I’ve noticed an odd phenomenon over the years. The very people who, you would think, would be able to give the best advice on raising children seem to be oddly reticent to offer a list of rules. And the more children they have, the more reticent they are.

Fortunately, there is an ever-growing demographic of people who have no such shyness about sharing their views on child-rearing. These, of course, are the people who (like me) have no children of their own.

I saw this article today (hat tip Strange Herring) on a recent study that concluded that children who watched “Sponge Bob Square Pants” showed decreased attention spans, as compared to children who watched “Caillou,” and a control group who (I assume) used a magnifying glass to fry ants.

I’ve never watched either of these programs, but I have a hard time believing “Sponge Bob Square Pants” is as bad as they say. I mean, he wears pants! That’s got to count for something. Porky Pig never wore pants. Neither did Donald Duck. Bugs Bunny never wore anything, unless he put on a dress. Is this not progress?

Still, the whole thing seems symptomatic (especially if you’re biased, as I am) of the inescapable fact that The Kids Are Not All Right. Something has gone very wrong, and those of us who are getting older are starting to lie awake at night, contemplating the fact that we’re going to spend our declining years being cared for by a generation we are growing less and less willing to trust to carry our groceries out to the car.

I blame my parents’ generation. They are guilty of one of the greatest crimes in history—that is, producing my generation. Tom Brokaw called them “The Greatest Generation,” because they clawed their way through the Great Depression and fought their way to victory in World War II. Once they’d done that, they made a well-meaning but tragic vow— “We will never let our children suffer the way we have.”

Obviously, this was a mistake.

They made childhood so delightful, and adolescence such a party, that nobody wanted to move on. Who wouldn’t want to party forever? Thus you see my contemporaries still dressing like extras from an Our Gang comedy (complete with caps worn sideways). And our own children don’t look to be doing any better.

Clearly, childhood and adolescence need to be made more miserable for everybody. I know mine were. I couldn’t wait to get out on my own and be free of the tyranny of my parents and teachers. My family situation was abnormal for the times, but it gives me some insight, I think. I embraced adulthood (in action if not in character) because I had a childhood worth fleeing.

Childhood must once again be made the living Hades it was, once upon a time.

My frequent calls for the return of child labor (solves the delinquency problem; removes the need for immigrant workers) unaccountably show no sign of being heeded. So I have another suggestion. The English Model.

Generations back, wealthy upper-class English parents realized that the kind of pampering they could afford to give their children would be bad for those children’s characters. So they adopted the unspeakably brutal system of the English Public School (a very different thing from American public schools; we’d call them private schools). In Public Schools the kids were housed in uncomfortable dormitories, drilled and forced to attend worship, and taught boring courses by sadists who did not hesitate to use the cane for the least infraction.

Wealthy English kids grew up, not only eager to leave childhood, but to leave England altogether. Off they flocked to India or China or Malaysia, anywhere where they weren’t likely to be asked to decline Greek verbs (thus their otherwise inexplicable reluctance to conquer Greece. Why do you think Lord Byron died?).

All American schools need to become boarding schools, and they need to be operated on the Gulag model. Roust the kids out of bed at 4:00 a.m. and make them do two hours of calisthenics before breakfast (cold oatmeal). Make them study Greek and Latin. Whip them for disobedience or slacking. Let the nation’s dietary crusaders plan the menus. Send the kids to bed at 9:00 p.m., and keep the rooms cold (it’s for the environment!). Forbid even the mention of television or the internet. Or texting.

“But,” someone might object, “our teachers today are too kind-hearted. They’d never abuse the children like that.”

Ha! These are the same teachers who’ll send for the police to arrest a kid if they discover a butter knife in the trunk of his car. They’re the ones who’ll call the police in to arrest a little boy because he said something “inappropriate” to a little girl. They’re the ones who’ll discipline a kid for bringing a Bible to school.

If you tell them a Government Expert says it’s good for the kids, they’ll do it to the kids. It’s how they roll.

I think it can be traced back to their permissive upbringing.