CHAPTER + 1 THE PLIGHT OF THE MODERN PARENT ONE SATURDAY MORNING, 6 months into her first pregnancy, Felicia Montana headed to the mall with her friends to shop for the basic gear she''d soon be needing for her baby. What she got instead was a crash course that could be called "The Science of Modern Parenting 101." Her education began in a store with a rainbow-colored sign, which had seemed like the right place to start shopping. In fact, that was the store''s name: The Right Start. "That''s exactly what we want for our baby," Felicia thought as she and her friends headed in. But by the time they left, she didn''t know what she wanted anymore. Felicia quickly noticed that the list of "must-have" baby-care equipment these days runs into far more exotic territory than the old standards of diaper bags, strollers, and car seats. Should she buy flash cards with images on the front and words on the back that offered "the best way to communicate new knowledge to your baby"? If so, which flash cards were more effective--the "Baby Dolittle" animal-identification cards or the "Baby Webster" vocabulary cards? Her friends, experienced mothers, all felt strongly about their babies'' favorites.
"Jeremy knew all his animals by the time he was 18 months," Anna bragged. "Alice liked ''Webster'' better--she was using some big vocabulary words when she was 17 months," Erica boasted. Once Felicia made that decision, should she buy the Baby Einstein, the Baby Shakespeare, or the Baby Van Gogh videotape, which offered "a unique introduction to the culture of language, music, literature, and art"? Or would her baby need all three? And what about the Brainy Baby video, designed to develop both the left and right sides of her baby''s brain "between 6 months and 36 months"? All of these products seemed to carry lofty promises to improve her baby''s development if she bought them--but she also felt an unspoken hint of dire consequences if she didn''t. After all, Babybrain gives babies the "intellectual edge needed to excel academically and professionally." Isn''t parenting all about giving your children every possible advantage? By the time she emerged back into the mall, her nerves were jangled and her confidence shaken--and she would feel even more unsettled once she got to the bookstore. Felicia''s husband, Steve, had asked her to pick up a few books on parenting. He wanted to be well-read on the subject so he could be an equal partner in raising their child. Once in the bookstore, she went to the parenting section and picked up the first book her hand fell upon.
Prenatal Parenting promised to provide guidance for "fetal parenting," including a chapter on "becoming a brain architect." Felicia slid the book back into its slot on the densely packed bookshelf and put her hand to her forehead, pondering her own aching brain. Fetal parenting? Brain architecture? This is what new parents are supposed to worry about now? Felicia found herself becoming increasingly anxious about her baby''s intellectual development--before her child was even born! DOING THE CHILDHOOD HUSTLE As Felicia now knows, the race to turn children into the most talented kids in their classroom begins even earlier than the crib--it now begins in the womb. Magazine articles coax expectant parents to exercise during pregnancy with the promise that it will enhance their babies'' intelligence. Ads on the next page urge them to buy foreign-language CDs to play to the unborn children. Many parents wouldn''t flinch at learning that fiber-optic tubes could be used to televise educational courses to "pre-infants" still floating in the womb! Fortunately, we''re not at that point--not yet, anyway. Once these babies are born, the push to move them as quickly as possible toward adult competencies intensifies. They''re prodded to pick up reading skills faster, add and subtract sooner, and even master obscure tasks like identifying the faces of long-dead musical composers years before they''ll need this information (if they ever will).
The baby-educating industry has found a receptive audience of parents eager to enrich their offspring. One survey shows that 65 percent of parents believe that flash cards are "very effective" in helping 2-year-olds develop their intellectual capacity. And more than a third of the parents surveyed believe that playing Mozart to their infants enhances brain development. Obviously, parents have been listening to the toy companies'' marketing pitches: The baby-educating toy category is now a $1-billion-a-year business. Business is so good, in fact, that companies such as Baby Einstein, which was purchased by Disney in 2001, are extending their product lines, including a "Little Einstein" line aimed at 3- to 5-year- olds. The pitch has even penetrated into some unlikely audiences. "My grandmother- -in an old-age home, mind you--sent me a mobile that plays Mozart and Bach," reports Diane, a San Francisco mother of a 2-year-old and a newborn. "My grandmother said she wanted my baby to be at the top of his class!" Once these infants get older, many graduate to more extensive--and expensive--learning opportunities, including violin lessons, riding lessons, private grade school, and private tutors.
