Back in the day parents had 4-5 kids and did not have time to give each one individual attn - in the developing countries they had a lot more kids to help out on the farms etc
Today you see parents with one or two and there is a higher tendency to indulge every whim and fancy -
Then again I seem to have offended a well to do friend when I wondered about the cost of preschool (equivalent to one year of college education in the US) and they said it was well worth it to learn social development skills -
Oh well ( I should have kept quiet on hindsight)