Baby Bust

1
Baby Bust

• The Age of Narcissism 1963-1982

2
Baby Bust

• Demographic changes changing norms
• Changing family patterns
• Increase maternal employment
• 60-70 of mothers work
• Two-earner families 50
• Increase single parent households
• Divorce rate 50
• 40 of children live in single parent home

3
Resources Opportunities

• 47 of those polled say better health care today
  advances in diagnostic testing better health
  care quality (but . . .14-20)
• Education available (but . . .13 of 17 y.o.
  illiterate)
• Freedom decrease in racism, sexism,
  discrimination
• Child-centered values (but . . .

4
Erosion of Childhood Social Problems

• Myth of Quality time
• Hurried Child (Elkind)
• Violence/safety
• Economic deprivation (Garbarino)
• Anxieties over parenting
• T.V.
• Socially Toxic Environments (Garbarino)

5
Myth of Quality Time

• Definition It isnt how much time you spend
  with your kids, its how you spend the time.
• Different views
• How can you monitor an adolescents activities
  during quality time?
• What about satisfied mothers and involved
  fathers?
• Division of labor
• 26 hours constant for last 15 years

6
Elkind The Hurried Child

• Miniature Adults pressure to achieve, etc.
• Psychological effect adolescents, attraction of
  cults, stress diseases
• Lead to crime among affluent teenagers?
• End of childhood?

7
Violence/Safety

• Perception
• Decline of community/high risk neighborhoods
• Economic deprivation/struggles for affluence
• T.V./Media

8
What children (9-17 years) fear?

• 61 not being able to find a job
• 49 not having enough money
• 43 not being able to get into college
• 42 contracting AIDS virus
• 32 being injured in an auto accident
• 28 being beaten up or attacked
• 24 having to fight in a war
• 23 having their parents lose their job
• 17 having a marriage end in divorce
• 14 becoming homeless

9
Contemporary views of children

• Decrease in birth rate
• Blame the mother phenomenon
• Increase in child abuse
• Where are children allowed?
• Cost of children?
• Diaries