How Kids Are Suffering Home Alone

WASHINGTON, D.C., FEB. 27, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Less time with Mom and Dad has contributed to more problems for more kids over the last few decades.

So says Mary Eberstadt, a part-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and author of "Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes" (Penguin).

Eberstadt shared with ZENIT how this separation of children and their parents is producing unforeseen negative consequences.

Q: If children are better off materially than ever before, why are they beset by so many troubles such as psychiatric problems, obesity and sexually transmitted diseases?

Eberstadt: "Home-Alone America" is about this paradox exactly. On the one hand, children generally -- like adults generally -- are materially better off than ever before, particularly in the advanced nations of the West.

Yet on the other hand, this generation of American children is marked by acute problems that either did not exist before, or did not exist in anything like today's proportions.

Juvenile obesity, for example, has tripled since the early 1960s. Sexually transmitted disease is epidemic among teen-agers and young adults; of some 19 million new cases of STDs reported in 2000, say the Centers for Disease Control, half were found in people between 15 and 24.

Diagnoses of juvenile psychiatric problems such as depression, anxiety and "behavioral" disorders have skyrocketed -- and so, too, have the psychotropic drugs used to treat them. Similarly, teachers in various parts of the country, from preschool on up to universities, report an overall deterioration of child and adolescent behavior.

Plainly, for some significant number of kids, life is actually worse -- in the sense of riskier, sadder and more problematic -- than it was for their parents' generation. My book tries to understand why.

Q: Is there a common theme that connects the numerous problems of American children today?

Eberstadt: The common denominator is the one that Ockham's razor dictates: For a variety of reasons -- divorce, working motherhood and shrinking family size -- children are more separated from their parents and other family members than they used to be; and this separation is producing unforeseen negative consequences.

For example, such separation means that children and teen-agers are less supervised around temptations such as sex and food than they used to be; hence, obesity and sexually transmitted disease are rising.

Such chronic and unprecedented separation is also increasing the misery felt by at least some kids, which in turn affects the psychiatric and pharmaceutical statistics.

I also argue in a chapter devoted exclusively to teen-aged music that this generational unhappiness is fully and unmistakably demonstrated ad nauseam by almost every top-selling rock and rap musician in America; the many lyrics quoted there speak for themselves.

Both the empirical and cultural records of what's happening with many kids prove that there has been downward emotional mobility for this generation. Tracing those links between child problems and absent family is what my book is all about.

Q: Is the rise in mothers working outside the home a result of economic necessity or human choice?

Eberstadt: I observe in my book, and genuinely believe, that there is no "one size fits all" answer to the question of out-of-home parental employment. That's something that only individual families can answer for themselves.

At the same time, if we step back from individual choices and anecdotes we can see clearly that as a society, we used to be much poorer; and yet the typical household still sacrificed financially to keep a parent in the home. Moreover, many also sacrificed emotionally to keep parents together "for the sake of the kids" -- an idea now widely, and in my view wrongly, derided.

Today, again generally speaking, homes are larger than ever, food is cheaper, cars more luxurious and families are smaller in size -- yet the social expectations are exactly reversed; two-income families are assumed to be the norm.

How much of that move toward two incomes is necessity, and how much is an increase in material expectation and desire, are questions that haven't yet come in for much scrutiny. But in a society as well-off as ours, those questions have real spiritual, as well as economic, weight.

Q: What developmental problems occur in children who spend large amounts of time in day care?

Eberstadt: Children are individuals, and of course different children respond differently to institutional care.

It's safe to say that this kind of care has been shown to raise the risks to some kids of an increase in aggressive behavior. It is also known to raise the risks to some kids of an increased likeliness of infection brought on by exposure to so many other children. Kids in day care are roughly half again as likely to get sick as are kids cared for at home.

Now, are there long-term effects of these short-term problems? This is the kind of question on which expert attention has been focused, and not surprisingly, given the number of variables involved, it is difficult to determine the answer.

But I think we should ask a different question than that of long-term outcomes. Surely there are other measures of whether institutional care is a good idea for mothers and fathers who do have a genuine choice.

To put the distinction in philosophical terms, most research and commentary has been focused on a teleological question -- "What is the ultimate cognitive and emotional outcome of institutional care?" -- rather than on a phenomenological one: "What is happening to that given child in the here and now?"

