Joseph:
To respond to your comment “Perhaps I overlooked your suggestion, but what, in detail, solution do you propose for the problem you describe?”
There are 3 obvious changes we need to have, and some are actually feasible, not fantasy.
1) We must be conscious of our responsibilities to children, to provide them with a home environment that extols the virtues we wish they absorb. That means our own shalom bayis, models for how we handle conflict, and availability to be an active part of our children’s lives. The participation in everyone else’s simchos, countless fundraisers, and massive amounts of volunteer activity, while virtuous, often replace what we should be giving to our children. If we give our parental responsibilities priority over the other things, whether work, Klal, or social, we will reap huge profits. Seems to be asking much, but really placing importance on what really matters.
2) Our chinuch in yeshivos, schools, and seminaries must include a hefty dose of guidance about proper midos. There is zero bitul Torah involved in teaching about problem solving, conflict resolution, communication skills, and a host of midos of bein odom lachaveiro. The Mussar Movement that was pushed by Reb Yisroel Salanter was not about academic mussar, but about the practical mussar. The mashgichim who followed his derech, mostly from that first generation of his talmidim, were focused on the dedication of their talmidim to menchlichkeit, not what color shirts they wore. Coming on time to tefilos was not a disciplinary issue, with negative consequences, but a matter of one’s connection to tefilah and avodas Hashem. If we revisit what is priority in chinuch, we will encounter much to change, again with huge profits.
3) I am not the one who seeks regulation (I guess that allies me with Republicans not Democrats). We must get a handle on the chosson and kallah teachers, and make that step of preparation for marriage into a useful process for much more than the basic halachos. This needs to compensate for whatever is missing from #1 and #2. Do these madrichim try to inform their chassanim or kallahs about the expected thinking differences between genders? How about expectations of relationships with in-laws? Should newlywed wives be mashgichim to insure their husbands wake u on time? Who guides them to avoid power struggles? The kollel couple has added measures of challenges. How do they cope with them? Is their dependency temporary, and how do they manage it? What about the possibilities of crisis? To whom do they turn? While some of these issues might be addressed in some form by #1 or #2, most are relevant almost completely to the marital context, and belong in the guidance prior to marriage.
There are growing trends for communities to begin filling in the serious gaps. While welcome and effective, we are observing a drop in the ocean, with so much more needed.