So, the latest issue of Business Week warns parents about the “Age of Anxiety†facing young kids in their first recession. According to the psychologists over at BW:
The long-term psychological effects may be most profound for young children, since they are growing up without any real memory of better times. They can pick up on parents’ anxiety about money and may see the world as an uncertain place where they have to struggle to succeed. Later this may make them cautious about career choices and financial decisions.
Does anyone else see this as absolutely hilarious…and infuriating? Hmmm. Who knew economic hard times could be tough on children?
Of course, this piece was written without irony. BW hasn’t seemed to recognize that the “new problem†of the trauma of economic bad times and uncertainty isn’t new for a lot of kids, kids whose parents were outside the charmed circle of opportunity of the past few decades, for whom there wasn’t ever going to be any “memory of better times†in their family.
As economist Nancy Folbre reminded us in her recent, and much more sensible, post “Hard Times for Kids,†the United States has long had one of the highest child poverty rates of industrialized countries. The main reason we do so poorly is that we make no effort to combat child poverty. Demographer Patrick Heuveline has demonstrated that other rich countries like England and France would have the same child poverty rate that we do if they didn’t provide social supports to prevent it.
Folbre makes an interesting point:
During this recession, many other problems, including huge bank bailouts, are competing for public attention and taxpayers’ money. Sometimes I wonder how closely the Child Well-Being Index would mirror an Adult Wrong-Doing Index.
If I were going to construct such a new index, financial malfeasance would rank high among the measurement domains. But in the composite, apathy among those who could do more to help poor children would receive at least an equal weight.
I don’t think that BW is any more interested in the Child Well-Being Index than they are in an Adult Wrong-Doing Index. But when we wring our hands about the children, let’s remember to wring our hands about all the children, including the children we have been neglecting in good times and bad.
Comments
Tom — June 5, 2009
The irony of course is the bubble that burst benefited, while it lasted, everyone but the poor folks who didn't have real estate. Those who have seen their equity plummet, can't send their kids to private schools. The least advantaged in this country are much worse off, and until recently had no political clout. Maybe Obama can change that.