Something strange has happened at Ivy League colleges since I was in college. A surprisingly large fraction of the entering students now come from strongly religious families. Why is this?
One simple explanation is that colleges are more diverse than when I was young. Many black families, and many “ethnic” families, are strongly Christian. But I don’t think that’s all.
So many of my fellow-leftist parents ran into trouble with their kids in high school. The lure of teen culture–if not drugs and alcohol then at least “hanging out”–was in powerful opposition to our ideals. The parents whose kids were afraid of going to hell–well, a lot of their kids did better in high school than our kids. Not that I think kids should spend adolescence worrying about hell….
I tried to google some numbers to back up my anecdotal evidence–couldn’t find any. But if I had another pre-high-school-age kid, I would spend more time encouraging self-control and less on glorifying self-expression.