“My child is gifted. He’s also 29, unemployed, and living in my basement”
I cannot tell you how many "gifted" students I've taught over the years. Their parents tell me how special they are, they tell me how special they are, then I read their essays and find not only an ordinary mind, but one that would have been judged that of a common dullard's just a generation ago.
Of course they aren't allowed to be anything other than gifted, because that would mean their parents are ordinary, or perhaps even below-average in parental gifted-ness. It must be a terrible burden to have to be gifted, especially as one ages and begins to suspect you really aren't. There were fellas I knew in the Marines who were great athletes in their high schools only to find a 43-year-old gunnery sergeant could out-run them on the obstacle course without breaking a sweat or losing their breath. In grad school, I was surrounded by the cream of the Ivy League and watched them choke a little when one of our classmates, a surly, heavily bearded guy from some unknown college in Ohio, was able to trounce them exam after exam, paper after paper.
In most of those cases, the recruit/grad student learned something humbling, and that made them better people and, as it turned out, better Marines and better academics. The current generation merely retreats into mom and dad's basement hole and hides. Unfortunately, often with mom and dad's support.
