camp coddling

Interesting piece in the NYT sometime recently about uber-high-end summer camps that coddle kids and (especially) their parents. Even more interesting, a response in the Times' op-ed section (link here). Most interesting of all, the comment below. Still chewing over how much I buy into this, but my gut reaction is that the guy has a good point:

“The sense of entitlement which enables them to navigate adult institutions”? Or do you mean simply the habit of ordering serfs around? Like the rich patients recently mentionned in the Times who refuse treatment and boss their therapist around because they can?
The assumption that these children grow up to be harmless is a dangerous delusion.
After being admitted as legacy ( something inexistent in Canada) and then accepted immediately into business and political circles of power, they reveal themselves as irremediably incompetent in their annointed role of god-ordained manager.( Recent example anyone?)
The U.S. class system, the strictest and least mobile in the developped world is now approaching in its inefficiency that of Britain in the mid-19 th century.
The U.S. is nearing the point where Britain, after the charge of the Light Brigade, realised that hereditary officers were a sure way of losing wars and instituted proofessional training for their officer class.
Fun thing is, until recently, the U.S. was on top of the world because it refused such a way of behaving and bred the best managerial class in the world.