Sorry about my last two posts, Syag. Classic case of needing to go back and reread a threat later.
I think you interpreted my first comment as a put-down of the most separated communities, and I think I misinterpreted your comments as claims that the sheltered people have it totally blissful with almost no problems compared to others.
I don’t think I did a good enough job making it clear: the arguably most sheltered communities in America (Chassidim) I do respect and admire. But, that is not the lifestyle any of us here were raised with, otherwise we wouldn’t be posting here. I was viewing this thread as purely applying to the Ashkenazi, Litvishe velt (including the MO in this context). I think a lot of us here associate with the sort of centrist-yeshivish derech where a lot of baalhabatim work as lawyers and doctors and people are expected to interact successfully in the business world.
I think the argument for me is on whether or not we’re juggling the priorities correctly. I think parents have decided they need to be more careful with their kids than their parents were with them, which makes perfect sense in the internet era. I think the worst thing (and I hate when people make comments like this here but I’m going to anyway) is for kids to be on internet forums and chats. The children who have grown up with the internet don’t necessarily know how to differentiate between how they speak on the web vs. real life. From my experience with kids, I see that there are clearly many who have not been properly sheltered from the internet in this regard, yet they have been sheltered from the well-rounded educations of yesteryear. What good does this do? You could just say these are isolated cases where the parents failed to shelter properly, but I disagree. I think it’s pretty common.