A minor revolution How prioritizing kids benefits us all

Adam Benforado

Book - 2023

"At the dawn of the twentieth century, a bright new age for children appeared on the horizon, with progress on ending child labor, providing public education, ensuring food and drug safety, combating abuse and neglect, and creating a juvenile justice system. But a hundred years on, the promised light has not arrived. Today, more than eleven million American children live in poverty and more than four million lack health insurance. Each year, we prosecute tens of thousands of kids as adults, while our schools crumble. We deny young people any political power, while we forgo meaningful action on the issues that matter most to them: gun violence, racism, inequality, and climate change. With compelling real-life stories, law professor Adam... Benforado fashions a vivid and intimate portrait of what's at stake. We are there when three-year-old Ariel is placed in an orphanage after her parents are locked away for transporting marijuana; when thirteen-year-old Harold first gazes in disbelief upon the immaculate green lawn of an elite private school, after a childhood of rusted chain link and asphalt play yards; when seventeen-year-old Wylie is hit with a paddle by his public-school principal as punishment for taking a moment of silence to protest gun violence. The root cause of nearly every major challenge we face-from crime to poor health to poverty-can be found in our mistreatment of children. And we all pay the cost when we ignore the evidence on the value of early intervention, investment, and empowerment. But in that sobering truth is also the key to effectively changing our fate as a nation. Drawing on the latest scientific research into the remarkable capabilities and crucial needs of young people, A Minor Revolution offers a bold vision for the future. We must put children first, in our budgets and policies, in developing products and enacting laws, in our families and communities. Childhood is the window of opportunity for all of us"--

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Subjects
Published
New York : Crown [2023]
Language
English
Main Author
Adam Benforado (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xxix, 329 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-320) and index.
ISBN
9781984823045
  • The First Years: The Right to Attachment
  • Early Childhood: The Right to Investment
  • Late Childhood: The Right to Community
  • Early Adolescence: The Right to Be a Kid
  • Late Adolescence: The Right to Be Heard
  • On the Cusp of Adulthood: The Right to Start Fresh
  • The Invisible Kid: What Holds Us Back
  • Stop and Give a Thought: What Change Looks Like.
Review by Booklist Review

