The demise of child-rearing

Public Interest, Fall, 2000 by Lyric Wallwork Winik

But along with a more laissez-faire notion of child behavior comes a corresponding, and potentially contradictory, reliance on experts to guide the process of raising a child. Fascination with expertise, the desire to professionalize and thus to lay a claim to holding some particular, learned skill, have long been bound up in the fabric of American public and workplace life. Doctors once used it to gain respect and social position; so too have teachers. But bringing experts into the realm of child-rearing adds a new dimension to a process that had once been largely private. And it is not simply Dr. Spock or T. Berry Brazelton or Penelope Leach, with their manuals designed to direct parents through the life-stages and needs of their children, who have made "expertise" so pervasive in the approach to children. Rather, it is also the legions of scientific studies and psychological observations, meticulously recording and measuring the cognitive and social and behavioral skills of the developing child.

From these studies, we get pronouncements about childcare practices, such as "high-quality child care is more stimulating than leaving the child with a nanny, low-quality child care less so." We learn that children in child care still maintain attachments to their mothers, even if their mother is, hour-for-hour, not the primary caregiver. Other scientific studies have given rise to small-scale political movements, such as Rob Reiner's "I Am Your Child" Foundation, which, through a combination of celebrity and political support, touts the primacy of brain development in ages 0-3. (It should be noted, however, that this is hardly the first time that child theories have dovetailed into politics. For example, new thoughts about the importance of families and family structure, specifically the rise of the concept of the child-centered nurturing family, helped impel abolitionists in the nineteenth century to crusade for keeping black families together as part of their efforts to end slavery. As Civil War historian James McPherson has pointed out, the classic abolitionist work Uncle Tom's Cabin "homed in on the breakup of families as the theme most likely to pluck the heartstrings of middle class readers who cherished children and spouses of their own.")

Hillary Clinton has signed on with the 0-3 movement, having hosted an all-day conference in 1997 on brain development in young children. Indeed, this brand of brain science is repeatedly cited in the push to improve child care and expand Head Start. [1] And failure to make the most of these early years is declared to contribute to a range of societal pandemics, including crime, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, child abuse, welfare dependence, and homelessness. If only everyone would focus on making those early brain connections, the argument seems to go, our world would be a better place.

But all this scientific measurement of childhood has also had some profound cultural consequences, unintended or not. Perhaps chief among them is an erosion of parental authority. As Dana Mack argues in her book, The Assault on Parenthood: How Our Culture Undermines The Family, child welfare agencies and educational institutions have a pervasive anti-parent bias, and many institutions designed for children actually undermine parental and familial values. For example, it is more than just an institutional issue when schools revise curriculums without parental input and when "scientific" inquiry and conclusions trump the decisions and instincts of parents. In the age of the expert, parents are faced with the pressure of wondering whether their actions are somehow damaging their child. Indeed, parents, through their supposed errors, can be seen to be as toxic as lead leaching in through the pipes.