Why Removing Struggle From Our Kids May Be the Costliest Financial Mistake of the Baby Boomer Generation

The Trophy Generation and What It Costs Us All

Dr. Scott Atlas, the Stanford neuroradiologist who served in the Trump administration during COVID, wrote something recently that I think deserves serious attention. Not because it is politically convenient, but because it is true. He said that the Baby Boomer generation made a catastrophic mistake. They watched their parents sacrifice. They struggled to move up. And then, when it was their turn, they vowed their children would have it easier.

I think of that line from The Godfather every time I hear something like this. Don Corleone getting upset with Sonny, acknowledging he spoiled his kids. Same idea.

The instinct was loving. The outcome was damaging.

Atlas grew up in a household shaped by immigrant sacrifice. His parents and grandparents came to this country and endured real hardship. He worked multiple jobs to pay his own way through college. That experience of struggle, of failing and getting back up, is exactly what built the kind of person who ends up as a neuroradiologist at Stanford.

When we handed out participation trophies and cleared every obstacle from our children’s paths, we thought we were being good parents. What we actually did was deprive them of something essential.

What Struggle Actually Teaches

This is not just a philosophical point. It has real financial consequences for individuals and for the broader economy.

• Delayed financial independence is now the norm, not the exception, for younger adults.
• Risk tolerance and resilience are skills built through experience, not handed down through good intentions.
• Work ethic and delayed gratification, the twin engines of wealth building, are learned in the school of hard knocks, not in a padded classroom.
• The ability to recover from failure is what separates people who build lasting financial security from those who collapse at the first setback.

I am not saying every parent in the Boomer generation got this wrong. That would be an overstatement. There were plenty of households that held the line, that made kids earn what they got, that let consequences play out. But the cultural trend Atlas is describing is real, and I have seen the results of it firsthand in how people approach money, investing, and planning for their futures.

The Political Dimension No One Wants to Talk About

Here is where I am going to say something that might make some people uncomfortable. The same cultural drift that produced participation trophies also produced a generation that finds democratic socialism appealing. I want to be precise about what that means.

A democratic socialist will smile at you. A communist frowns. Same basic idea, different packaging. And these people have been around for a while. They are getting elected in certain places. I will say this though, my suspicion is that most of them will drift toward the center once they realize that is where the actual levers of power live. Everyone eventually plays politics.

But the underlying worldview, that struggle is unfair, that outcomes should be equalized, that hard work and failure are bugs to be engineered out of the system, that is a worldview with real economic consequences. It shapes tax policy, entitlement spending, regulatory frameworks, and ultimately your portfolio.

What This Means for Your Financial Life

If you are a parent or a grandparent, the most important financial lesson you can pass down is not which stocks to buy. It is how to handle adversity. How to work. How to fail and try again.

• Let your kids experience financial consequence for their decisions.
• Teach them to earn, save, and delay gratification before they learn to invest.
• Do not rob them of the dignity of struggle by smoothing every road.
• Understand that resilience is a financial asset more durable than any inheritance.

Atlas is right. The generation insulated from failure is also, not coincidentally, the generation least prepared for the realities of building wealth, maintaining it, and navigating the economic storms that are coming. The answer is not government programs or participation ribbons. It is putting struggle back on the menu.