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I salute whoever posted the below map on Reddit. It brilliantly illustrates what kids have lost. And it does so in ways I struggle to describe. Summary: My diatribe is exclusively focused on the ruining of childhood and parenting. No one seems to be factoring it into birth rate declines or youth mental health issues. Until they do, I can only share that I believe they're tightly related. This is a USA perspective; it's all I know. In the most critical ways, my childhood was like my parents' childhood. And it was like the childhood of their great x1000 parents. Conversely, my children grew up is a much diminished world - a world where their vital growth opportunities were eradicated before they were born. From what I can tell, the loss is irreversible. Equally bleak was my experience as a parent. I see no path to improving that either. Here are the differences. Me: GenX. My parents: Silent Gen, WWII vets. My kids: Millennials-ish. Parenting time -> My parents: Occasional. A few hours per week inc family meals most nights, occasional family activity, handling me when the school called, chore reminders. Past that had jobs, hobbies and other kid-free leisure time, regular kid free social lives w/ peers. Parenting time -> Me (excl school hours): Nearly ceaseless. Most every hour I wasn't working and many hours I was. Past that I had work and church responsibilities. What we called a social life was still parenting but with slightly less focus on kids. Same for recreation. No hobbies. Combined kid-free, leisure hours across 20 years = not many. Childhood time -> Me (excl school hours): Playing. Ranging and exploring - many miles in all directions, safe from cars, safe from trespassing charges, safe from well meaning adults in general. This is when I grew my curiosity and developed ambition. The same with peers (~always adult-free) it was when I developed social interaction skills, problem solving skills, exercised risky+instructive behaviors, pushed boundaries and just grew. Childhood time -> My kids (excl school hours): Their lives were spent in a series of adult-populated, adult-curated boxes. Playing happened in adult-curated, adult-populated spaces. They surely wanted to roam but In every direction there was very high risks of cars, high risks of trespassing charges numerous other harms supplied by poor thinking, well meaning adults (ex: calling police on unsupervised kids) and that's it. Recap My kids had ~0% of the critical growth opportunities (adult-free + roaming + peers) that I (and kids back to prehistory) had. Providing this low-quality, low-growth upbringing to my kids cost me >20x the time (compared to my parents). Objectively, my parenting was massively more difficult and taxing, than what has constitutes healthy parenting. Objectively, my kids grew up in a constant state of mental growth starvation. Their substandard growth was minimally supplimated by whatever complex, curated experiences we parents could hack together. While I do recommend parenting, I do not recommend the above bargain. Going forward, when we consider modern issues like lowering birth rates and youth mental health struggles, I suggest we factor in the profound sea changes that have radically reshaped parenting and childhood. Otherwise, it seems unlikely that we'll wind up with anything but unhelpful conclusions.