NEWSLANC EDITOR: The article excerpted below will be a revelation to some and an affirmation to others. We encourage reading it in its entirety. It can change your life and that of others.
WASHINGTON POST: …“At the beginning you don’t know you’re doing a study of the collapse of American social life — you’re doing a study of PTA membership,” says Putnam, who has a grandfatherly presence with a white Abe Lincoln-like beard. “Our Kids” was like that, too. “The more we investigated, the bigger we realized the problem was.”
The poor children in “Our Kids” are missing so much more than material wealth. They have few mentors. They’re half as likely as wealthy kids to trust their neighbors. The schools they attend offer fewer sports, and they’re less likely to participate in after-school activities. Even their parents have smaller social networks. Their lives reflect the misfortune of the working-class adults around them, who have lost job prospects and financial stability.
More than 60 percent of children whose mothers never made it past high school will now spend at least some of their life by age 7 in a single-parent household. In the 1970s, there was virtually no difference in how much time educated and less-educated parents spent on activities like reading to infants and toddlers, which we now know matter tremendously for their brain development. Today, well-off children get 45 minutes more than poor kids every day of what Putnam calls “ ‘Goodnight Moon’ time.”… (more)
