When working-class parents look at the way middle class parents pressure their children, they see it as denying them a childhood.

I agree with them.

The level of competition that middle-class college-bound children face nowadays is a consequence of the fact that the fraction of good jobs is decreasing. Middle-class parents therefore know that their children will have to compete to stay in the middle class. They also see that working-class life is getting ever more arduous and painful. If we fix that, it will go a long way to fixing all of these problems.