Comments on: What Children Need

By: JoB

JoB — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:28:44 +0000

8-11-13, Ingrid/Harry – I guess there is good reason to open a website with subjects for study (but maybe that exists). I would think the definition of equality at home isn’t the first priority though. Presumably Waldfogel has some measure for the quality parental care she differentiates over. In a first instance one could study the variations of it, and range over various possible differentiators on the home side. That said – I’d agree with what I understood Harry as saying, intuitively we’re looking for a correlation between the independence of the two parents and the quality of parental care; both working is a standard case but non-essential (if the mother is an unpaid artist and the father is home working that would, for me, qualify as part of the hypothesized cases correlated with a higher parental care quality – but the problem will be to control for just correlating on income levels, ah, I’m sooooo lucky I’m not a social scientist).

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:40:01 +0000

Oops, reading too fast – Leederick said Middle Aged, not Middle class. But the “dual income” implies it.
And Middle Aged… Wha…? Why should ones’ age at parturition disqualify one from childcare?

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:38:03 +0000

So Leederick, working class and disadvantaged mothers shouldn’t have access to the very thing that allows them to climb out of their disadvantage, by working? How does that work again?

Oh, and the popular refrain these days to oppose any reform that would improve things for working women (or couples, or single Dads) is to invoke the “Middle Class” bogey. Never mind the fact that most of us who consider ourselves “middle class” are a paycheque or a major illness away from financial ruin. It’s funny how the most conservative or right wing commentator becomes an avid socialist when it comes to throwing the hateful bourgeoisie under the bus.

By: Ingrid Robeyns

Ingrid Robeyns — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:36:24 +0000

Laura, in this book Waldfogel gives a synthesis of original research articles, some of which she did (often in collaboration with others) but also research done by others. Most of this research is done in a quantitative fashion based on data that were specifically collected to do research on the effect of different types of work and of policy arrangements (like parental leave) on ‘child outcomes’ (health, behaviour outcomes, test scores a few years later etc). These studies are limited just in the same way as all other quantitative research is limited, namely, as you are indeed suggesting, I think, that some variables may not be included and hence we don’t know their effect. I think to get a real grip on the results, one would need to trace back the original research articles, and be sufficiently trained to judge their quality.
I haven’t done that, but have in the past read similar articles, so have a sense of how this works; however, I am unsure how the ‘sensitive’ parenting would be measured. Given how important this seems to be for children’s well-being, I found it a pity that the book did not contain any more detailed information on what that precisely means (it is only explained by means of examples), and how it is/can be measured. So perhaps I will need to create the time to go and read the original articles after all….

By: laura

laura — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:25:57 +0000

I’ve been thinking about this post all weekend. I really have to get my hands on that book, Ingrid. Thanks for blogging about it. I can’t quite figure out how one could construct a proper of study of the impact of working parents on children, because there are so many variables to consider. I’ll have to check out the book to see how she does it. I’ll write a blog post this morning riffing off your post, Ingrid.

By: leederick

leederick — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:19:40 +0000

“So I believe that it is a question of prioritizing, and that advocates should … argue by comparing with other governmental expenditures, or foregone governmental revenues because certain groups pay less taxes than they should due to loopholes in the fiscal rules.”

This why I don’t agree with the push for state sponsored childcare. The people we’ll be subsidising will be middle-aged, dual income couples – one of the most fortunate groups in society. It’s a distraction from assisting the groups which need state support: the young, the old, unemployed, the single.

Arguing by comparing with other expenditures isn’t going to do very well because there are much more worthy causes. Arguing that we waste money on other things so shouldn’t have a problem wasting money on this doesn’t seem to work either. I can’t see a good reason for supporting these programs there seem to be large costs and only marginal benefits which will tend to go to the rich.

By: Witt

Witt — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:24:12 +0000

And I agree that in general that young people in our society (of whatever class) have too little rather than too much unstructured time.

By: Ingrid Robeyns

Ingrid Robeyns — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:24:07 +0000

Harry: yes, you are right. And it would be great if scholars who do empirical research could tell us whether it makes a difference whether it is within each year (and if so, which year of a child’s life), or rather over the course of a lifetime.

