In a 2011 article in The Atlantic titled "How the Cult of Self-Esteem Is Ruining Our Kids," therapist Lori Gottlieb observes a growing trend: parents who work too hard to offer their kids choices, buttress their self-esteem, and guard them from hardship. In the process, she claims that we're raising an entitled "teacup" generation of children that can't handle life's bumps and bruises. She challenges parents:

Underlying all this parental angst is the hopeful belief that if we make the right choices, that if we do things a certain way, our kids will turn out to be not just happy adults, but adults that make us happy. This is a misguided notion …. We can protect [our children] from nasty classmates and bad grades and all kinds of rejection and their own limitations, but eventually they will bump up against these things anyway. In fact, by trying so hard to provide the perfectly happy childhood, we're just making it harder for our kids to actually grow up. Maybe we parents are the ones who have some growing up to do—and some letting go.