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That's Science Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. When members of Gen X share memes about our childhoods, they often include mentions of how we rode bikes without helmets, walked alone to the store to pick up cigarettes for our parents before we hit double digits, went out to play soon after sunrise on summer days,

and weren't expected home until the fireflies came out.

We are vaguely scandalized by the unsupervised freedoms of our 1970s and 80s childhoods,

but also deeply nostalgic.

So how did free-range kids grow up to be hovering helicopter parents?

From KERA in Dallas, this is think.

I'm Chris Boyd.

GenX parents are mostly raising Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids who are perceived as unusually anxious compared to their predecessors.

One big question is whether that is despite the careful and constant supervision

provided by their adoring parents or maybe because of it. David French is a member of Gen X and a

parent himself. He's also an opinion columnist writing about law, culture, religion, and armed

conflict for the New York Times, where you can read his essay, How did the latchkey kids of Gen X become the helicopter parents of Gen Z?

David, welcome to think.

Well, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

You opened this essay with an account of what sounds like a perfect day from your childhood,

a rare Kentucky Snow Day, 1979. Take us through that memory, which

...