Grow Up!: Life Isn't Safe, but It's Good

by Everett Piper

Arrested Development

It’s not your imagination. Millions of young adults today behave like children. Stuck in a permanent adolescence, they throw temper tantrums when they don’t get what they want, blame everyone but themselves for their failures, and refuse to take responsibility for their lives.

We used to write off their behavior as a “phase.” But that phase doesn’t look like it’s ending anytime soon. And these grown children are pouring out of the glorified day care known as college and entering the corporate world full of infantile demands and expectations.

A former university president, Dr. Everett Piper knows a thing or two about the ideas that motivate today’s youth. Having experienced the snowflake mob’s rage himself, he understands the threat that these young people pose to the rest of society. Grow Up! is his contrarian blueprint for a successful adult life.

With bracing candor, Dr. Piper

• How ideologues disguised as teachers arrested the development of entire generations

• The dangerous ideas in which popular culture and the education system marinate young people for years

• Simple lessons for becoming a thinking, mature citizen

• The qualities that made this country great and how to reclaim them

Filled with wisdom and learning, Grow Up! is the antidote to the poison that we consume every day—a powerful corrective that shows readers how to live in truth and freedom.

Genres: Philosophy

256 pages, Hardcover

Published April 13, 2021

About the author

Everett Piper has had a lengthy career in college administration, serving as vice president for advancement at Grace College & Seminary in Indiana, dean of students at Greenville College in Illinois, and vice president for student development at Spring Arbor University in Michigan. From August 2002 until his retirement in May of 2019 he was President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. He is a contributing columnist for The Washington Times and author of the viral op-ed, "This is Not a Daycare, It's a University." He hosts a podcast called The Rebellion and is a popular guest on various news programs and as a speaker.
He and his wife Marci have two sons.

Reviews

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are a choir member who likes being preached to, a white middle class conservative church goer
or feel that young people these days are just a bunch of whiney brats this is the book for you.
You could get the same content from watching Fox News for awhile. Not everything the author promotes is bad it's the over uses of straw man argumentation that gets tiresome.

I would have expected a professed Christ follower to have a better understanding of the core value of grace instead of spending so much effort maligning those who don't agree with his preferences.

[Leon Laffredo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take, a bit repetitive, but yeah and interesting take all the same.

[Clarence Reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

ReedIII Quick Review: Conservative religious based admonition to “Grow Up” by putting out effort to achieve and contribute to society and all mankind. Somewhat preachy, opinionated and judgmental. Promotes personal responsibility. States that objective truth is real and truth matters. Presents challenging political, educational, religious, child-rearing, leadership & informational ideas.

[Andy Clapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Piper gives great insight with an uplifting tilt to this book. If the advice in this book were taken to heart, we would see that being an adult is difficult but worthwhile.

[Estr · Rating 2 out of 5]

He was basically just complaining. I learnt a very minimal amount.

[Dustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of good advice.

[Tim Peterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everett Piper does not start this book off on a good note. He starts listing off a laundry list of complaints he has about young people and I don't believe a lot of them are legitimate complaints. Things like not purchasing houses and not using topsheets were at the top of the list. I think a lot of these issues he has are simply because the generation graduating from college right now live in a different world than he grew up in and I don't think Piper understand that. These comments he makes at the beginning discredits the rest of what he has to say in the novel. He makes a lot of good points once he gets into the book though. He discusses why the family is important and how leaving childhood behind and moving into adulthood is a skill being lost on our youth. The biggest problem I had with the book is his definition of what leaving youth behind looks like is different in the world we live in today.

[Becky C · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a DNF for me; I was hoping to learn about a generation of which I am not a member. While I may have been able to learn from the author, his use of derogatory and divisive terms caused me to stop reading in the first chapter.

Not for me.