As I wrote on Tuesday, fear has been a major factor in the transformation of childhood and parenting. But there are other factors as well. Guilt, too, has played a prominent role.
An increase in the divorce rate and the number of single-parent households, along with an increasing number of mothers entering the workforce, fueled reports about the breakdown of the American family and new concerns about the welfare of the young. The notion of “quality time” grew as parents began spending more time at work in the 1980s and ’90s. With both parents absent during the day, they also began seeking more structured activities for children in order to keep them safe and occupied.
And then there's the "too-much-information" factor.
Throughout the 20th century and into the
21st, mounting knowledge of child and brain development has contributed
to the confusion surrounding a parent’s role. The 1990s, in fact, has been dubbed “the decade of the
brain” due to increasing media coverage of early brain development, which
sparked significant public interest in the topic.
Media sound bites concerning the critical nature of the early years gave the
impression that unless parents offered their youngest children “enriched”
experiences, they would be failing them. For example, popular press reports on the significant brain development that occurs during the first three years of
life led to the false conclusion that, according to Marian Diamond, author of Magic Trees of the Mind, “doors open and close in the brain for
certain subjects and skills at specific ages. These have gone on to imply that
if a child doesn’t start a foreign language…or a musical instrument by a
certain age, then the mind’s door will close and he or she might as well forget
trying.” Such
assumptions, many of which Dr. Diamond contends were “unnecessarily discouraging,” put
tremendous pressure on parents to give their children the best possible start.
It’s not surprising that marketers saw tremendous potential to take advantage of the misconstrued research. They seized upon the opportunity, creating “educational” products purported to give young children a “jumpstart.” One such product, aptly named, was JumpStart Baby, which was for children nine months to two years old and introduced the concept of “lapware,” a new market of software for babies that requires parents to hold their little ones on their laps. According to a SuperKids Educational Software Review, JumpStart Baby is “crucial…in the development of beginning critical thinking skills” and that, “[a]lthough interaction is minimal, it is enough to give the child a sense of control. With adult supervision, Baby can learn to tap lightly on the keyboard keys, or click the mouse when Teddy asks, and experience the result of these actions.” (It doesn’t mention how this is related to critical thinking, but Children’s Software Review cites being good at waiting and following directions – two skills that even preschoolers aren’t yet developmentally ready to handle – as necessary for this software.)
Similar claims were made by other companies as well. The
introductory video to the Reader Rabbit line of software told parents that the
products can promote development in children’s social, emotional, and physical
domains, as well as in literacy and creativity. Other product lines have backed
off on their claims of developmental enhancements, but their names, including
Brainy Baby and Baby Einstein, need no elaboration to make the point.
The media/marketing influence has been overwhelmingly
successful. According to PC Data, a market-research firm, 770,000 copies of
infant lapware (a new market of software for babies that requires parents to
hold their little ones on their laps) were sold in 1999. In that same year,
sales of software labeled as appropriate for preschool children - ages 3 to 6 -
totaled $309 million. In 2000, over just a nine-month period, parents and
caregivers spent about $11 million on software for babies and toddlers alone.
Although there is research from child development experts, cognitive scientists, linguists, and neuroscientists, as well as policy statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics, contradicting the value of such products, the marketers make every effort to keep that research from the public. In a BAM interview, noted educator David Elkind told me, “Big business has the power to use the media,” smothering the voices of academics and researchers. The result, according to Pamela Paul, in another BAM interview, has been the “professionalization of parenthood,” dictating that the average parent consult a number of professionals, read dozens of books, and buy a barrage of products. The “commercialization of parenting is the industry’s way of stepping in and solving that problem for us – making us feel all the more hapless and vulnerable.”
Listen to what historian Peter Stearns, author of Anxious Parents, has to say about this topic in this week's featured Body, Mind and Child interview.
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