2-hour delay, closing, etc

Six thousand respondents to the Slate survey and the trend is clear: Kids today have a lot less freedom than their parents did.

A 2007 Pew survey found that at a rate of nearly three to one, people believe the main purpose of marriage is the “mutual happiness and fulfillment” of adults rather than the “bearing and raising of children.” Pew also found that only 41 percent of today’s adults see parenthood as very important to a successful marriage, down from 62 percent in 1990. If anything, it can be a detriment. The University of Chicago’s Linda Waite, whose research focuses on how to make marriages last, tells me, “You’re better off to ignore your kids and focus on your relationship than to focus on your kids and ignore your relationship,” which she says few people have the courage to do. Instead, she says, we do the opposite. “Kids, kids, kids. That’s how we forget about our own needs—it’s all about them. And no one is happy like that.”

Not only are you now on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in costs over the next two decades, you also have a new obligation to teach your children about money so that they grow into adults who are at home in the financial world and who have a healthy relationship with money. You, the parent, are the first and most crucial link in that learning process.