IN THE MAIL: Elliott Currie, The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence. The Insta-Wife’s take is that Currie is half-right, but that he drastically exaggerates the amount of discipline teenagers are actually subject to.

I wonder if there’s even a “crisis of adolescence” going on at the moment, really. In fact, the kids seem to be alright, with dramatically lower rates of teen pregnancy, crime, etc. (I credit Internet porn and violent videogames!). Of course, there’s always a crisis of adolescence when it comes time to sell books on teenagers, and as far as I can tell there always has been.