In 1927, Eleanor Roosevelt composed a seven-point “ethics of parents”:

1. Furnish an example in living.
2. Stop preaching ethics and morals.
3. Have a knowledge of life’s problems and an imagination.
4. Stop shielding your children and clipping their wings.
5. Allow your children to develop along their own lines.
6. Don’t prevent self-reliance and initiative.
7. Have vision yourself and bigness of soul.

“The next generation,” she wrote, “will take care of itself.”