Posted on 11/30/2004 2:28:45 PM PST by Lorianne
Mary Eberstadt’s Home Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs. and Other Parent Substitutes is a culture-changing book. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to The Economist: “Eberstadt’s passionate attack on the damage caused by the absence of parents suggests that we may be approaching some sort of turning point in social attitudes, where assumptions about family life and maternal employment start to change. It has happened before — it could happen again.”
Rich Lowry has already done a great job of recounting some of the core claims of Home Alone America. I want to talk about what makes this book so powerful — over and above its important arguments about day care, behavioral drugs, teen sex, specialty boarding schools, etc.
From the very first page of the book, we’re in a different world. Eberstadt begins with a gentle pledge to break our social taboo on attending to the effects of working motherhood on children. And Eberstadt keeps her promise — so much so that she needs to create a new word, “separationist,” for a certain kind of feminist. (The London Times is now touting Eberstadt’s “separationist” coinage as the latest hot buzzword.) Instead of talking about “feminism,” which gets us debating how to balance the interests of women against the interests of men, Eberstadt talks about “separationism,” which gets us debating how to balance the interests of children and adults. What we usually call “divorce,” Eberstadt calls “the absent father problem.” Eberstadt’s language sends a powerful message: It’s not about adults. It’s about what separates or unites adults and children, and what that means for them both
NO REACTIONARY Not that Eberstadt is calling for a return for the ‘50s. Eberstadt doesn’t demand a ban on divorce, nor does she call on women to stop working outside the home. But Eberstadt does ask us to balance the needs of parents and children in a fundamentally new way. Decisions about divorce and working motherhood can only be made by individual parents. But to strike the right balance between the needs of children and adults, parents need to break the taboo set up by “separationist” feminists — the taboo on looking at the real costs and consequences of parent-child separation.
When Eberstadt considers our current way of balancing work and family, she doesn’t see a well-established and smoothly functioning social system. Instead she sees an “ongoing, massive, and historically unprecedented experiment in family-child separation.” An unresolved “experiment” — that’s how Eberstadt understands our society’s way of rearing its children. And she’s right. We’ve barely begun to look at the real effects of the profound social changes that followed in the wake of the ‘60s. That’s why Home Alone America is not another book about the stresses and trials of working mothers or divorced parents. Above all, Home Alone America is a book about children.
RAISING THE MORAL BAR A number of thoughtful observers have pointed out that, for all our wealth and technology, Americans don’t seem to be any happier nowadays than we were in the past. Eberstadt thinks she knows why. Life is better for American adults, who are financially, legally, and morally freer than they’ve ever been. But life is not better for American children, says Eberstadt, “no matter how much more pocket money they have for the vending machines, and no matter how nice it is that Dad’s new wife gave them their own weekend bedroom in his new place.” In fact, it’s actually wealthier children who are more likely to labor under some of the disabilities of our new family dispensation. According to Eberstadt, well-to-do children come home more often to neighborhoods so emptied of adults (and therefore unsafe for outdoor play) that they simply throw the deadbolt and “get no exercise more strenuous than walking from the video game to the refrigerator.”
Eberstadt’s chapter on day care is a great example of what makes this book so interesting. While Eberstadt does bring some important new information to bear on the day-care debate (check out her discussion of biting), the real originality lies in her point of view. For example, even the most “separationist” feminists concede that children in day care are more likely to get sick. The interesting thing is the difference between what the separationists and Eberstadt do with that fact.
Eberstadt lays out the “creepy” rationalizations given by Susan Faludi and her colleagues for the high rate of day-care-borne infections: “[Children] soon build up immunities”; “they’re hardier when they are older.” Then Eberstadt lowers the boom: “Now step back from this discussion for a moment and ask yourself: If we were talking about anything but day care here, would anyone be caught cheering for the idea that some little children get sick twice as often as others?”
Eberstadt’s discussion of day care manages to shift the moral stakes of the debate. She turns the issue away from the long-term effects of day care and onto the immediate unhappiness that many children suffer when put in day care for too long. Feminists who champion the benefits of parent-child separation have set the moral bar far too low. Essentially, says Eberstadt, the feminist position amounts to: “If it doesn’t lead to Columbine, bring it on.” Eberstadt wants to raise that moral bar.
WHO’S PROBLEM? Consider the way Eberstadt transforms the work of Harvard professor Jody Heymann. Writing from the adult point of view, Heymann talks about how difficult it is for parents to balance the intense demands of work and child-rearing. Sometimes, when it’s impossible to miss a day of work, even a child with a fever has to be deposited in day care (against the rules). Concentrating on the child’s point of view, Eberstadt stresses that this not only spreads disease, but prevents day-care workers saddled with a sick child from attending to the well ones. Whereas Heymann calls for more and better government-funded day care, Eberstadt shows that this is unlikely to solve the underlying problem.
