She's right imo.
Pasted below in case of paywall.
Why would a healthy, intelligent person aspire to mental illness? Who goes to a doctor demanding written evidence that, despite full physical fitness, they are “impaired”, unable to face normality without special care? It doesn’t sound much like a CV, but it has become a commonplace ambition.
A Cambridge GP blew the whistle last week after being repeatedly asked to diagnose either Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or anxiety disorders in students facing exams. They bring template letters to send to tutors; numerous city clinics offer private ADHD diagnoses, and rarely seem to say: “No, sorry, you’re ordinary: perhaps go easy on the partying?” Tutors, aware that respecting individual fragilities is more popular than upholding standards, meekly respond by offering 25 per cent extra time on exams, or — if the young person reports “anxiety” about the exam hall — a separately invigilated room.
It is hard to believe that all these mental disorders were mentioned in those students’ original applications. Personal statements vaunting “passion” for a subject rarely add: “But I am also cripplingly anxious, hyperactive and can’t bear stress.” You’d think that surviving a Cambridge interview suggests a certain robustness, given there’s only a one-in-four chance of acceptance even then. Yet when the exams come, so does the useful diagnosis.
Of course real and longstanding problems generally do get revealed on application, because alongside physical disability universities offer support for dyslexia or recognised mental illness. Many with such disabilities rise to great heights, often proudly preferring it not to be mentioned. But while it is disturbing that so many in further education claim fragility, it is hardly surprising. In schools, more GCSE and A-level candidates are awarded extra time than ever before (not just post-pandemic; it’s been rising for years).
Teachers will tell you that out of every 100 candidates at least a quarter, sometimes nearly half, will be on special arrangements. Extra exam time, a rest break, a privacy curtain or private room, a writer because their handwriting is illegible, or a laptop because that was their homework habit. Modern, yes, but a bit hard on kids without laptops needing the same grades.
They will also tell you that such special pleading is linked to class. An LSE survey of primary schools found that“special learning difficulties” diagnoses are twice as high in richer areas than in the most deprived. It’s a dark statistic: either the system is being gamed by richer parents or children in terrible conditions get their real impediments written off as naughtiness and drift unnoticed into shameful subliteracy. Already 413,000 children don’t own a single book, one in five have difficulties reading, and adult illiteracy is rising.
Meanwhile a vast middle class embraces a cultural belief — possibly connected to smaller families — that every individual is so precious and fragile that the world must bend around their quirks. Education built around specialness and “potential” pushes aside tough old expectations of public duty and a civil level of conformity: watch it all the way from public drunkenness and feet on seats to outrage at being made “unsafe” by disagreement. A recent play adapted 1950s Malory Towers school stories: plodding Enid Blyton tales but with accidental insights into a world of unheated-barracks dormitories and headmistresses telling girls to “give back! … be sensible, trustable women the world can lean on”.
Whatever the failings of postwar stiffness — it had plenty — at least that generation was more prepared than most modern children for the shocking fact that once education’s over, the wide world really doesn’t care about your feelings. Rules and systems should prevent bullying, but preserving your comfort zone is of interest only to parents and faithful friends. As far as everyone else is concerned, it’s up to you to be useful.
I suspect that children low on the economic ladder learn this earlier and prize “unfulfilling” paid work: the paper-round mentality. But middle-class kids risk a shock, on emerging from a system that from kindergarten to degree warmly fosters their personal development and applauds any effort. After years of being a unique treasure, you’re a cog: a usable unit. An employer may talk about fulfilment, but whether a coffee shop, lab, law firm, public service or Big Four consultancy, it really just wants the job done. On time, and properly. Anything else is kindness and may not last long.
So deciding that you cannot face an exam hall (especially if elsewhere you happily tolerate discos) does you no favours. Work always makes the heart hammer: am I up to it, will I get it done on time, will the boss or client be satisfied? In a new environment will I make a fool of myself? If, by the age of 20, you firmly diagnose yourself with “I’ve got anxiety”, why would anyone employ you?
I am not criticising a generation or those fighting genuine problems, but pointing at adult unfairness. It is unkind to encourage anyone to think of their feelings and quaverings as an impenetrable, sacred, privileged force-field. It is especially unfair now because competitive globalisation makes the wider world tougher than it was for those who emerged into it after the war; lectures on duty and personal humility echoing in their ears. Even my lot stepped out with both a good chance of job security and an awareness that our young selves were nowt special, mere apprentices, works-in-progress.
Today, watching a softened generation meeting a harsher world feels like a dastardly trick by the boomer generation: if we pretend to value every emotional foible of the young, maybe they won’t notice we’ve priced them out of getting a home.