I think that latter question, about immediate happiness and well-being, ought to have weight too. If day care increases the likelihood that an unknowing baby or toddler will be sick and unhappy -- as evidence suggests that it does -- then day care is not the best alternative for parents who actually do have a choice.

Q: What potential dangers does the over-medication of children pose to their development and society at large?

All of the psychotropic drugs in use today have potential physical side effects ranging from loss of appetite, dizziness, nausea and other well-known problems, to more extreme possibilities.

Last year saw the beginning of what might be a real re-evaluation of the psychotropic drug world as physicians and government agencies examined the possible increased risk of suicide in teen-agers taking antidepressants.

And of course there is a separate potential physical risk in the form of the abuse of these drugs, particularly the stimulants. As is amply documented in my book, recreational use of these amphetaminelike substances is rampant, though practically no one in the medical profession acknowledges it.

But quite beyond the question of the drugs' immediate physical consequences are problems of a larger sort that I think are even more important. Psychologically, for example, what is the long-term effect of creating this new class of putative victims -- of telling a generation of kids that they are defective from the inside out and need medication for life? We just don't know.

Nor do we know anything at all about the spiritual dimensions of this very new phenomenon. For example, do psychotropic drugs arguably interfere with the reason necessary to exercising free will? Does their chronic use undermine the subject's sense of what he is and is not responsible for -- i.e., his conscience? To my knowledge, Catholic and other theologians have not addressed these questions. Perhaps someone should.

Q: How has the culture shaped women's attitudes and self-image in regard to working outside the home?

Eberstadt: There's not much question that several decades of feminist agitation have increased the pressure on women to leave home in order to find what's called "fulfillment."

But feminists aren't the only ones responsible for the ongoing devaluation of at-home mothers and the natural family. Men also play a role in that devaluation -- not because they have been snookered by feminist ideology, but for the prosaic reason that there's something in it for them.

After all, another paycheck makes fathers' lives easier, too. Similarly, divorce is easier, and men are freer to walk away from their children when Mom is already working and won't be left entirely destitute as she might have been if she depended on her husband's paycheck.

So, feminist ideology is not the only engine of the empty-parent home. More pedestrian factors -- such wanting more money, more freedom and a more comfortable life -- are also exerting a powerful gravitational pull on parents toward the workplace and away from their children.

Q: A recent Wall Street Journal article noted the importance of the family meal for familial and child health. What practical steps can working parents take to help foster the well-being of their children?

Eberstadt: It's interesting how research of various kinds suggests that the family dinner hour is a good idea for all sorts of reasons.

One, it might offer some protection against overeating, since parents are there to police how much children eat and since people eat more slowly and a smaller amount when they have someone to talk to and are not sitting in front of a TV.

Second, family dinner hour has been linked in all sorts of studies to lower probability of teens engaging in smoking, drinking and sexual activity. It seems that having a warm adult body on the premises is good for two reasons: It exerts a chilling effect on certain perennial temptations; and it just plain makes most kids happy to be around their family routinely rather than being alone.

That's the ultimate message that I hope parents and others take away from my book. Mothers and fathers don't have to be perfect -- fortunately for the fallen mortals among us.

The mere presence of their parents matters more to children than many people in our feminist-influenced world seem to realize -- again, not only to their long-term success in life, but to their immediate happiness and security in the here and now.

We who are privileged to be stewards of children and teen-agers, matter more than we think and are loved and needed more than current secular orthodoxy understands. It's time to give the power of that love and need more intellectual and social recognition.

Less time with Mom and Dad has contributed to more problems for more kids over the last few decades.

Shocking! /sarcasm

I took a graduate class with another teacher who didn't see anything wrong with "latchkey kids." He didn't deny that they existed, but didn't feel that grade-school kids being home alone for hours after school was a problem.

It is very difficult for me to understand why all this isn't common sense to parents. If love and commitment for their children were truly in their minds, they'd have considered the consequences of all their actions before even having them.

Good article. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. My parents decided early on that my mother would be a stay-at-home Mom. Fortunately, my father made a good living and they were able to pull it off with ease. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for all couples. Two paychecks are often needed.

I'm 47 now and my parents are deceased. As I got older I appreciated the fact that my mother was home when I came home from school. Hot dinners every night. I thanked my parents often for giving me such a wonderful childhood. I loved having a non-working mother. My parents were quite a team.

