We were the last generation whose parents loved us enough to let us fail completely, and that accidental gift of inattention taught us something modern helicopter parenting never could.
A 2024 study from the American Psychological Association found that parental monitoring of children's daily activities has increased by roughly 600% since 1970, while measures of childhood independence have dropped to historic lows. The average child in the 1960s spent several unsupervised hours per day navigating conflicts, boredom, and minor crises alone. Today, that number hovers near zero. These numbers tell a story that most people get wrong. The assumption is that earlier generations developed grit because life was harder. No seatbelts, lead paint, walking uphill both ways to school. But the data points somewhere else entirely.
The truth is much simpler and much more unsettling. We developed grit because no adult was watching closely enough to prevent us from needing it.
When failure was still private
Last week, my granddaughter called me in tears. She'd forgotten her science project at home, and within minutes, three adults were mobilizing. Her mother racing back home, her father calling the teacher, me being recruited to deliver it to school. The entire rescue operation took less than twenty minutes.
That kind of coordination would have been unthinkable in my childhood.
When I forgot my book report in sixth grade, I sat through Mrs. Henderson's class knowing I'd get a zero. No one called anyone. No one negotiated. I failed, I felt the shame, and I never forgot another assignment. That private reckoning with my own carelessness taught me more about responsibility than any lecture could have.
Psychologists note that "people who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s possess mental resilience traits that seem almost foreign to younger generations." But it wasn't because our parents were teaching us resilience. They were simply too busy to prevent us from developing it naturally.
The space between mistake and rescue
My mother worked as a seamstress while raising four daughters, often late into the night. When I came home with a bloody knee from falling off my bike, she'd glance up from her sewing machine and say, "Well, clean it up then." No drama, no rush to the emergency room, no incident report. Just me, some iodine, and the understanding that not every hurt required an adult intervention.
This wasn't neglect. It was a different philosophy of care. Our parents loved us deeply, but they loved us from a distance that allowed us to experience the natural consequences of our choices. They were lighthouse keepers, not helicopter pilots, offering guidance from afar but letting us navigate our own rough waters.
During my 32 years teaching high school English, I watched this philosophy disappear. Parents went from asking "What did you do?" when their child failed, to asking me "How could you let this happen?" The entire architecture of childhood shifted from independence to surveillance, from natural consequences to negotiated outcomes.
Learning from unwitnessed struggles
When I was fourteen, I got into a fight with my best friend that lasted three months. No parent intervened. No counselor mediated. We avoided each other, suffered through the loneliness, and eventually figured out how to apologize without a structured resolution process. That messy, painful process taught me more about friendship and forgiveness than any adult-guided conversation could have.
Researchers found that grit, particularly its subcomponents Consistency of Interests and Perseverance of Effort, are associated with practice accumulation in sports, suggesting that grit influences how athletes engage in practice over time. But what they don't mention is that grit develops best when nobody's watching to make sure you stick with it. When quitting means facing your own disappointment, not letting down a team of invested adults.
Today's children rarely experience unmonitored struggle. Every conflict has a mediator, every failure has a safety net, every disappointment has a committee of adults ready to soften the blow. We've confused constant monitoring with good parenting, surveillance with safety.
The unexpected benefits of benign neglect
My generation experienced something that would horrify today's parents but perhaps explains our particular brand of resilience. The Salvation Army says "abuse at its boys' homes in the 1960s and 1970s are the darkest period in its history in Australia." While institutional abuse is never acceptable, it points to a broader truth about that era. Children were largely left to figure things out on their own, for better or worse.
We weren't constantly photographed, tracked, or monitored. Our mistakes weren't documented on social media. Our failures weren't immediately addressed by teams of concerned adults. We climbed trees without helmets, settled disputes with our fists or our silence, wandered neighborhoods until the streetlights came on, and lied about where we'd been because the truth had real consequences. We rode bikes without knowing where we were going, came home with scrapes we never explained, built things that broke, broke things we never admitted to, and sat alone with our shame until we figured out how to move forward. That privacy was its own teacher. It gave us room to be foolish and then room to recover from the foolishness without an audience.
When my first husband left me with two young children, I made terrible decisions. I leaned too heavily on my eldest son, turning him into the "man of the house" when he was just a boy. No one intervened. No one told me I was damaging him. We both carry scars from that time, but we also carry the unshakeable knowledge that we survived something difficult without being rescued.
Resilience through recovery, not prevention
Researchers indicate that grit and resilience are significantly related to mental health, academic performance, and quality of life in children with reading disorders, suggesting that these traits may help children face challenges and learn from their mistakes. But here's what the research doesn't say explicitly: You can't develop the ability to learn from mistakes if you're never allowed to make them fully, to feel their complete weight.
I think about my own journey through widowhood. After my second husband died, I spent six months barely leaving the house. My children wanted to intervene. Schedule therapy, arrange activities, medicate the grief away. But I needed that darkness. I needed to sit with my loss until I could carry it. No one could rescue me from that necessary passage, and I'm stronger because no one tried.
Reclaiming the gift of struggle
What would happen if we gave children back their privacy to fail? If we stopped tracking their every movement and monitoring their every interaction? If we allowed them to experience the full weight of their choices without immediately swooping in to lighten the load?
Researchers found that grit and growth mindset are distinct but mutually reinforcing traits during adolescence, suggesting that fostering these traits can help individuals develop resilience and learn from their failures. But you can't learn from failures that never fully happen, from consequences that never fully land.
My generation didn't develop grit through special programs or intentional parenting strategies. We developed it in the spaces between adult attention, in the moments when no one was watching, in the failures that no one witnessed or prevented. We learned to solve problems because no one was standing by with solutions. We learned to endure because no one was rushing to end our discomfort.
Final thoughts
Yesterday I watched my daughter at the park with her son. He climbed too high on the jungle gym and froze, gripping the top bar, eyes wide. She was already moving toward him, phone in one hand, the other reaching up. But then she stopped. She stood there for a long moment, arms half-raised, caught between the instinct to rescue and something older she couldn't quite name. He looked down at her. She looked up at him. Neither of them moved.
I don't know what she decided to do after that. I left before I could see the ending, and I've been thinking about it since. Maybe she pulled him down. Maybe she talked him through it. Maybe he figured it out on his own. I'm not sure which answer I'm hoping for, and I'm less sure than I used to be that there's a right one.
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Marlene Martin
Marlene Martin is a retired high school English teacher who spent 38 years in the classroom before discovering plant-based eating in her late sixties. When her daughter first introduced her to the idea of removing animal products from her diet, Marlene was skeptical. But curiosity won out over habit, and what started as a reluctant experiment became a genuine transformation in how she thinks about food, health, and aging.
At VegOut, Marlene writes about nutrition, wellness, and the experience of embracing new ways of eating later in life. She brings a teacher’s instinct for clarity and patience to topics that can feel overwhelming, especially for readers who are just beginning to explore plant-based living. Her writing is informed by personal experience, careful research, and a belief that it is never too late to change.
Marlene lives in Portland, Oregon, where she spends her mornings reading research papers, her afternoons tending a modest vegetable garden, and her evenings knitting while listening to audiobooks. She has three adult children and two grandchildren who keep her honest about staying current.
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