THE ROADRUNNER SOCIETY: FASTER, BETTER, MORE In today''s world, the prevailing message is that it''s no longer sufficient for infants and toddlers to learn independently as they have for millennia, via their own curiosity and a little help from family members when teaching opportunities arise. However, these little ones are merely the youngest residents of our modern, sped-up, competitive society. Adults are urged to work longer and more productively than their employers'' rivals. We eat prepackaged meals nuked in the microwave and schedule our leisure time into blink-and-you-miss-it vacations. Adults hear the message that getting more done faster is better and pass the pace right on down to their kids. Consider a day in the life of a typical American family--let''s call them the Smiths. Marie Smith, a schoolteacher, wakes up at 6 A.M.
every day. In the next hour, she''ll dress the kids--Gerry, 11, and Jessica, 3--fix breakfast, do housework, and catch a few minutes of TV news before driving Jessica to day care. Her husband, Brian, leaves for McDonnell Douglas at 6:20 A.M., dropping off Gerry at basketball practice on his way to work. Marie picks up Gerry at 7:35 A.M. and they walk to her school, where she teaches kindergarten and he is in the fifth grade.
After work, Marie picks up Gerry at 5 P.M. from his after-school program and Jessica at day care. She buys groceries and often searches for supplies, such as poster board or colored marshmallows, that Gerry needs for homework projects. At 6 P.M., she interrupts her dinner preparation to drive Gerry to soccer, his church youth group, or his guitar lesson. Finally, the pressure ends around 7:30 P.
M. when Brian arrives home with Gerry, after a commute of at least an hour, so that they can have dinner together. Unfortunately, this type of rushed schedule seems to be the norm rather than the exception. One monumental change in family life in recent generations has been the rise in the dual-career family. In 1975, 34 percent of mothers with children under 6 were in the workforce. By 1999, that number had nearly doubled, with 61 percent of mothers in the workforce.A large portion of those working moms were mothers of infants. And of course, we know that most dads have been working outside the home for more than a century.
But society is now demanding that both parents not just work, but put in longer hours. In fact, Americans are now working harder than almost anyone else in the world, including the Japanese. According to a 1997 study by the International Labor Organization, fathers were working an average of 51 hours a week, while mothers were working 41 hours per week. It''s not surprising that a survey of parents found that 25 percent said they had no time for their family due to the demands of their jobs. Yet the fact is, time-use studies show that the amount of time mothers spend with each child has barely changed over the last 50 years. What has changed is what parents typically do with their children during that time. Increasingly, it is ferrying them from one "enriching" organized activity to another. They are often in the car, going to activities or playing the role of "soccer moms and dads," cheering and coaching their children from the sidelines.
This gave rise to the idea of "quality time"--a term that originated in the 1970s. Parents quickly picked up on the concept, since "quantity time" is at such a premium. Moms and dads have maximized their quality time with their children by creating the "organized kid"--one whose every moment, it seems, is productively scheduled. Unfortunately, we''re not having much fun at parenting, which should be one of the greatest joys of life. And as we''ll see shortly, this vamped-up atmosphere of forced activity and learning isn''t good for our children, either. In a recent Newsweek magazine article, one mother of four asserted that she spends so much time driving her children to activities that her 1- year-old is practically being raised in the family minivan. "When he''s not in the van, he''s somewhat disoriented," she explained. Families are apparently so busy stimulating their children, they increasingly have little time just to enjoy one another.
Perhaps it''s not surprising that one New Jersey town, Ridgewood, felt compelled to declare one winter evening "Family Night." With the support.