NEW YORK TIMES: DEPARTING FROM TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES PRODUCES STRESS, SADNESS, REQUIRES GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION TO REMEDY: For U.S. Parents, a Troubling Happiness Gap. Plus, the problems of diversity:

“There’s an incredible anxiety around parenting here that I just don’t feel in other countries,” said Christine Gross-Loh, the author of “Parenting Without Borders,” a comprehensive look at modern parent culture across the developed world, who is raising her children between the United States and Japan. She points to Americans’ anxiety around children’s college and future prospects, and also to our emphasis on keeping children physically safe, and the harsh judgment of parents who are perceived to be doing a poor job of it.

“In Japan, my 6-year-old and my 9-year-old can go out and take the 4-year-old neighbor, and that’s just normal,” she said, while in the United States that kind of freedom can draw criticism and even lead to interventions by Child Protective Services.

In countries where there is a strong agreement about the norms around parenting, parents may worry less about their own choices. Without a single overarching parenting tradition, American parents may feel like they have “too many choices” as compared to parents in more homogeneous cultures.

The New York Times became a campaigner for traditional gender roles and against diversity so gradually I barely noticed.