“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”

So said George W. Bush in the year 2000. Really, you’d have to ask yourself, who else could have spoken such words? But enjoying such quotes is not my only purpose today. The goofballery that we love to laugh at is a clear sign of a greater problem in this country – the very public and very aggressive anti-intellectualism movement.

When I was a kid, we were encouraged to work hard, bust our butts, try to get into a good college, and stop complaining about homework.

Now, parents of my kids’ friends battle against standardized curriculum, performance and competency testing, and my God!!! – they have way too much homework! In fact, kids should not be tested at all because school is about them smiling and playing at recess, and really, isn’t college a ridiculous waste of money?

I fear that too many parents in my generation and that immediately following mine are so focused on their own mobile social media opportunities, that their children are being formed into mushy balls of helplessness. These parents love little league because they can park their butts on the bleachers and play with their phones under the auspices of making their kids more well rounded. But they hate things like Cub Scouts because they are expected to actually participate, and other than an occasional snapshot, barely get to glance at their iPhone screen. And at some point, somebody is going to ask them to sleep in a tent.