As movements continue to fight for universal, affordable child care and paid family and medical leave, and for workplace reforms through union organizing and forms of activism, prominent politicians like Republican Vice-Presidential nominee J.D. Vance question women鈥檚 place in the workplace. In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, he vowed to represent the in America. In the past he has critiqued the Democratic Party as being run by 鈥渃hildless cat ladies,鈥� and argued that women should be having children rather than working long hours.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay has covered gender and racial inequality in society throughout her career as a writer, editor, organizer and nonprofit leader. In just a few short years she went from executive editor of the now-defunct blog Feministing to executive editor of Teen Vogue, where she oversaw a massive transformation in its coverage, from just fashion-as-usual, to fashion plus all the political, social and identity questions young people were facing. She resigned from that role in 2022.

Her third book, , takes on the problem of women鈥檚 burnout from juggling both the unpaid work of family life and the demanding paid work in thankless, profit-driven jobs, and defends women鈥檚 right to ambition. The question, she asks, is where should we channel that ambition? Early Learning Nation contributor Haley Swenson sat down with Mukhopadhyay to discuss her journey to understand work and ambition differently in the years since she first 鈥渕ade it.鈥�

Haley Swenson: I鈥檝e read you for such a long time, going back to when I was a college student and you were writing for . And then I remember a few years ago, during the pandemic, everybody was like, wow, look at Teen Vogue. We were seeing articles about socialist feminism and dreamers and DACA and prison and policing and everyone was saying, what’s going on over there? And then I found out you were the executive editor, and I said, aha, that’s part of what’s going on over there. 听

And I remember thinking, 鈥淲ow, she’s really made it!鈥� So maybe we could start there. Tell the readers a little bit about that experience, of 鈥渕aking it,鈥� getting that big management job, and how the reality of that led you to this book.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay: I think I also felt like I had made it. You know, I worked really hard to get to a place where I would even be considered for a position like that. I should have felt this tremendous sense of satisfaction, and I did. I really was proud of the work we were doing, and I was happy to have the job. But there was a deeper part of me saying I worked really hard to get here, and now what? Why am I exhausted? Why do I not have space to take care of myself? And I wasn’t making the kind of money that I felt like I should be making for how much experience I had, and what I was bringing to the table, which kind of made me start to question what all of this was for.

But I didn’t really face that question until the pandemic, when I had this moment that many women had of asking, why do I work all the time? Maybe work isn’t the core organizing value for my life. And there鈥檚 a very earnest battle right now to take rights away from women and to say that women should have never been allowed in the workplace. The pandemic forced me to start reporting out what I felt was a reckoning that women were having with their relationship to ambition. I wanted to come in strong with a counter-argument that we weren鈥檛 wrong for having ambition, but we were set up to fail.

Swenson: Ambition is a theme that keeps coming back throughout the book. Prior to that pandemic moment, when many of us questioned it all, you talk about how in terms of workplace feminism we had 鈥渓ean in鈥� and we had 鈥済irl bossing,鈥� the idea, as you say, that, 鈥渢here’s nothing that a little elbow grease and the right shade of lipstick can’t overcome.鈥� What happened in the pandemic that made those ideas of women鈥檚 ambition seem so antiquated?

Mukhopadhyay: This was most pointed with mothers. I think that a lot of mothers have been told that you can have it all. You can work and have your family. You just need to organize your time and you’ll be fine. And many of them realized how burned out they were, especially when they lost all of the support they needed to be successful in their careers, like child care, home health workers, housekeepers. When that underbelly of workers that keep many middle class and affluent women afloat dissipated, I think a lot of women had to face that their ambitions were fragile, that they were resting on this care economy and this false idea that you can have it all. And I think that’s the biggest thing that started to unravel.

I also saw this with my single women friends, who I think had been told to put everything into their careers, asking, 鈥淲ait, why did I work this hard? Now, none of that matters, because I can’t even go to an office, and I can’t even spend the money I鈥檓 earning in a restaurant. My fancy clothes don’t matter. Having a fancy apartment isn’t important anymore, because we’re struggling for our lives out here.鈥�

I think that forced us as a country and a society to ask, what is success? How much do we actually need? A lot of families took a step back from their professional duties to ask these questions. Maybe we got a taste of a balanced life. We got a taste of what it would be like to not just prioritize work at all costs.

Swenson: Sometimes in the child care and paid leave spaces, we say that because the United States doesn’t have robust social policies, you’re really left to the 鈥渂oss lottery,鈥� where it’s up to your manager whether you can have a balanced life. There鈥檚 also this pressure, which you experienced in management positions, of wanting to do right by your employees, the people who report to you, to be that supportive person, to help them develop, but at the same time you have very little power to protect them when push comes to shove. What鈥檚 your vision of what management could look like?

Mukhopadhyay: I鈥檓 interested in building off of the work of the great feminist theorist Barbara Ehrenreich, to develop her idea of the professional managerial class as this middle layer of management that could become radicalized and stand with other workers. Something promising that we started to see during the pandemic, was white collar workers, or knowledge workers, coming into consciousness about their own labor conditions.

