This essay is going to inspire a thousand "I told you so's" from conservatives. But that reaction is a mistake. It's all too common for people to undertake idealistic and even morally laudably actions - adopting a child out of foster care, becoming a foreign missionary, joining an intentional community, a dad joining the military - that turn into a nightmare. Undoubtedly, a degree of naïveté, and failure to reckon with the risks is at some level involved in these choices. But where would be be a society if people chose not to take some of these risks? There's even something un-American about the idea of making every decisions about avoiding risks for your children. Much of the unease about the pure striver upbringing so many kids get these days is related to that. Whereas we see something classically American in the foolishness of Charles Ingalls in the Little House books.