Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis

Bend, Oregon, like Port Clinton, has experienced great change over the years, transitioning from a small logging town to a vacation destination and a rapidly developing city. As a result, longtime residents in real estate and construction did well, but unskilled workers from the logging industry suffered: “The rising tide of prosperity in Bend definitely did not raise all boats” (46). The neighborhoods are segregated by income, and kids on each side of town have very different prospects.

Families have restructured along class lines over time. In the 1950s, most families had a working dad, a stay-at-home mom, and kids. This was possible because most families could survive on one income and out-of-wedlock births were rare. In the 1970s, however, this began to change. The divorce rate grew and so did single-parent households. This was initially viewed as a racial phenomenon, hitting the black community hardest, but it was and is more widespread than that.

Two new family structures emerged, along class divisions. First, the wealthiest third often had two working parents who had children later in life. Second, the poorer families often had unstable or nonexistent parental relationships. College-educated mothers tend to give birth 10 years later than high-school-educated mothers, who also have more unintended pregnancies and more nonmarital births. There is not as much of a racial gap as there is a class gap in this statistic. Less college-educated Americans get divorced, and more high-school-educated women cohabit (live as an unmarried couple), which rarely leads to marriage but often leads to children and eventually to “blended families” (68)—families in which there are step-parents and step-siblings without strong bonds. More high-school-educated men live apart from their children. College-educated mothers are much more likely to work outside of the home as part of a two-income family.

Recent immigrant families are more likely to have traditional marriages, but second-generation immigrants seem to fall into the two tiers identified above based on class. Less educated Americans are less likely to get married today, because less financial security leads to less stable relationships. It seems that “poverty produces family instability, and family instability in turn produces poverty” (74). Affluence and stability also reinforce each other. This pattern was seen in the Great Depression, during which marriage rates and birth rates dropped. Policy changes can affect family structure, such as the war on drugs, “three strikes” laws, and increased incarceration leading to several young fathers with less education going to jail, creating more single-parent families.

In this chapter, Putnam includes the profiles of two of Bend’s recent high school graduates, Andrew and Kayla. Andrew’s parents came from modest backgrounds but became wealthy before Andrew was born. Andrew put himself through college with part-time jobs and student loans. Kayla’s parents are an unstable, poor couple with a family history of alcoholism and abuse. Kayla attended a program for troubled adolescents at her high school and suffers from depression.

Atlanta, now the ninth-largest city in the United States, has grown faster than any other city since 1970. It has a diversified economy, and the affluent neighborhood of Buckhead is 95% white and has a median income of $150,000. Just 15 minutes south is a drug- and crime-ridden area that is 95% black and has a median income of $15,000 and a child-poverty rate of 75%. Even within the black community, disparities in income and class have grown: “Greater Atlanta also has the second-lowest rate of intergenerational social mobility of all major American cities, just behind Charlotte” (82).

Regardless of race or geographic location, the parenting styles of upper-middle-class families are similar in their “intensive investments of time, money, and thoughtful care in raising their kids” (91). They are more similar to each other than families in other classes living nearer to them or of the same race.

Children who experience severe, chronic stress early in life often have problems with executive functions and with controlling impulsive behavior, focusing, and following directions. Chronic stress impairs brain development and can lead to lifelong problems. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Scale measures events that can produce this type of toxic stress. The more of those that a child is exposed to, the worse the likely outcomes, although the effects can be minimized if a caring adult is in the picture. Focusing on early childhood development is key, because the class-based disparities emerge then and remain relatively stable over time without intervention.

There have been two major trends in parenting over the last 60 years. First, after World War II, Dr. Benjamin’s Spock’s idea that parents should relax and let their children develop at their own pace dominated. Second, beginning in the 1980s, the trend was from “permissive parenting” to “intensive parenting” (117). With intensive parenting, parents try to stimulate their children’s development early on, although less affluent parents do not typically have enough time for this type of parenting. Parenting styles are class-based and have a big impact. Even family dinners have a big impact, and wealthier families make family dinners a priority, whereas poorer families often do not or cannot do so.

In terms of money and time devoted to children, wealthier parents devote increasing amounts of time and money to child care and education and lower income families spent proportionately less even if income is held constant. These differences affect children’s cognitive development. Children in poorer families spend more time watching TV than children in wealthier families, who spend more time reading and studying.

In terms of nonparental child care, higher quality child care has better outcomes than relying on relatives. Parental stress levels are also lower in wealthier families. Grandparents in wealthier families often supplement parents’ financial resources, whereas grandparents in poorer families donate time to replace time the parents don’t have. The barriers that working-class families encounter are “more economic than racial” (100). In general, white families see the same disparities based on class as the black families profiled.

In terms of child development and what we know about brain development, early life experiences are very important to cognitive and social development. Executive functions develop rapidly between the ages of three and five, but not if the child is under chronic stress in that period. This means “early intervention is more powerful and cost-effective than intervention during adolescence” (110).

In this chapter, Putnam includes the profiles of three black families living in Atlanta whose “stories illustrate the interplay of economics, family structure, and parenting that affects the prospects of kids from different class backgrounds, whatever their racial background” (83). Desmond, a college graduate, has two siblings and is part of a religious, supportive, upper-middle-class family living in a racially diverse suburb. Michelle and Lauren have two brothers and were raised in a poor, black neighborhood by a single mother, Stephanie, with a family history of alcoholism and abuse. Lauren earned a degree at a local community college, but Michelle struggled in school and dropped out of college. Elijah grew up around murder and violence in the New Orleans projects and was raised by his paternal grandparents. Elijah graduated from high school but started using drugs and alcohol.