I am not a parent. I do not profess to know what it takes to raise a child, the sacrifices required, the patience necessary. I can only imagine that the goal of all this time and effort is to instill your values and then send your mini-me out into the world to work hard, earn their place among their peers, and make you proud. Unfortunately, the notion of when one becomes an “adult” has been shifting in recent years. Everyone — parents, politicians, even mass media — seems to be accepting this idea that children remain children far past the age of 18. Or 21. Or, gasp, 27, but I’ll get back to that later. While some of you reading this may at this very moment be baking a meatloaf for your 34-year-old son who resides in your basement and has never been able to find a “good job,” I must protest that despite your good intentions, you may very well be robbing him of his future. OK, let the hateful comments begin. I don’t have children so I can’t possibly understand, right? True, I do not have kids, but I do remember quite well what it felt like to be 18, an age when society (at least in 1988) still expected its youth to embrace adult responsibility and run, not walk, toward independence.

So what happened? Why do so many young adults today seem trapped in childhood, unable, unwilling, and uninterested in growing up? Psychologists might say “helicopter parenting” is to blame, a generation of hovering parents who don’t want to cut the apron strings. But I suspect that only scratches the surface. Television cannot be blameless here with its reality shows and weekly dramas depicting young, leisurely, ultra-rich, ultra-fabulous casts who regard their hard-working parents as fools. It’s convenient how these shows never seem to reveal how the mortgage gets paid or who keeps gas in the tank of that BMW high school graduation gift. All the comforts of life appear to be free for the taking. Nothing is earned, it is simply deserved.

Another obvious culprit is technology and parents all too eager to provide it at younger and younger ages. The first time I saw a young girl, maybe 8, with a cell phone, I wanted to cry. I’ll bet by the time she’s 12 the constant texting will leave her devoid of any real grammar, verbal, or interpersonal skills. Her entire childhood, and all the non-electronic bliss that should go with it, will pass her by while she’s setting speed records with her thumbs. By 18, she’ll be a pro at tapping out her feelings and blasting them into cyberspace, but how will she fair in a job where her every thought and feeling is not needed and her painfully short attention span and over-developed self esteem will be a major liability? I could be wrong, but somehow I doubt it.

This all brings me to the most infuriating and easily avoidable cause for today’s glut of dependent twenty somethings: Government. The current crew infesting Washington with their progressive ideology is working weekends and holidays to make dependence bigger, freedom smaller, and the Constitution irrelevant. A fine example is a provision in the ridiculous monster of a health care bill. Sponsored by first-term Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), the provision extends coverage of a young adult under a parent’s policy to age 27. Much to my surprise, 20 states already mandate this type of coverage for “adult dependents” to age 25. New Jersey goes one step further by allowing such coverage until the resident turns 30, so long as they do not claim any dependents. Like most well-intentioned government edicts, this one encourages dependency and delays personal responsibility. It endorses young adults to remain dependents of their parents, in some cases until age 30, well beyond the point when they should be living on their own and supporting their own lives with their own income. This type of government intervention in the 1960s resulted in countless fatherless households — don’t worry Mr. X, you don’t have to support your family anymore. Uncle Sam is here to help. Which makes me wonder: what will be the result for this new generation who have been denied maturity and discouraged from growing up? How disappointing it must be to learn that the finer things in life are earned through hard work, that sometimes 9 to 5 really means 8 to 7 plus Saturdays, and that sucking off of mom and dad well into your twenties is an insult to them and to yourself. You better check the meatloaf. I think it’s done.