Project Vision 21

The news is alarming not only at a global level, but even locally, as shown by recent incidents occurring over the past few weeks in the city where I live, all of them involving children and teenagers.

In one case, a 16-year-old teenager was arrested by police for driving at over 100 mph on a narrow road with lanes closed due to construction. In addition, the minor did not have a driver’s license, and the vehicle lacked proper insurance. Even worse, the teenager’s brother, a 12-year-old child, was riding in the front seat without a seatbelt.

In another case, a 13-year-old boy was also taken into custody after, without his parents’ permission, he decided to take the family’s pickup truck for a drive around his neighborhood. Tragically, the outing ended when the truck crashed at high speed into a house, causing serious injuries to a woman.

But the most disturbing case was that of an 11-year-old boy, now in the custody of authorities, formally charged in local court with having killed his 5-year-old brother. For obvious reasons, the details of the case remain unknown, although it is understood that at some point on that fateful day there was some kind of fight or confrontation between the siblings.

Some might ask where the parents were when all of this was happening. (In fact, all the parents involved in these stories are or were under investigation and, in the case of the 16-year-old, are facing charges.) But perhaps the question now is a different one: what kind of society have we built for this to be happening?

Put differently, how are all of us—not just the parents—educating our children so that, at such an early age in life, when energy and imagination far exceed common sense and restraint, they act as they do (as shown by even more serious national and international cases we will not mention here)?

The Spanish philosopher and educator Gregorio Luri offers one answer: we are raising children without a childhood—that is, children who no longer enjoy a free childhood. More specifically, “today’s children have been left without spaces where they can live their adventures” (lecture “AprendemosJuntos BBVA,” September 4, 2025).

There are no longer spaces for adventure because (I would add) childhood has been transformed into a series of scheduled, controlled, and supervised activities, including interactions with other children. Playgrounds no longer scrape knees or tear pants. And the rapid transitions from dance class to the soccer field before heading to English lessons are common—and endless.

According to Luri, we are raising generations of “narcissistic beings afraid of failure,” perhaps reflecting adults’ own fear (also narcissistic) of confronting reality. And so (I would suggest), the childhood adventures of the past have now become dangerous activities with lifelong consequences.