Date: Sat, 8 Jul 1995 08:52:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott London <london@rain.org>
Subject: CHILDHOOD'S FUTURE by Richard Louv


Book Review:
~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHILDHOOD'S FUTURE
By Richard Louv
Houghton Mifflin, 1990, 420 pages


This book has been out for a few years, but unlike so many releases that
fade from view within a few short weeks, this one seems to be generating
more and more attention over time.  There were only a few reviews of it
when it first appeared, but recently its title has cropped up in a number
of books and articles.  It was also recommended to me by several people,
and it has come up many times in various Internet discussion groups I
follow. 

     CHILDHOOD'S FUTURE is about the crisis of the American family. 
Newspaper columnist Richard Louv spent a couple of years traveling across
the country listening to children, parents, and educators.  The book is
part report of what he found, part analysis of the the problem, and part
prescription of how we might reweave the webs that connect family and
society. 

     Louv pictures society as an intricate web of diverse and interdepen-
dent strands, many of which have become strained and unraveled in the last
generation or two.  This, he says, has had profound implications for the
American family, and the new environment of childhood in particular. 
Quoting extensive conversations with parents and children across America,
he describes an increasing absence of neighbors and kin in family life; a
widening rift between children and adults as children become more and more
attuned to the adult world through computers and mass media yet have less
and less positive contact with adults; the "overprogramming" of family
life; and the increasing cultural polarity between proponents of
traditional family values and what Louv calls the "high-tech" modernists. 

     Louv also describes a pervasive anxiety among parents today rooted in
part in the structure of modern life -- which has robbed many families of
time together -- and in part in a declining sense of trust.  "The clearest
evidence that the supportive web for children and for parents has pulled
apart is the lack of family time," he writes.  Modern parents are
exhausted and overbooked.  They long not for quality time so much as free
time, dream time, time to really be with their families and themselves. 
The fear and lack of trust among many parents is more difficult to
penetrate, he observes, but it stems from a declining sense of freedom and
community in American life and is directly linked to a culture of
increased crime and violence where parents no longer feel a sense of
control over the lives of their children. 

     The fragmentation of American families is not simply a matter of
personal morality or individual fidelity, in Louv's view.  It is linked to
broader changes in society at large -- especially the imperatives of a
changing economy.  The United States is the only Western nation where
family life is considered a private, not public, matter, he notes.  It is
also the only nation in the West where workplaces are thoroughly
disconnected from family concerns, and where families are expected to fend
for themselves without support from corporations or government. 

     According to Louv, reweaving the tattered web of social relationships
involves a great deal more than rhetorical calls for "family values."  It
involves fostering a supportive environment for families and addressing
the interconnected issues of child care, school reform, work schedules,
and even our relationship to the natural world.  He calls for a "family
liberation" movement that can cross ideological and class lines -- indeed,
his interviews suggest that the seeds of such a movement have already been
planted.  Among the fundamental principles for such a movement are: that
none of us raises a child alone, even if we believe we are alone; that the
main goal of programs involving children and families should be to
increase positive contact between children and adults; that truly
family-friendly workplaces respect employees' needs for flexibility and
time; and that little meaningful political change can happen for children
without grass-roots action beginning in the family and extending through
neighborhoods, schools, and the workplace. 

     Louv proposes a number of the concrete initiatives toward restoring
the web.  For example, he contends that employers should set up day care
centers and offer flex-time and home-based employment; malls, parks, and
subdivisions should be designed with children in mind; and schools ought
to turn themselves into all-day community centers that serve every member
of the family.  While he stresses the importance of civil society in
restoring the web, Louv doesn't imagine that it can be adequately repaired
without major changes in public policy.  Above all, he argues, policy must
be decided not on the basis of false choices between moral and economic
concerns -- which merely tend to reflect narrow partisan ideologies -- but
rather by mutual support for the welfare of all American families and the
lives of future generations. 

     This is a long book, but a very good one.  Louv's observations of and
insights into everyday family life in America are both disturbing in their
implications and encouraging in what they suggest about genuine family
values -- not the bogus "values" our politicians like to talk about.  But,
not surprisingly considering that Louv is a columnist for the San Diego
Union-Tribune, the book has a tendency to read like a series of
interconnected newspaper columns.  Parts of it read like the sort of vapid
editorials one runs across in small-town papers where the editorial "we"
is assumed to include not only the newspaper folks but all morally
righteous citizens.  But just when the tone would begin to jar my nerves,
Louv would offer something bold and unexpected and draw me back in. 
Thankfully, he offers considerably more depth and vision than his style at
first suggests. 


                                   Scott London * london@rain.org