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Self-esteem has become a contentious topic. Some parents and schools are criticized for promoting it.

We have become a society of individuals, and this requires that each person be self-determining.

To function in this way, we seem to need an early cocoon in which we receive a lot of empathetic attention.

In a previous post—which was itself a follow-up to one on the role of social media as a resource for self-making—I asked if we’re suffering a “narcissism epidemic.” I want to continue here with further thoughts on interpreting our pervasive concern with the self.

If there is a “capital” that parents hope to transmit to their children, it is confidence and lack of trepidation in pursuing opportunities. According to surveys and interviews we have done over the years, parents want their children to see their own life in active not passive, leader not follower, terms. They worry that in decisive moments their child will be inhibited or will, as one father put it, “sell yourself short.” To flourish in this uncertain world, children need to be sure of themselves, to have high self-esteem.

Your “self-esteem,” stated one mother, “that’s what’s going to get you through everything.” Added another, “I build them up and let them know … how special they are.” And that’s important, she said, echoing a common reflection, “Because I had very low self-esteem. I didn’t give myself full advantage in life because I felt that I wasn’t good enough.” For her children, she wants that mental advantage.

These parents’ positive comments clash with the criticism now commonly leveled against self-esteem and efforts to promote it. In a 2025 book on What Happened to Millennials, for instance, the author, reporter Charlie Wells, charges the self-esteem movement among parents and schools, which first rose to prominence in the 1980s, with inflating “the millennial sense of self.” A whole generation, he observes, was getting trophies just for participating and reciting “you are........

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