Stress and trauma and nuturing and resilience

I'm again struggling with finding sufficient empathy for younger (middle class, white) people who wear their "trauma" on their sleeve and genuinely expect their emotional needs to be accomodated. Not that I have no empathy, but I don't seem to have a sufficient amount. It's not just that I find it irritating, though I do. Because it's just so fucking self-involved. As I have learned, everyone has pain. Everyone has overcome emotional difficulties. I guess I feel like they have insufficient empathy also... 

More importantly, it's dysfunctional, in a relathionship and, especially, in an organization. To expect others (read: older women) to nurture you and make you feel okay, is just unrealistic and burdensome to your (older women) co-workers and associates. 

Of course, there are some sour grapes involved: I had to find my own resources and tread my own painful path toward recovery. It's hard to have someone ask me to provide support and accomodation that I didn't receive myself. And it's disrespectful in the extreme to assume that my presentation, of strength or capability, means that I don't have any pain that I'm grappling with. I end up thinking that if only I could describe my childhood and what I had to overcome. But it's not a contest to see who had the most trauma. 

The other concern I have is about the balance between accomodation and resilience. I feel like we are raising (and have raised) several generations that just don't develop any resilience. Empathy and care are important, but so is developing character and the ability to rebound and keep going. I'm not saying "suck it up" or "just rub some dirt in it," but I do think that the pendulum has swung too far to the nurturing side. There, I said it.

I got a lot of negative feedback about leaving my kids and moving away to take a job. And I thought it was kind of scary: so many people who think children need an endless security blanket to protect them from life. And the contrast with the way I was thrust from the nest is jarring. I think there is somewhere in the middle where it would be healthier to land.