RUSH: Here’s Amy, St. John, Indiana. Glad you called and welcome to the program, Amy. Hello.

CALLER: Oh, I’m fine. Thank you. Huge fan. Huge fan.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: Back to what you were saying about the college students. These kids can’t do anything by themselves. I’m surprised the ones who called 911 about the mouse did not call their parents first and have the parents call 911.

RUSH: (laughing) Is it that bad?

CALLER: It is that bad. There are these parents complaining that, well, their students’ teachers won’t talk to them, they need to talk to their student to clear up this problem or that problem. They don’t understand that Susie is just having a hard day.

RUSH: Wait. Do you have some college age kids that —

CALLER: I have a daughter who’s a freshman at Purdue University. She turned down Harvard to go there. She never really wanted to go to Harvard in the first place.

RUSH: Well, she’s obviously not one of these —

CALLER: Oh, my God, no.

RUSH: — helpless students?

CALLER: No.

RUSH: So how do you know? Do you have friends of yours?

CALLER: There’s a Facebook page, actually, for Purdue of the freshman students, and the parents post this on there, and they are throwing hysterics, “My son is crying because he can’t figure out how to do this.”

RUSH: You mean the parents are surprised?

CALLER: They’re shocked. These kids have all been told they’re number one. And Purdue is a very good school, these kids were all top of their classes, but nobody mentioned to them that someday when you go to college everybody else will be at the top of their class and you’re gonna be a small fish in the big sea.

RUSH: Well, that is a downside to the self-esteem movement. The self-esteem movement was designed to tell kids, “You’re the best, Johnny! You’re super, Johnny! You’re okay, Johnny! You’re really great, little Susie.” It’s designed because liberals are so worried that kids are gonna have failing self-esteem and not be happy and think everybody’s better than them. And so they’re pumped full of this artificial you’re-the-best stuff, and they end up believing it and they haven’t done anything.

Let me get to the story. Amy, I’m glad you called. Let me just get to the story here. It’s a great segue. The story is from The Daily Caller. “AmericaÂ’s college students are delicate, immature wusses who become traumatized, get the vapors and seek professional counseling any time they face adversity or — God forbid — earn a grade lower than a ‘B.’ The insight comes from Boston College research professor Peter Gray, writing last week at Psychology Today.

“Gray explains that he has participated in discussions at Boston College with the head of counseling services and other faculty members about how to deal with a notable decrease in resilience among students. The problem of weak-willed, fragile, gutless students … has been severe, Gray learned.” And, by the way, Boston College costs $63,000 a year. That is the tuition. Remember now, this is essentially a research professor writing at Psychology Today. This is not somebody’s opinion. This is the result of deep, deep analysis and research.

“In the last five years, for example, emergency calls to the counseling center have doubled. The reasons for the urgent calls are sometimes frivolous and stupid. One woman sought counseling, Gray said, because her roommate called her a ‘bitch.’ Not one but two students wanted professional therapy because they spotted a mouse in their off-campus apartment.” They wanted professional therapy. “The same pair of students also actually called the cops about the rodent. The cops responded and installed a mousetrap.

“The Daily Caller,” which is where this story is appearing, “is not making this up. Professors at Boston College say they receive a constant stream of email from students about trivial issues. The students expect prompt, quality customer service in response. Professors have also seen huge uptick in students who freak out when they earn low grades. Students equate grades of ‘C’ or lower — and sometimes even any ‘B’ — with failure. And ‘failure’ means total failure, Gray explains. Like an apocalypse. Students donÂ’t think to study harder,” to try harder and come back next time and do better. They think it’s over when they’ve failed.

“Instead, they beg for higher grades or paper do-overs. They yell at their professors for not making the grading criteria clear enough. ItÂ’s gotten so bad, Gray says, that many professors — particularly young ones — are hesitant to give students the bad grades they deserve out of fear that students will give them a scathing rating or have some emotional meltdown during office hours. Professors seriously worry that a bad grade could even lead to a student suicide.”

You know what that is? You know what’s happening here, in a sense? That is the epitome of controlling behavior. Now, I know some of you are gonna have a little problem with me on this, but if somebody is constantly trying to make you think that they would actually commit suicide, or that they’re gonna do great harm to themselves, that is an attempt to control you. It’s the epitome of controlling behavior, and it’s working here. In this case, these students are not getting the grades they deserve because the professors are afraid of what it’s gonna do to ’em.

Now, it may be legit. They may be so fragile that they may indeed go off the deep end. I don’t mean commit suicide, but throw a tantrum or report the teacher, make something up about something and get teacher fired, all because they have not learned how to fail and overcome it. In other words, there hasn’t been any adversity that these young people have had to face and triumph over themselves. The way has been paved for them by their parents, which in this story are called helicopter parents. There are other examples of this. You remember my story about what I did when I found a mouse in my brand-new house? I damn well didn’t call the cops. I killed it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: “Helicopter Parenting Has Created A Generation Of Traumatized, Risk-Averse WUSSES.”