The kids aren't all right. The U.S. doesn't guarantee Americans any paid time off to care for a newborn or adopted child, so nearly half of parents report taking fewer than three days. On any given day in the U.S., over 400,000 kids are in the foster-care system. And since 2009, more than 500,000 children who are U.S. citizens have had their parents deported. Law professor Benforado compellingly argues that all Americans would be better off if the country treated its littlest inhabitants well. Under federal law, it is illegal to harass or discriminate against someone based on that person's age, but only if the person is 40 or older. Teenagers and recent college graduates are not protected, so they can be called names, given inferior work, and denied a job or fired just because they're young. And problems are worse for children of color. Today, 41 percent of white, college-educated families inherit more than $10,000 whereas just 13 percent of Black college-educated families do. Making excellent use of history and statistics, Benforado is a powerful champion of children's rights.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this persuasive and wide-ranging study, Drexel University law professor Benforado (Unfair) draws on scientific studies, policy research, and case histories to show an urgent need to "put children first" in law enforcement, education, parenting, and other areas. Arguing that policymakers typically prioritize adults' needs over children's, Benforado notes that even though research shows early parental attachment is key to child development, there are no federal laws guaranteeing paid childcare leave; as a result, almost half of American parents are back to work within three days of childbirth. Elsewhere, he criticizes legislation and judicial rulings based on the notion that "mom and dad are the gatekeepers to knowledge," cites evidence that young workers "have the highest levels of discriminatory experiences of any age group," and catalogs military recruitment campaigns that target kids as young as 13 ("We are so inured to the idea that the young should fight and the old should lead that it can be hard to grasp the unfairness of our system"). Among other solutions, he proposes the creation of a federal Children's Bureau that would coordinate with environmental, health, education, and legal agencies to ensure young people's rights are considered. Deeply researched and passionately argued, this is an irrefutable call for change. (Feb.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A law professor and father demonstrates how keeping children at the forefront can ensure a robust society. Benforado argues persuasively for the need to prioritize children's welfare by the government, the law, businesses, and the community as a whole. Once the focus of progressive reformers, the rights of children have retreated into the background. No longer "in the vanguard," the U.S. has "fallen behind other advanced nations on protecting children at every stage of development." Benforado examines children's lives from infancy to the cusp of adulthood, suggesting changes that could affect them profoundly. National parental leave, for example, would foster parent-infant attachment. Investing in early childhood education, as well as greater access to health care and housing, would lessen the economic inequality that impedes many children's futures. "In America today," writes the author, "one in six kids grows up in poverty. In our largest cities, one in seven has experienced eviction by the age of fifteen." Benforado suggests reforms to the criminal justice system to account for the harmful impact of a parent's incarceration, and he lays out the reasons we must reconsider harsh sentences imposed on young offenders. The author cites psychological and sociological studies to support his proposal of granting the vote to adolescents, who, he contends, are often more politically literate than many adults. Even partial suffrage would give young people input on issues that are particularly relevant to them; alternatively, their votes could be weighted based on age. Young people's voices, perspectives, and leadership, the author believes, can bring about changes in areas beyond government. "On many issues," he asserts, "young people may encourage us to rethink long-held assumptions, reform antiquated practices, and seize opportunities." Citing researchers' findings and abundant firsthand testimony, Benforado underscores his main point: Children are being victimized "not from our deliberate actions to disadvantage" them "but from our lack of awareness." A thoughtful and practical manifesto for large-scale reform. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter 1 The First Years The Right to Attachment The boy was put out with the chickens. He wasn't yet two. The reasons remain hidden in the past. Sujit's mother killed herself. His father was found stuffed in the trunk of a taxi. There is not anyone left to ask, though there were witnesses. In the rural village outside of Suva, Fiji, the neighbors noticed the boy from time to time, penned in the coop, underneath the house out of the sun, tied up with the hens. But, for years, he was left there. When social workers finally intervened, Sujit was eight. He could not speak. And he didn't move like a boy. He would hop, perch. When food was brought to him, he'd knock over the plate and peck at the meal on the floor. The sounds that emerged from his mouth were like bird calls. He didn't want to sleep in the bed they made for him at the Samabula Old People's Home. He set down to roost on the stone. There are animals that do not require caregiving when they emerge into the world. Megapodes are like that. The stocky, chicken-like birds do not parent. They spend their days on themselves: stalking the wooded landscapes of the Pacific islands kicking up leaves in a search for centipedes, lizards, termites, shoots, and seeds. While most birds incubate their eggs with their own bodies, megapodes lay theirs inside warm mounds of decaying vegetation or in sand piles naturally heated by the sun. Their offspring dig themselves out when they are ready. The youngsters emerge with eyes open, able to run and forage. Within an hour, they can fly. They aren't taught; they aren't nurtured. Even in their first day of life, megapodes are completely independent, off to explore without mom or dad. One chick, only a few days old, was spotted flying twenty-five miles out at sea. We are not like that. We need our people from the moment we are born. And when we do not have them--when we are denied those nurturing bonds--the consequences can be devastating and permanent. The tragic experiences of profoundly neglected children like Sujit--those locked in basements alone, forgotten in institutions, lost to regular human contact--reveal just how essential our human connectivity is for development. That was not at all clear to experts a hundred years ago. As the Children's Bureau's 1914 publication Infant Care