But the real question is, Who’s problem are we talking about? Up until now, public discussion of issues like day care has been dominated by feminist journalists and academics who take their own career decisions for granted and call on society to make their lives easier: How can I be equal to a man if society won’t give me better day care? Eberstadt strides into this situation and asks a totally different series of questions: Are children any happier in day care than they are with their mothers? If not, should that effect a woman’s career decisions? Are unhappy children who bite and get aggressive or ill in day care growing tougher, stronger, and more ruggedly individualist, or is it we adults who are being coarsened to needs of our children? Although I’m inclined to believe the latter, the important point is that until now, the choice between these two points of view hasn’t even been posed. The separationists who’ve controlled the public debate up to now have excluded Eberstadt’s sort of questions altogether. That’s why this book is so impressive and important. Over and above the statistical issues, on just about every page, Eberstadt breaks a taboo, shifts a perspective, and forces us to look at the lives of children in new and more vivid ways.
DEFINING DEVIANCY One of the cleverest reversals in the book comes in the chapter on children’s mental health. Increasingly, we’re medicating children for mental illnesses that barely existed in the past. Take “separation anxiety disorder” (SAD), defined as “developmentally inappropriate and excessive anxiety concerning separation from home or from those to whom the individual is attached.” This syndrome is now said to affect about 10 percent of the nation’s children. One of its symptoms is “refusal to attend classes or difficulty remaining in school for an entire day” — in other words, what used to be called “truancy.”
Are 10 percent of the nation’s children really in need of treatment for SAD, or are most of these children actually behaving more normally than mothers who have little trouble parting from their children for most of the day? Is it surprising that children get SAD in the absence of their parents? As Eberstadt suggests, maybe we need to define a whole new range of disorders: “There is no mental disorder...called, say, preoccupied parent disorder, to pathologize a mother or father too distracted to read Winnie the Pooh for the fourth time or to stay up on Saturday night waiting for a teenager to come home from the movies. Nor will one find divorced second-family father disorder, even though the latter might explain what we could call the ‘developmentally inappropriate’ behaviors of certain fathers, such as failure to pay child support or to show up for certain important events. There is also nothing...like separation non-anxiety disorder to pathologize parents who can separate for long stretches from their children without a pang.”
TOWARD A NEW SOCIAL CONSENSUS Despite her playfully brilliant reversal of our questionable tendency to pathologize children who miss their parents, Eberstadt does not in the end reverse the pathological finger-pointing. Eberstadt clearly acknowledges that some mothers have no choice but to work and that some marriages suffer from gross abuse. She knows that the pressures and constraints on parents today are many, and often severe. Yet Eberstadt makes a passionate and persuasive case that, when it comes to the welfare of children, we have fallen out of balance. We may not want or need to return to the ‘50s, but that cannot and should not mean that anything goes. The traditional family is not infinitely flexible, and changes do have consequences. Despite its real benefits, our new-found individualism has been pushed too far. That’s because we have taken our eyes off — or because separationist ideologues have forcibly shifted our eyes away from — the consequences of our actions for our children.
So what does Eberstadt want? Quite simply, she wants a change of heart — a new social consensus: “It would be better for both children and adults if more American parents were with their kids more of the time....it would be better if more mothers with a genuine choice in the matter did stay home and/or work part-time rather than full time and if more parents entertaining separation or divorce did stay together for the sake of the kids.” This new consensus may be difficult to achieve. Yet it is easy to understand, and it would not demand a wholesale reversion to the pre-‘60s era.
I’ve tried to give just a taste of what Home Alone America has to offer. The battle will rage over the statistics, the causal arrows, and such. But the power and originality of this book go way beyond all that. Its strength comes out on every page, as Eberstadt casts aside orthodoxies and forces us to look at ourselves and our children with new eyes. (And I haven’t even talked about the music chapter, my favorite.) I can’t pretend neutrality, since I was privileged to see Home Alone America in manuscript, and am thanked by the author for my comments. I’m honored by that mention, because I agree with The Economist that this book has the potential to change the way our society thinks about the family. In the same way we now look back to the “Dan Quayle Was Right” article as a transformative moment in our family debates, we may someday look back on the publication of Home Alone America. We’ll be the richer for it if we do — as you will be if you read this wonderful book.
"If you are going to have kids, than you should raise them -Not the Day Care Centers"--GeoPie
The first chapter of Eberstadt's book, Home-Alone America, discusses day care.
If you haven't had a chance to get her book yet, there's a website with a similar viewpoint to hers about daycare.
It's called "Daycares Don't Care", and its URL is:
www.daycaresdontcare.org
Obviously, this website agrees with Eberstadt's & GeoPie's points-of-view about the negative aspects of daycare...
Stay home! It's more rewarding than your career.
I have a degree in software engineering and gave up my job 10 years ago.
My kids are now in school, and I'm thinking about going back to work part time. However, even that would be a big sacrifice. Currently, we get to enjoy our weekends. I get our errands run during the week, and my husband, kids, and I can go do fun things on the weekend. I don't have to do grocery shopping or laundry or cleaning.
I'm not a proponent of all-day schooling. I think kids are in school too much. I wouldn't mind more flexible schooling. I don't want to completely homeschool my children, but I don't like them going to school all day and then having homework. I think they need more family time.
