Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis

Robert D. Putnam “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis” Simon & Schuster, 2015, 277 pp. (plus 90 pgs of notes)

This is a story about the changing class system in the US, the growing separation into gated communities of the haves and have-nots, and the threat this poses to our democratic form of government.  The hollowing out of the middle-class and its impact on all of us is truly something we should all be aware of and the impact this is having on ‘our kids’. 

The author, a Harvard professor, begins by contrasting the 1950s era, when he grew up, with the present.  He uses various communities across the US, one being his hometown of Port Clinton, Ohio.  He notes that in his high school class of 1959 that “everyone, whatever their background, lived with two parents, in homes their parents owned, and in neighborhoods where everyone knew everyone else’s first name.” (p. 7).  He goes on to relate that boys and girls were equally likely to attend high school, equally involved in academic and nonacademic activities, equally qualified in terms of academics and extracurriculars, equally likely to aspire to college, and equally likely to attend college regardless of their socio-economic status. 

During the half-century since the 1950s era, "the power of race, class, and gender to shape life chances in America has been substantially reconfigured.  Inequality in the US increasingly operates through education—a scarce resource in our knowledge-based economy and a measure that is closely correlated with parental socioeconomic status.  Today, virtually all kids from the top quartile of socioeconomic status graduate from high school, whereas more than a quarter of kids from the bottom quartile don’t. 

Sadly, given our current political climate, it is impossible to conclude that a political system unable to even fix roads and bridges will begin paying attention to social and cultural infrastructures.

My Notes:

Pg. 35:  In the quarter-century between 1979 and 2005, average after-tax income (adjusted for inflation) grew by $900 a year for the bottom fifth of American households, by $8,700 a year for the middle fifth, and by $745,000 a year for the top 1 percent of households.”

Income trends were especially divergent among men with different levels of education.  Between 1980 and 2012 real hourly earnings of full-time college-educated US males rose anywhere from 20% to 56% with the greatest gains among those with a post-baccalaureate degree.  During the same period, real earnings of males with high school or lower educational levels declined substantially, falling by 22% among high school dropouts and 11% among high school graduates. 

The causes of this inequality during the past three to four decades are much debated—globalization, technological change and the consequent increase in ‘returns to education,’ de-unionization, superstar compensation, changing social norms, and post-Reagan public policy—though the basic shift toward inequality occurred under both Republican and Democratic administrations. 

Pg. 62:  In the 1970s the family structure suddenly collapsed.  Premarital sex lost its stigma almost overnight; shotgun marriages sharply diminished, and then virtually disappeared; divorce became epidemic, and the number of kids living in single-parent families began a long, steady ascent.  Those who have studied this change, don’t agree with what caused it, but most agree that these factors contributed:

*Sex and marriage were delinked with the advent of the pill.

*The feminist revolution transformed gender and marital norms.

*Millions of women, in part freed from patriarchal norms, in part driven by economic necessity, and in part responding to new opportunities, headed off to work.

*Young men had less economic opportunities allowing them to form families.

*An individualist swing of the cultural pendulum produced more emphasis on self-fulfillment.

Pg. 69:  In 1960, only 6 percent of children in the US lived with a single parent.  Today over half of all children are expected to spend some time in a single parent family before reaching 18.  Children with mothers in the bottom educational quartile are almost twice as likely to live with a single mother at some point.  Between 1970 and 1997 the percentage of grandparents who serve as primary caregivers doubled to 4%. (p. 132).

Pg. 117:  In the last 60 years, ideas about best practices in parenting have undergone two broad waves of change.  After WWII, Spock taught that children should be permitted to develop at their own pace.  Parents were encouraged to relax and enjoy their children.  Beginning in the 1980s, the dominant ideas and social norms have shifted to a new model of ‘intensive parenting.’  (Tiger Moms).

Pg. 119:  One broad class difference in parenting norms turns up in virtually all studies: well-educated parents aim to raise autonomous, independent, self-directed children with high self-esteem and the ability to make good choices, whereas less educated parents focus on discipline and obedience and conformity to pre-established rules.  Parents with less than a high school education endorse obedience over self-reliance, 65 percent to 18 percent, whereas parents with a graduate education make exactly the opposite choice, 70 percent to 19 percent.  Lower-class parents are more likely to use physical punishment, like ‘whupping’.

Pg. 179:  Fifty years ago, offering opportunities for all kids to take part in extracurricular activities was recognized as an important part of public school’s responsibilities.  Nowadays, with budget cuts,  pay-to-play policies are now excluding the ones who cannot afford the fees.

Pg. 184:  The value of a high school degree relative to a college degree has declined sharply because the college premium has grown rapidly.  In terms of average wages, a college degree was worth 50 percent more than a regular high school degree in 1980, but by 2008 the college degree was worth 95 percent more. 

Pg. 189:  As the twenty-first century opened, a family’s socioeconomic status had become even more important than test scores in predicting which eighth graders would graduate from college. 

Pg. 223:  Weekly churchgoers are two to three times more likely to volunteer to help the poor and young people than are non-churchgoers, holding other things constant, and are much more likely to contribute financially to those causes.