I see an opportunity to think about management less as a climb to the top, and more about people. We should grade managers on that, on how well you build your team and relate to them and support them. And that should be as important as your ability to come up with creative ideas and to execute.

The old model of management isn’t really working right now. Even just for the most basic economic reasons, we really need to start thinking about models that do empower and include larger groups of people to feel purpose-driven.

Swenson: At the end of the book, I was feeling so optimistic. You cite so many examples of workers who aren鈥檛 taking it anymore, and are either forming unions or just saying enough is enough and radically changing their lives to be more about community and less about work.

You offer the idea of instead of channeling our hustle energy鈥攐ur ambition into personal success鈥攖rying to channel that into collective change in the workplace. That seems like a starting point for any of the kinds of changes you want to see, so we are no longer set up to fail. Can you explain how you see us replacing the old feminist dream of having it all with the goal of 鈥渏ust having enough鈥�?

Mukhopadhyay: It really has to be a collective reckoning to say that we’ve had enough of how we’re treated in the workplace. We’re not going to do it anymore. The expectation is that if you have it all, you have to do it all, and I’m not going to do it all. And if you want me to do it all, you’re going to pay me equitably for it. And that may mean making some personal sacrifices. It means that maybe you don’t put yourself up for that promotion. Maybe you don’t, and I鈥檓 talking directly at the camera to myself right now, take that third freelance gig.

Maybe you have to say, I don’t need to keep pushing and pushing, because the more I push, the harder it is for me to actually enjoy what I have and to not make myself sick and stressed out and depressed in the process.

The easy narrative here is to say, well, this is why women should never work. The whole problem with that is whether you’re working outside the house or inside the house, you’re still working. And most women don’t have the choice to be in the house or outside of the house.

I know many women that would love a little more leisure time, but I do not know any woman that’s not out here hustling. This system was designed to make us miserable, to set us up to fail. But [pushing back] is also something that we need to do collectively. You can 鈥渜uiet quit鈥� as an individual, but if the person next to you at work is going to pick up the slack, you’re not creating a collective environment where we’re all saying together, 鈥渢his is what we’re willing to put up with, and this is what we’re not willing to put up with.鈥�

Swenson: Speaking of the moment we’re in right now, politically, has anything changed for you, in terms of your sense of what’s possible, or your optimism about the direction we’re headed in. How is the prospect of a second Trump term affecting your thinking?

Mukhopadhyay: I think that there is such a naked war on women and women’s ambition. J.D. Vance has openly condemned the idea of women in the workplace, women’s independence, . This is part of a working world order and mindset where women are second-class citizens, where their creativity is clamped down on, where their actual human rights are being restricted. And that is very dangerous.

And it鈥檚 not that feminists are against ambition. It鈥檚 not that we’re lazy and it’s not that we don’t believe that women should be ambitious. What we’re saying is it’s too hard and we can’t do it alone. The solution to that cannot be that we don’t try. What are the conditions for us to successfully try? And that’s why I think this moment is very linked to our fight for democracy and for women’s human rights.

It’s not a coincidence to me that we’re having this profound backlash on women in the workplace, that so many mothers were pushed out of the workforce during the pandemic at the same time we saw the overturning of Roe v Wade, and the rise of the, quote, 鈥渢rad wife.鈥�

One of J.D. Vance’s quotes is, 鈥淚f your worldview tells you that it鈥檚 bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you鈥檝e been had.鈥� And that鈥檚 really effective messaging. It isn’t liberating for me to work 90 hours a week, but then neither is forced motherhood.

Swenson: So what is the message you have for women?

Mukhopadhyay: I think a lot of books right now are saying, don’t give up the fight. And I am saying, yes, but pick and choose your battles. You are not alone in what you’re feeling. And I think that one of the problems with neoliberal, lean-in feminism has been that we have put the culpability for women’s progress on the individual woman. You alone cannot change the parental leave policy in your company or in your state. You alone cannot overcome the unequal pay gap. So much ink has been spilled about that moment when you ask for more money, like that’s the core of workplace feminism. 鈥淪peak up in meetings and make sure you ask for more money.鈥� And I would never tell someone not to do those things. I just want us to give ourselves a pat on the back. We’ve done enough. But we alone can’t solve these problems. So what does it look like to use our ambition to build a community of support, around the kinds of lives that we want to live, and the kinds of work we want to do?

While Helen Russell鈥檚 clever, well-researched exploration of the parenting culture of Denmark and other Nordic countries might not fully map onto the experience of most families in the U.S. or U.K. (Russell鈥檚 original home), it offers refreshing insights that can help parents relax a bit, give themselves heaps of grace and have much more fun raising their family. For societies like ours that are confronting crises in practically any arena that concerns our children, Russell鈥檚 deep dive into the 鈥淰iking way鈥� offers practical, doable approaches that entire nations have proven can work in creating healthy, happy families.

Russell had been in London, 鈥渓iving the city dream鈥� as an editor for MarieClaire鈥檚 U.K. online edition when her husband was offered his dream job working for Lego in Denmark. Both were feeling overworked, overwhelmed, burned out and ripe for a change. Denmark had just been voted the happiest country in the world (not for the first time) and she was intrigued. The couple emigrated and soon found themselves parents of 鈥渢he redhead and the IVF twins,鈥� which placed them in the thick of Nordic childrearing culture.

