Nick Gillespie's Essay: Learning A Lesson The Hard Way

Learning a Lesson the Hard Way With the turn of the twenty-first century came a new form of parenting called “helicopter parenting”, this is when a parent takes an overprotective or excessive interest in the life of their child. People call these children “millennials”. Many older Americans deem millennials as selfish and entitled. However, in Nick Gillespie’s essay, “Millennials Are Selfish and Entitled, and Helicopter Parents Are to Blame”, he argues that we cannot blame the millennials themselves for being “selfish” or “entitled” but we must blame the parents for their “ridiculous level of kid-coddling”. In his essay, Gillespie uses the logos techniques of giving statistics and inductive reasoning, as well as the pathos technique of evocative language to convince his audience of older Americans, and American parents, that it is their overbearing parenting style that is giving millennials a sense of entitlement. Throughout Gillespie's entire essay …show more content…
Gillespie uses a study from JAMA Pediatrics to report that “bullying is down one third of what it was 20 years ago”, and that “there were particularly large [declines] for assault victimization, bullying, and sexual victimization.” This strategy works because it is proof that today’s society is indeed safer than it has been in the past. Then to further strengthen that claim, he uses another poll that states “73% of [Americans] are suckers for sensationalistic news coverage that distorts reality”. By using this, Gillispie is suggesting that while Americans think millennials face more hardships than previous generations, those American’s thoughts are skewed due to media’s tendency to overreact and focus on the wrong