I'm GenX, but had kids a little late, so most of my kid's friends either 1. have Millennial parents or 2. are raised by their Boomer grandparents (parents not much in the picture). The differences in how these two sets of caretakers behave is astounding. Take a typical visit from the friend to my house to play with my kid:
The friends who are with their grandparents show up. Grandpa parks his car in my driveway, and walks the kid to my door. We greet, kid runs off to play, and we shoot the shit for a while, asking how things have been going, maybe Grandpa wants to check out the latest on my woodworking project, whatever. Then Grandpa says goodbye, I'll be back later, and heads out.
The friends who are with their Millennial parents show up. Dad parks his car waaaaay out by the curb, never even going on my property. Kid gets out of the car and walks himself to my door. Dad speeds away in his car, never even acknowledging us. Dad comes back to pick the kid up, same thing. Parks way far away, texts his kid, and the kid excuses himself and runs all the way out to the car. I don't even know the names of any of my kid's friends' Millennial parents!
I'm a Millennial, and I do something much like this intentionally. I make it a point to explicitly put my kids into situations where they are responsible for themselves and are uncomfortable because of it.
The transition to adulthood was rough for me for several reasons, and looking back I think that was one of them - my parents always did things for me, but never expected me to do things on my own.
I almost certainly go overboard with this, but that's the nature of things.
No kids of my own, but my niece is 16. Wife and I took her to dinner when she was ~10, and afterward she said she wanted some ice cream. Sure. We drove to the grocery store on the way home (it's an older store, not huge) and handed her a $10 bill, told her to go get whatever flavor she wanted.
She freaked out. She'd been so terrified by a litany of "stranger danger" stories that the thought of just going into a store alone - a small store with one public entrance - was alien to her. We told her she could do it herself, or not have ice cream, because we weren't doing it for her. She went.
I'm glad to hear you're pushing your kids this way.
Since we're doing anecdata, I experience the exact opposite.
What's most crazy to me is how somehow almost all boomers are more addicted to smartphones than gen Z and Alpha. They'll have their grandkids over, and they'll be glued to their smartphone instead of interacting with those kids.
As a boomer, I'm sure it's because we didn't grow up with smart phones and therefore never learned good habits around them. Hell I was probably near 50 when I got my first one.
I think it's similar to kids who grow up with alcohol vs those who don't. The ones not exposed go off to college and go completely nuts.
Silent Americans are the most fucked up generation ever. They are the ones actually responsible for most of the bullshit that people attribute to Boomers.
The friends who are with their grandparents show up. Grandpa parks his car in my driveway, and walks the kid to my door. We greet, kid runs off to play, and we shoot the shit for a while, asking how things have been going, maybe Grandpa wants to check out the latest on my woodworking project, whatever. Then Grandpa says goodbye, I'll be back later, and heads out.
The friends who are with their Millennial parents show up. Dad parks his car waaaaay out by the curb, never even going on my property. Kid gets out of the car and walks himself to my door. Dad speeds away in his car, never even acknowledging us. Dad comes back to pick the kid up, same thing. Parks way far away, texts his kid, and the kid excuses himself and runs all the way out to the car. I don't even know the names of any of my kid's friends' Millennial parents!
This pattern repeats across N = about 6.