"but didn't feel that grade-school kids being home alone for hours after school was a problem."

I remember when I would come home from school. I would keep looking at the time and when it was close to the time Mom would be home, I would position myself at the window waiting for her. I was so lonely and couldn't wait to talk to her. Unfortunately, she had to get dinner ready and then she was just too tired to talk.

What I think is sad is that this is so foreign to many children.

A friend of one of my daughters came over at around dinner time. My other daughter was setting the table. No big deal, really, just a fork and knife, plate and glass. This poor little 12 year old girl was amazed that we set the table and ate dinner together.

I was shocked that she was shocked!!

"My parents were quite a team."

Mine were, too. Though that ended once we girls were grown and off to college and careers and families of our own. Then Mom hit the bricks, trying to "find herself" and recapture the youth she "sacrificed" for us. (She actually SAID that to me when I became a mother; "Don't sacrifice yourself to your kids the way I did for you.")

Granted, this was in the late 70's when the NOW hags were in full swing. She's really done a number on her Grandkids, though she has tried to make up for lost time in the past few years. Too little, too late, IMHO. You're either IN their lives, or you're OUT.

Sadly, my own Mom was one of the first to race from the gate the moment the Women's Movement made it OK to do so.

And now what do we have? A generation of kids with all of the problems described above! Way to go Libbers! Thanks for everything! /sarcasm

Very good article. My husband and I decided I would be a stay at home mom and what a difference we see in our kids versus the kids from a two income family. The Lord has provided for us and our children are well grounded, secure kids. My father-in-law keeps telling us how proud of us he is because the boys are so good. My husbands parents were divorced and he was home alone alot. Faith in God, raise you kids as the good book directs, and a lot of prayer.

Frankly, I think the article's take on daycare is a load of crap. According to this article, the fact that I have my daughter in daycare while I work means that she will be more aggressive and sickly in the long term. I'm calling bull on that one. She's been in daycare since she was 8 months old, and is now almost 5. Not only is she MUCH healthier than her pampered stay-at-home cousins, but she gets along better with other children, and is infinitely more polite.

My mother was a stay home mom who didn't work outside of the house. She was there almost everyday when my sister and I came home from school. But occasionally she was out when we got home. Mom said my sister and I reacted very differently to this.

If I found the house empty when I got home I would read a book or watch some TV until Mom got home. In other words I wasn't badly affected by her temporary absence. But it was different for my sister.

My sister would sit on the front porch waiting for Mom to get home. And, as she waited, she would work herself up into an emotional froth that would spill over when my mother finally arrived home. She would cry and dump a load of guilt on our mother. If Mom had worked outside of the house my sister would have probably become a basket case.

Not all kids with working mothers end up traumatized but there are enough sensitive kids out there to make working outside the house for a mother a questionable activity at best.

One of the things Booker T. Washington tried to instill in his students at Tuskegee Institute was that such things as making supper a bit formal and ceremonial was important. He knew how middle class White families ate because he had worked for a very strict White woman in her home. He knew that typical Black small farm families and sharecroppers often handed out corn bread and so forth and the children ran around the yard eating it.

Today Booker T. would be disappointed to see that the ceremony of supper has largely been Hollywoodized/TVized/informalized in both the White and Black race.

I grew up in the 40s and 50s, in a highly industrialized city, with lots of oil refineries and such. The women were just starting to work in jobs which were usually for men -- as a result of the transition during WW2.

When my dad returned from WW2, he INSISTED that my Mom quit her "refinery job" and stay at home with we 3 kids. His words were something to the effect -- that in every family, where the wife took a job outside the home, the couple divorced. And he didn't want a divorce in his family. So, that was that. My mom didn't work. She had to find her fulfillment in other ways -- and she found art. She become an accomplished artist -- worked in the home.

I, too, am forever grateful for the wisdom of my folks.

Another way to look at it might be that mom is freer because of making a decent living and sympathetic femanized judges, social services, family courts, and DAs to simply replace dad with anyone mom feels might be 'better' in any number of ways..

Tdays dad's basically have velcro on their backs and like paper dolls are quite easily exchanged

As one femanist professor of wymon's studies put it...Men are like real estate...you get into what you can afford with an eye to trade up...

The effect on chidren and family and ultimately the nation is devastating...

But then that was the plan from the git go...and it's straight from the pit of hell...

imo

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.