This piece by Lenore Skenazy of Reason goes a long way in explaining the behavior of some college students today.

College Students: Stop Acting Like You’re Made of Sugar Candy

What happens when a generation grows up being told that nothing is safe enough, not even a walk home from the park? Or that they should never encounter a bad grade, or mean remark—these things are too wounding? Or that they didn’t lose the game, they are the “8th place winners!?”

Here’s what happens: At least a portion of them become convinced that they are extremely fragile. They need—they demand—the kind of life-buffers they’ve had since childhood.

Which brings us to this remarkable essay by Judith Shulevitz in Sunday’s New York Times. She details the demands students are making to feel “safe” on campus. But she’s not talking about physical safety; students want to be safe from debates. Safe from jarring ideas. Safely situated in a “safe place” (terminology previously associated with hurricanes and nuclear war) when some speaker somewhere on campus is even suggesting the possibility that we don’t live in a “rape culture.”

So if you haven’t read the essay yet—and Robby Soave’s rousing take on it—please do. And then let’s start using a term Shulevitz employs, “self infantilizing,” to describe what has happened to our young adults when they behave as if they are as helpless and vulnerable as babies, and apparently just as easily entertained. The “safe place” Brown University provided for its students during the rape culture debate in another building was outfitted with coloring books, bubbles, and Play Doh.