Hopefully for all of our sakes, more of us will appreciate the changing times in which you describe. It's now more important than ever that Ma and Pa make very deliberate choices in teaching Johnny the wisdom to know what is in his best interest in short and long term situations. As an educator, I've seen that the students that come to me with this wisdom will learn the expected skills, and beyond, pretty much regardless of what I might do in the classroom. As a middle school teacher my job, for well-prepared students, is to facilitate their growth and learning to the fullest extent possible. This is much preferred, for all of society, to the student, one of thirty such students in my class, that is not convinced that education is worth his/her time and is fully convinced he/she will be better off as soon as dropping out becomes a legal possibility.