I am only 7 years removed from college. But what I see every day at the university I currently work at echoes this latest article from "The Fray." Expectations for the generation currently at university are terrifically low.

This boy had not matured enough through high school to care about his future, to the extent that he did not apply to school without "clerical help" and, I assume, vigorous nagging. Shockingly, after Mom got him into school, secured him housing, and settled him in with food, he settled in to fail.

Why? Because he had never failed before. Mom would not let him. So he had never struggled, and without struggle there is no growth.

Conflict and struggle has been nearly excised from their lives. Everyone in little league is a winner. Everyone has the right answer in math class, even if they have different answers. The value in being right, being fastest, being first, are all diminshed while the value in having strong self-esteem continues to grow.

Unfortunately, having strong self-esteem based on a lifetime of approbation (rather then achievement) is not a foundation for success.

Your post is right on. All of this emphasis on kids having good self esteem is seriously one of the worst things to happen to modern children. Parents and teachers are expected to constantly pump children's ego's up until they think they can walk on water, and they don't have to work hard or take risks or put any effort into anything because they are already special and wonderful and perfect by just being themselves. Everybody has to get a star and an award, everyone has to feel like a winner. So when they become adults and get out in the real world they are completely unable to function because they have never been taught to deal with failure and conflict and hard work. Just being "special" without anything of substance to back it up won't put food on the table.

I'm not that far out of college and I say such things about 'kids these days.' But I'm joking. This has been going on at least for decades. Everyone is always worried about how the 'next generation of leaders' is going to turn out.

This is the same old story rehashed. Frankly, it's boring, and a lot of readers are rightly saying how pathetic it is. It's also substandard fare from Slate, from which I expect better.

What's this fixation on the XBOX? It's probably a 360 anyway. Get more understanding with his interests in life, not the mechanics of it!

The irony of all of this failure-removal-to-build-self-­esteem is that it ultimately leads to adults who have very low self-confidence, because they have never proven to themselves that they are capable of completing anything on their own.

If I had failed out of school because I skipped class and failed to complete assignments, my parents would have ceased paying my rent or tuition anywhere. In order to complete a degree, I would have had to move home, work, and go to community college. If I then had succeeded in completing my AA on my own dime, they might have given me a second chance at paying room, board, and tuition at a four-year.

Obviously, she wanted him to go to college more than he did, but since she wasn't there to do his homework, he failed out.