exhorted, "The rule that parents should not play with the baby may seem hard, but it is without doubt a safe one." The influential psychologist John Watson echoed the sentiment in his 1928 book Psychological Care of Infant and Child : "Let [the child] learn to overcome difficulties almost from the moment of birth. . . . If your heart is too tender and you must watch the child, make yourself a peephole so that you can see it without being seen, or use a periscope . . . and, finally, learn not to talk in endearing and coddling terms." Be a megapode parent, in other words. It was not until the middle of the twentieth century that we began to rethink the value of detachment, prompted in large part by our primate relatives. While rhesus monkeys share roughly 93 percent of their DNA with humans and demonstrate similar behavior, they develop roughly four times faster. They can also be randomly assigned to particular early-life conditions in a controlled laboratory experiment. When, in the 1950s, Harry Harlow showed that orphaned baby monkeys preferred a terry cloth "surrogate" with cradled arms over a wire mother that offered milk but no surface to cling to, it suggested that we'd been overlooking something critical in early development: for primates, comfort might be a greater necessity than food. And in numerous subsequent experiments, we've gotten a picture of just how important parental attachment is to the life course. In one recent study, researchers tracked generations of rhesus monkeys over three decades. When they were born, each monkey was either raised by its mother or placed in a nursery. The nursery conditions were designed to be enriching, with plenty of nourishment, human care whenever needed, and playtime with other baby monkeys--just no mom. At eight months, all monkeys were brought together and reared in identical conditions. Each generation that followed was subject to the same protocol. What researchers found is that early-life attachment between a child and their mother yields significant health and social benefits, not simply to the child but to subsequent generations. Monkeys allowed to develop a strong attachment to their mothers and descended from a lineage of monkeys bonded to their moms had the best health and rose the highest up the monkey hierarchy as they aged. They had the strongest chance at securing the rhesus good life, as measured in access to choice food items and grooming from the most coveted partners. The intergenerational benefit of being from a line of mother-raised monkeys, though, didn't accrue to those who were themselves reared in the nursery. As the authors concluded, "[P]arenting is the primary channel of intergenerational transmission of early-life advantage." And if you're denied that special bond at the very beginning, it doesn't matter that things get better later. After just eight months, the monkeys were all treated the same, but they were indelibly, forever different. Unfortunately, the research on human children paints the same picture. Young people deprived of nurturing attachments in the first years of life miss out on an essential basis for their healthy development intellectually, emotionally, socially, physically, behaviorally, and morally. Secure bonds are the foundation for learning about and exploring the new world. It is within these vital relationships that we gain our sense of self, how to navigate the social landscape, how to learn, how to trust, how to control ourselves, and how to love. The costs of isolation manifest in learning disabilities, interpersonal struggles, and poor physical and mental health decades into the future. Seventy-six years ago, Dr. Benjamin Spock published The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care , indelibly reshaping the way we raise our children. Though it is often described as the bible of child-rearing, it's really more of a user's manual: a how-to guide, marrying the logic of a Vulcan with a down-to-earth empathy. I was a Spock baby, as were my parents before me. Spock, a Yale-trained pediatrician, didn't buy the conventional wisdom of his time that warned against excessive affection. He wanted parents who were involved with their kids. For him, the equation was simple: "Useful, well-adjusted citizens are the most valuable possessions a country has, and good . . . care during early childhood is the surest way to produce them." But there was more standing in the way than the scowls of elderly neighbors who thought children were best neither heard nor seen. Indeed, in Spock's view, the biggest problem was a quite modern development: the rise of families where both parents worked outside the home. While Spock couldn't rise above the cringe-worthy sexism of his time, he recognized the fundamental dilemma that posed: "It doesn't make sense to let mothers [or fathers!] go to work making dresses in a factory or tapping typewriters in an office, and have them pay other people to do a poorer job of bringing up their children." As he reasoned, "It would save money in the end if the government paid a comfortable allowance to all mothers [and fathers] of young children who would otherwise be compelled to work." Today, we know that there are many positives that come from having parents successfully pursuing careers outside the home. But Spock's core claim remains true: it makes sense for parents to spend more time with their kids, particularly when they are very young, and investing in giving parents time to do that makes sense for society. Especially in the early years of life, the research is clear that greater parental investment makes a significant difference. Paid childcare leave is linked to reduced mortality and better health. With time off from work, women are able to breastfeed longer and infants get more one-on-one attention. Paid leave also supports parent-child bonding, which is associated with improved physical and cognitive development. The benefits of increased parental involvement in early child-rearing appear to extend far into the future. When researchers looked at what happened after Norway changed its maternity leave policy to guarantee women four months of paid leave in 1977, they found that the increased time mothers spent with their kids correlated with reduced high school dropout rates and higher incomes at age thirty. The effects were largest for mothers who had the least education. Part of the reason may be that early bonding promotes later connectedness between children and their parents. In one study of 1,319 mostly socioeconomically disadvantaged families, fathers who took two or more weeks of leave had children who, at age nine, reported greater closeness, communication, and engagement with their dad. And the children of engaged fathers demonstrate numerous advantages as they mature, from superior language development to more advanced social and cognitive skills. Excerpted from A Minor Revolution: How Prioritizing Kids Benefits Us All by Adam Benforado All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.