The Vanishing American Adult, Ben Sasse
The Vanishing American Adult, Ben Sasse
18 Rating(s)
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The Vanishing American Adult
Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance

Bestseller

Author: Ben Sasse

Narrator: Ben Sasse

Unabridged: 11 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/16/2017


Synopsis

"Former college president and now U.S. Senator Ben Sasse reads with the clarity and confidence of a voice pro in this friendly warning aimed at America's parents, teachers, and governing officials." — AudioFile Magazine

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER — read by the author.

In an era of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and an unprecedented election, the country's youth are in crisis. Senator Ben Sasse warns the nation about the existential threat to America's future.

Raised by well-meaning but overprotective parents and coddled by well-meaning but misbegotten government programs, America's youth are ill-equipped to survive in our highly-competitive global economy.

Many of the coming-of-age rituals that have defined the American experience since the Founding: learning the value of working with your hands, leaving home to start a family, becoming economically self-reliant—are being delayed or skipped altogether. The statistics are daunting: 30% of college students drop out after the first year, and only 4 in 10 graduate. One in three 18-to-34 year-olds live with their parents.

From these disparate phenomena: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who as president of a Midwestern college observed the trials of this generation up close, sees an existential threat to the American way of life.

In The Vanishing American Adult, Sasse diagnoses the causes of a generation that can't grow up and offers a path for raising children to become active and engaged citizens. He identifies core formative experiences that all young people should pursue: hard work to appreciate the benefits of labor, travel to understand deprivation and want, the power of reading, the importance of nurturing your body—and explains how parents can encourage them.

Our democracy depends on responsible, contributing adults to function properly—without them America falls prey to populist demagogues. A call to arms, The Vanishing American Adult will ignite a much-needed debate about the link between the way we're raising our children and the future of our country.

About Ben Sasse

U.S. Senator Ben Sasse is a fifth-generation Nebraskan. The son of a football and wrestling coach, he attended public school in Fremont, Nebraska, and spent his summers working soybean and corn fields. He was recruited to wrestle at Harvard before attending Oxford, and later earned a Ph.D. in American history from Yale. Prior to the Senate, Sasse spent five years as president of Midland University back in his hometown. As perhaps the only commuting family in the U.S. Senate, Ben and his wife, Melissa, live in Nebraska but are homeschooling their three children as they commute weekly back and forth to Washington, DC.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Steven

Ben Sasse is one of those Senators who looks like a career politician from a movie or central casting. But actually he was running a college before he came to the Senate. And in his book here he puts his finger on something very unique happening in society today that I have been guilty of (a little......more

Goodreads review by Joe

Ben Sasse is sharp, witty, and highly educated. He also harbors a reservoir of dangerous and frighteningly bad ideas. The first time I realized this, I was listening to a debate between him and Dave Domina who was his opponent running for the U.S. Senate in 2014. I clearly remember the moment when S......more

Goodreads review by Megan

I went into this with a ~mostly~ open mind, but give me a break.* This quote, from an NYT review, sums it up for me: "It must be nice to be Ben Sasse, in a position to pick and choose the hardships one will adopt in order to learn some life lessons — and to feel morally superior for having triumphed......more

Goodreads review by Tom

I'm glad to have read this while my boys are 5 and under. When my oldest resists doing something he could do for himself, I have been saying with a smile, "Ezra, we are building a culture of self-reliance." He has no idea what this means, but he thinks reliance has something to do with lions. So, he......more

Goodreads review by Joe

The basic message I got from this book is that it is a parent's responsibility to raise their children with a strong work ethic and the background knowledge and skills to be able to think critically and to be self-reliant. I agree that these are essential skills and that is a laudable message. I fou......more


Quotes

"Former college president and now U.S. Senator Ben Sasse reads with the clarity and confidence of a voice pro in this friendly warning aimed at America's parents, teachers, and governing officials. Offering accessible examples and data to back his concerns, he says that too many of today's youth lack persistence and become "bizarrely fuzzy-headed when actual real-world problems need to be solved." Part of the problem is that they have few early experiences with hard work or overcoming obstacles. We don't expect enough of them. He also recommends that we let them travel and see the deprivation in other cultures and encourage them to nurture their bodies--to become better citizens by not taking their circumstances or health for granted. In a not-so-subtle jab, he says these experiences will also help our youth be less angry and, thus, less vulnerable to political demagogues." -AudioFile

"I know Ben Sasse as one of the most important emerging voices in our national dialogue -- plain-spoken, brilliant, and unafraid to speak his mind. Whether we agree or disagree, when he speaks -- I’m listening. And when he writes, I’m definitely reading."

--Cory Booker