I forget the terminology but I read something recently about how people are paying too much attention to their kids and it's making their kids neurotic.

Like when kids were growing up a couple decades ago they could just do whatever they wanted and those folks turned out all right. And now we've got people obsessing over where their children are and literally tracking their location, and the results don't seem to be so great.

(I heard that this difference had actually been quantified but unfortunately I don't have a link.)

I remember something about how, some percentage of children are not even allowed to leave the yard. Whereas their parents were just roaming for miles, at a much younger age.

Although I suppose at the same time, we're also less present with each other. So I guess there's at least two dimensions to that.

I guess the first one would be, are you relaxed and do you trust them to take care of themselves, even at a young age.

And the second one would be... are you actually there, or is it just your body that's there.

It's an interesting question:

Are people who are very very securely attached to their parents happy later in life, or is there a ceiling? The terminology invites certain conclusions here.

Maybe the whole attention thing is more a matter of quality, rather than quantity