How do the sensible and independent young people cope these days in the anti-independence culture

[CurdinHenry]

It seems so common now to treat even young adults as hopeless babies (see eg the 17 year old who wants to go to the cinema in the evening on another thread). It seems so common (normal?) now for adults to treat kids as lacking normal capabilities and they understandably tend to live down to that and I just wonder how all the kids who are still independent and feel responsibility for themselves are handling it. It must be maddening!

I don't think it is "common now to treat even young adults as hopeless babies".

What I do think is common is for people who do this to post on MN or similar sites.

Sensible and independent young people, I suggest, are getting on just fine. It's the over-anxious parents who are suffering. But then this was always the case.

I don’t think it is that common tbh. Mine were living away at uni in London and had to learn how to live independently.

What’s your AIBU question?

Yawn. Sick of these posts belittling young people. Life for my teens has many more challenges than when I was their age..

The example you give is the extreme OP.

My ds is 17. He'll head off to uni shortly but until then, he's had a job as a lifeguard for a year. He cycles off to work, saves his earnings, makes his own lunch. He's chosen not to take the maintenance loan for uni this year and will pay half his costs while I pay the other half.
He's calm, capable and has plans b & c for if his a'levels don't go to plan.

He goes to the cinema when he wants, is usually home by 11, has never given me cause for concern. In some ways he's more sensible than I am. Teetotal etc.

All good so far 😊

Can I ask was it personal to you or do you think teens in general have many more challenges and if so what are they?

OP, why do you start so many one post threads and never come back to respond to anyone?

Literally every person on that thread has said the OP is unreasonable anyway, except the person who accused her of being an alcoholic because she doesn’t want to pick up at midnight. Now that’s a stretch even my MN standards.

This whole shtick about young people are all useless, parents mollycoddle them all the time is deeply tedious and I'm sick of it. So many silly platitudes by people about teenagers and rearing them. People don't even really interrogate this they just trot out cliches.

See also:
"Its good for kids to be bored" (no it's not. It's boring and just forces them back onto screens)
"Young people have no resilience these days", usually in response to an anecdote about a child or young person with mental health difficulties and a pointless observation that didn't need to be made.
"Why can't they just get a job?" (in the middle of the most severe jobs crisis we've had for about 30 years).
"Why don't you try parenting them?" etc etc ad nauseam.

Actually teenagers and young people are facing some pretty depressing situations at the moment. Yes some of them are wasters and need more discipline but most of the people posting on here are too far removed from this to know anyway.