What was your GPA? How many clubs? Did your parents edit your essay?" Olivia: Worse. Isabelle was convinced her own kids weren't good enough, that they lacked this magical 'x' factor, and that it was her job to manufacture it for them. She dismissed the idea of finding a college that was a good 'fit' for her kids. For her, it was Stanford or bust. It was a brand, a status symbol. A college counselor in the book describes this mindset perfectly, saying some parents assess their child "as they would assess a potential employee at Microsoft." Jackson: That is so bleak. But I have to ask, isn't this a bit of a privileged problem? I mean, a lot of parents are just trying to keep their kids safe and fed, not strategizing about Ivy League admissions from the delivery room. Olivia: That's a fair point, and Lythcott-Haims acknowledges it directly. She says this particular brand of overparenting is most prevalent in middle and upper-middle-class communities, where parents have the time and resources to be this involved. But the danger is that this "checklisted" idea of good parenting is trickling down and becoming the cultural standard for everyone, creating a universal pressure that ultimately serves no one.

Jackson: Okay, so we've established the 'what'—this insane pressure cooker of a childhood. But what's the actual harm? Besides a lot of stressed-out parents, what does this do to the kids themselves? Olivia: This is where the book gets really alarming. The core of the harm is that these kids become "failure deprived." They've been so protected, so managed, that they have no experience with normal, everyday struggle. So when they finally face a real challenge on their own, they crumble. Jackson: Failure deprived... I love that term. It's like an immune system that's never been exposed to germs. The first time it encounters a real challenge, it just completely collapses. Olivia: Precisely. Lythcott-Haims saw this firsthand at Stanford. She helped start something called the Stanford Resilience Project. Why? Because students were having full-blown mental health crises over getting a B. They had never received a grade that wasn't an A, and they interpreted it as catastrophic failure. They didn't have the tools to cope. The data backs this up. A 2013 survey by the American College Health Association found that over 50% of college students felt overwhelming anxiety, and over 30% felt so depressed it was difficult to function. Jackson: That's staggering. And it makes sense. If your entire identity is built on a foundation of perfect grades and achievements, the first crack in that foundation feels like the end of the world. Does this fragility follow them into the workplace? I've heard some horror stories. Olivia: Oh, it absolutely does. The book is filled with jaw-dropping anecdotes from HR managers and CEOs. There's the story of an EMT candidate who brought his parents with him to the job interview. The hiring manager thought, "If you can't handle an interview by yourself, how can I trust you to make a life-or-death decision in an ambulance?" Jackson: You can't! You can't call your mom for advice when someone's having a heart attack. Olivia: Then there's the even more extreme story of Richard, a young guy at a high-powered New York investment bank. His mother was worried he was being overworked, so she found his boss's number and called him on a weekend to complain. Jackson: Oh no. Please don't tell me... Olivia: Richard was fired. His boss sent him home with a box of his things and a note that just said, "Ask your mother." Jackson: Wow. So you're not just hurting their feelings by overparenting, you're literally hurting their paychecks. That's a powerful reality check. The book makes it clear that employers are noticing. A survey by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute found that a quarter of employers reported parents being involved in the hiring process for their college-age kids. Olivia: They're submitting résumés for them, advocating for salary increases, even complaining when their kid doesn't get the job. It's a systemic problem.

Olivia: Exactly. And that's why Lythcott-Haims argues we need a completely different approach. It's not about abandoning our kids, but about parenting for a different goal entirely. The goal isn't to engineer a perfect childhood; it's to build a capable adult. Jackson: Okay, so how do we do that without just, you know, letting them run into traffic? What's the practical first step for a parent who recognizes they're stuck in this cycle? Olivia: She offers a beautifully simple, four-step method for teaching any life skill. It goes like this: First, we do it for you. Then, we do it with you. Then, we watch you do it. And finally, you do it completely independently. The hardest part for parents is that final step: letting go. Jackson: I like that. It's a gradual release of control. It's not just throwing them in the deep end. Can you give an example of how that works in practice? Olivia: She gives a great one from her own life. Her son, Sawyer, was starting middle school. She found herself waiting in a long registration line, filling out his forms, and had a lightbulb moment: "Why am I doing this? He can do this." So she called him over, briefed him on what to do, and had him handle the rest of the process himself. He had to figure out which table to go to next, who to talk to. It was a small step, but it was a transfer of responsibility. Jackson: That's a great, concrete example. What about things at home, like chores? My parents always said they build character, but it feels like kids are so over-scheduled now that no one has time for them. Olivia: The book argues that making time for chores is one of the most important things a parent can do. She cites a famous longitudinal study that found that people who did chores as kids were more likely to be successful as adults—not just in their careers, but in their relationships and personal well-being. Jackson: Why are chores so powerful? Olivia: Because they teach what psychologists call "self-efficacy." It's not the same as self-esteem, which is just feeling good about yourself. Self-efficacy is the core belief that you have the ability to handle things. It's the "I've got this" muscle. And you only build that muscle by doing things, by struggling, and by seeing that your effort leads to a result. Lythcott-Haims has this fantastic quote: "Kids don’t acquire life skills by magic at the stroke of midnight on their eighteenth birthday. Childhood is meant to be the training ground." Jackson: That's it, right there. We've turned childhood into a performance, a series of showcases, instead of a training ground. Olivia: And we need to reclaim it as a safe place to practice, to mess up, and to learn how to be a human in the world.

Olivia: So, when you pull it all together, the book is making this powerful argument that we've mortgaged our kids' childhoods and our own sanity for a very narrow, brittle definition of success. Jackson: And the deep irony is that it doesn't even work. The very things we do to guarantee their success—the hovering, the fixing, the check-listing—are the things that make them less likely to succeed in the real world. They end up as these brilliant, fragile ornaments. Olivia: Exactly. Lythcott-Haims's ultimate message is about redefining our role as parents. Our job is not to be a concierge who handles all their problems, or a handler who manages their lives. It's to be a guide who prepares them for the path, not a bulldozer who clears the path for them. It's about giving them roots, but also giving them wings. Jackson: I think that's a perfect place to end. It's a call to be brave enough to parent differently, even when everyone around you is still in the arms race. So for everyone listening, here's a challenge: what's one small thing you could let your kid do for themselves this week? Maybe it's packing their own lunch, or talking to their own teacher, or even just letting them be bored for an hour without a scheduled activity. We'd love to hear your stories and what you discover. Olivia: A fantastic challenge. This is Aibrary, signing off.