By: Witt

Witt — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:23:37 +0000

Harry, to clarify, I was talking about the way programs are pitched in advertisements, and the way they arepositioned by the businesses that run them, and the educational funders/private foundations that occasionally support them. E.g., these summer camps are emphatically aspirational and enrichment-oriented (tennis, golf, pre-college at an Ivy League University, pre-nursing program). I'm sure that individual parents are indeed worried about their upper-middle-class kids getting involved with sexual activity and drug use, but that's not the way society in general (in my experience) is viewing/talking about these programs.

By: harry b

harry b — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:40:37 +0000

Ingrid: is that the right specification (roughly equal sized jobs?). Why is that relevant? Shouldn’t it just be “spend roughly equal amounts of time on childrearing activities”? Even that needs refinement—“over the course of the child’s childhood”? or “within each year or so of a child’s childhood”? One thing we haven’t really settled in any precise way (probably because it isn’t especially important for policy purposes right now) is what counts as egalitarian.

By: harry b

harry b — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:40:08 +0000

Matt—no the fear is of sex alcohol and drugs (for preteens and teens). I don’t know how rational it is, and don’t share it at all (that is, I think these are things well worth avoiding, I’m just not worried about my kid, indeed, if anything I’m worried that, like me, she might be too far the other way). I have no reason to believe that actually doing all this organised stuff immunises the kids from such things.

By: Philip

Philip — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:27:47 +0000

When I did my MA in Applied Policy Research a couple of years ago, in the UK, I know a couple of professors had been knocked back for funding into research into egalitarian households and how they managed to be successful. I don’t know how much they would have focused on the effects on children, but research in that area didn’t seem to be favoured by funding agencies.

By: Ingrid Robeyns

Ingrid Robeyns — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:27:28 +0000

The Money Question surely is a hard one, but the US is one of the richest countries in the world – much richer in any case than many countries that are caring better for children’s needs. So I believe that it is a question of prioritizing, and that advocates should not so much focus on how much these measures will cost and argue that this is a worthwhile social/human investment, but rather argue by comparing with other governmental expenditures, or foregone governmental revenues because certain groups pay less taxes than they should due to loopholes in the fiscal rules.

JoB, I’ve asked several sociologist/social work scholars whether they know of any studies which have analysed whether all other things equal children in egalitarian families (i.e. where if there are two parents, both hold roughly equal sized jobs) are better off or worse off than in parents with an unequal gender division of labour. They only replies I got was (a) that they didn’t know of any such studies, and (b) that it is a good question (which is reassuring to hear but doesn’t provide an answer). Perhaps someone here knows?

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:20:55 +0000

Harry- I find it plausible that many kids have less structured time than is desirable, too. Certainly having access to more structured time for those who want or need it is good. And I don’t doubt that many parents want more structured time because of fear of risk, but I’m skeptical about how much of this fear is rational. Isn’t much of it a sort of over-blown fear of very unlikely events, like a stranger kidnapping? Talking with my siblings, all of whom have kids now, you’d think that kidnappings by strangers were very common and a major concern we need to devote resources to rather than a very rare event, one that devoting resources to (such as having everyone drive to school) almost certainly not only wastes resources but might well make kids less safe. If the fears are largely irrational (I’d place fears about kids experimenting sexually there, though others might not) do we really want to build policy around them? Maybe you think they are not as irrational as I suspect they are, though. I’m open to being convinced I’m wrong on the level of danger, at least on some aspects.

By: harry b

harry b — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:51:05 +0000

I agree fully about overstructuring children’s time. But if you look at the time of many lower-income children it is overly unstructured by adults (in the US they spend considerably less of their time in school than in other OECD countries, for example). The push for extended school day and extended school year could be seen as a push to put them in roughly the same situation ther foreign peers are in.

Contrary to witt and matt (both of whom I would have agreed with till recently), now I have a teenager, I am starting to hear just how worried many (upper middle class aspirational parents, esp of girls) are about the risks their children might undertake in unstructured time, and it now seems to me that the motives are at least as much about risk-avoidance as about aspiration (insofar as those are separate).

I got hold of and devoured Waldfogel’s book soon after it was published, and Ingrid has made me feel guilty for not recommending it to CT readers. It really is excellent, and all the philosophers working on children and the family, even outside the US, need to read it (and everyone else should, too).