Try to figure out a way that she does not have to work. Or at least figure a way for one parent to be at home and the other to work. (eg. one work nights and one works days)
Take out loans if you need to.
Some kids have problems. Please don't make blanket statements.
I am a stay at home mom, and my daughters had severe speech problems. One didn't talk until she was 5 1/2.
My son didn't read until he was in first grade. He just wasn't ready. He's been tested, and he has an IQ of 130 (gifted).
Some kids are quick learners and some kids aren't, and it has nothing to do with how much time is spent with the kid. I spent hours on reading, colors, etc with my daughters. They went to speech twice a week since they were two. They went to preschool 2 mornings a week.
I'm sure it's the same as Head-Start. Study after study has shown that Head-Start improves kids academics for the first couple of years after they enter school, but after that, no difference. In other words, Pre-K will not make any long-term difference academically for your kid, but emotionally may be detrimental. I advise against it.
Well, kids do cost money: diapers, formula, cribs, clothing all cost money.
However, I think that you should plan to have kids when you can afford them on one income.
I made the same as my husband when I quite working.
We both have degrees in computer science.
We had more expenses than most because we had sick twins. We had diapers for two $100/mo, special formula for two $400/mo, and then when they were two they both needed speech therapy that insurance didn't cover, $300/week.
My twins are now 8, and we just bought a larger house. Some people couldn't believe we could afford the house. I knew it would be easy because we don't have the expenses that we had when they were little.
I quit working when my son was a year old. I had miscarriages before I had my son, and we wanted to try to have another baby. I thought I would be going back to work after I had 2nd baby. Then I had the sick twins, and the doctors told us daycare was not an option. Then we found out that one of the twins had brain damage.
I'm glad I never went back to work, and we managed on one income. Now it's much easier (and we still managed to save money).
Move out of Boston. You can still get a nice house in Texas for $100-200K.
It would be better for your child than having someone other than his parents raise em.
Thanks for the post.
I don't know how old your children are but I would ask you to consider one thing before going any further down the road you have mentioned above.
Would it not be in the best interest of your kids to have at least one parent at home to raise them and tend to their needs? If they are toddler or pre-school age then this is such and important facet of their lives right now. If there is ANY way your husband can generate income from home or if there is ANY way your family can make ends meet with just your income for the next few years until the little ones head off to school...please do it. You may experience some temporary discomfort financially but the long term benefits are immeasurable.
We had the same decicion to face when our children were young and my wife decided to quit her job and be a stay at home mom. She was able to get work doing bookeepping and payroll for a small company and that helped us financially. The benefits to our children were beyond description. We now have two of the best behaved straight 'A' students we could hope for. I'm not saying that this is the reason they turned out the way they did but I do believe that not turning them over to someone else to raise during those critical years was a large factor. Just my 2 cents. Think about it.
it is particularly attractive to bull-dyke lesbians because of the selection effect -- non-bull-dyke lesbians who join are stupid and pliant, just what bull-dyke lesbians are looking for.
the sad truth for feminists is that real women aren't held back by men very effectively and end up with all the real power in a relationship, and more practically, all the money (my wife has given me permission to make this post).
I'm sorry my post seems to have hit a nerve with you.
I'm not really sure what part of my post you take exception to, however. Did you feel that your children needed pre-K despite the one-on-one time you spent with them? Or did you think I was saying that all children would be as advanced as the ones in my family, if enough time was spent with them?
The children in my family are like those in mythical Lake Wobegon - they're all above average. ;-)
My kids went to a two morning a week pre-k, and I spent lots of one on one time with them. I think they got the best of both worlds as far as the pre-k thing went. They got to go to school just a few hours a week while I ran errands, instead of all of us running errands.
I thought you were saying that all (or most) would be as advanced as the ones in your family if enough time was spent with them.
I know a lot of moms with special needs kids who spend lots of time with their kids, and sometimes something else besides time is needed.
I'm sure you didn't mean anything. However some moms of kids with real problems (like dyslexia) will feel guilty that they haven't spent enough time with their kids if their kids aren't reading in kindegarten.
There are parents out there who don't read themselves, and they don't read to their children. They might plop the children in front of the TV, and if the children are lucky, it will be tuned to something somewhat educational, but maybe not.
I've actually met parents who said they didn't try to teach their children colors, shapes, letters or numbers before kindergarten, because they thought the teachers would rather teach the children those things.
Those are the types of children who benefit from pre-K....and as you say, special needs children may need extra help even before beginning school.
However, most children who have "normal" parents who play with them, talk to them, and read to them will not need a pre-K program to achieve normally in school.
Are we on the same wavelength now?
Yep! About the only thing that I didn't really teach my daughters before school taught them was telling time.
My non-digital clock broke, and I was too lazy to get another one until a few months ago. Now, we're really working on telling time. One kid has it down, and the other one still needs some work.
Our school district wants to offer preschool to all preschool age children. I do not support this. I do not want my tax dollars going to this. I don't think "normal" children need preschool.
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