One of the fundamental problems facing modern society is that fewer people are going through the experiences that traditionally taught us some of the most important realities of being human. Marriage, kids, and actual work used to be the main ways most people got an education in how the world works and how little it cares about their feelings. Those experiences are now less common than ever. Marriage teaches us compromise. Living with another person, particularly someone of the opposite sex, forces us to confront differences in temperament, psychology, needs and expectations. We learn that other people do not necessarily think or experience the world as we do, and that successful relationships require accommodation, sacrifice and an understanding of perspectives beyond our own. These lessons are difficult to acquire in the abstract. Having children teaches us something perhaps even more fundamental: that there are things in the world more important than ourselves. Parenthood imposes responsibilities that cannot simply be abandoned when they become inconvenient. It also exposes us to the realities of human nature. Raising children, including observing the differences between boys and girls, teaches us things about temperament, development and innate human characteristics that no amount of theorising can fully substitute for. Work provides a different but equally important education. It teaches us that nature is indifferent to our needs and preferences. The resources required to sustain our existence do not simply appear because we want or deserve them. We have to engage with the world, understand what others value and contribute something in exchange. Economic reality is ultimately unforgiving: good intentions are not enough, and the world does not owe us a living. Modern corporate employment is already one step removed from the form of work that provides the greatest psychological education. You receive a defined role, a salary, benefits and an organisational structure that packages the economic realities of existence into something more predictable. You still have to earn your position, but you are often insulated from the underlying transaction that makes your livelihood possible. A nation of shopkeepers, merchants and small-business owners has a much more direct relationship with economic reality. When you run a business, you confront the market every day. You have to persuade people to part with their money, manage costs, deal with uncertainty and accept the consequences of your decisions. It's an extraordinarily effective education in how the world works. Farming is even more direct. You negotiate with nature itself. The weather is indifferent to effort, crops fail regardless of intentions, animals become sick, and the seasons impose their own timetable. Survival and prosperity depend on understanding forces beyond human control, working within their constraints and accepting that no amount of wishing will change the outcome. There is a hierarchy here, with each successive arrangement placing another layer between the individual and the fundamental conditions of existence. And the wider thread is that all these experiences force us to confront something outside ourselves. Marriage confronts us with another person's needs and differences. Parenthood confronts us with responsibilities greater than our own interests. Work confronts us with the indifference of economic and material reality. Of course, none of these institutions guarantees maturity, and there are other ways to learn the same lessons. But historically they have been among the most widespread and effective means of teaching them. As fewer people marry, have children or participate meaningfully in economic life, we create a society in which increasing numbers of people never receive this education. They may become adults in age without having been forced to confront the compromises, responsibilities and constraints that traditionally shaped adult judgement. The deeper problem is that modern society is becoming increasingly effective at insulating people from the consequences of their choices and the realities of the world around them. That insulation may make life more comfortable, but it does not necessarily make us wiser, more capable or better equipped to live together. A society that progressively removes the necessity of confronting reality may also be removing the experiences that teach people how to deal with it.