After 10 years in her new homeland, Russell still maintains sufficient outsider status to offer observations that are helpful, thought-provoking and sometimes hilarious. Her culture shock winds through anecdotes such as the reminder from her son鈥檚 Scout group that, 鈥淥n Wednesday, we build bonfires! Bring daggers,鈥� or the fact even in big cities, you鈥檒l see rows of 鈥渦nder threes鈥� bundled up in huge Mary Poppins-style prams no matter the weather while mom or dad runs inside for a latte or a sandwich. (It鈥檚 considered crucial for babies to be able to lie flat rather than be curled over in a buggy or car seat.)

The Nordic countries 鈥� Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden 鈥� share the Viking heritage, descendants of the seafaring folks who roamed (and yes, often marauded) across northern Europe from 800 to 1066 CE. Their hardiness is genetically baked in from those beginnings in a harsh environment, and culturally is encouraged today through common practices such as encouraging babies as young as two weeks to take in plenty of fresh air 鈥渢o help the lungs develop.鈥� Viking children live outside, Russell says, rain or shine. Given the local climate, this often means rain or worse. If the Nordic countries have a shared motto, it鈥檚 鈥淭here is no bad weather, there are just the wrong clothes.鈥�

Those of us who prefer the warmth of the hearth to unrelenting cold drizzle easily recognize Russell鈥檚 shock at the realization that not only will her children be splashing around in the cold and drear, she, too, will be expected to join in and actually play in all that mess. Viking parents volunteer. They go along. They get out there. Danish children are not issued the appropriate wardrobe at birth, she writes, but they might as well be. In some places, posters are put up reminding parents exactly what children need for each season, from the all-in-one snowsuit and Gore-Tex boots for winter, to the balaclava 鈥渆lephant hat鈥� that all children wear much of the year in varying thicknesses. Wind-resistant, waterproof and thermal clothing come in the smallest of sizes and are simply a fact of life. Luckily, she writes, the thriving hand-me-down culture means no one has to buy all that kit from scratch. Just look around鈥攁nd pass along whatever your kids grow out of.

In chapters running the gamut from Viking health and safety to school time, to singing and the social brain, Russell touches on many elements that create the unique Nordic approach to children鈥檚 lives 鈥� encouraging the risk-taking that fosters resilience and self-confidence; the idea that it鈥檚 great to cut loose, go wild and get dirty; the view that play is a sign of well-being; the necessity of developing grit, the freedom to mess up and learn from one鈥檚 mistakes 鈥� all go into creating happy, well-adjusted children.

It is a given in Nordic parenting that children will figure things out, learn to use their bodies and manage their surroundings. They are raised to trust themselves and others from the very beginning. Samfundssind, or community mindset, is the bedrock of Nordic society and from infancy, children are raised to consider the ethos of 鈥渢he greater good,鈥� even when it means a bit of discomfort for themselves. In Nordic society, fathers are parents and are expected to be involved in all aspects of their children鈥檚 upbringing. Real Viking dads change diapers and wouldn鈥檛 respect a father who didn鈥檛, she writes.

In each chapter, Russell offers observations that even the most urban, most non-Nordic parent can incorporate to create opportunities for greater freedom and self-reliance for their children, even at very young ages. Her tone is chatty, self-deprecating and sometimes veers a bit cute, but especially for new parents, “How to Raise a Viking” is a delightful, liberating handbook that encourages loosening our grip a bit, trusting our children and each other a lot, and helping our children grow into their richest, most authentic selves.

However, none of Russell鈥檚 great examples or clever observations would be sufficient for someone living in a non-Nordic country to raise a child gloriously expressing all the best Viking values. No matter how hard you might try to go it alone, you need a society that supports those values. A quick answer to 鈥淗ow do you raise a Viking?鈥� would be, live in a society that values children in real, practical, unwavering ways, not as entities deserving of lip service prior to elections, but as the bedrock of a society that intends to have a future. This is where policymakers might want to look at “How to Raise a Viking” and check out the lengthy citations in each chapter. It鈥檚 no secret that American society must make fundamental changes in how we support parents and children if we are to move forward in a functional, even sensible way. In “How to Raise a Viking,” resources abound that might help move that needle.

Reading Russell鈥檚 chapters on government-subsidized child care, parental leave, free healthcare, free education and free dental treatment and a work week that generally clocks in at 33 hours can make the reader wistful for why we can鈥檛 have nice things. Yes, taxes are high, but it鈥檚 hard to argue with the societal payoffs. (See 鈥渉appiest country in the world,鈥� above.)

Nordic society isn鈥檛 perfect. Some U.S. educators would no doubt take issue with how reading and academic achievement don鈥檛 really receive much emphasis until a child is 8 or so, though as Russell points out, children in Nordic countries play for longer, learn later, but still do better in the long run than children in the U.S. and U.K. 鈥� and are happier. There are clouds on the horizon, as children in Nordic countries are now getting smartphones and devices at earlier ages, which is causing as much headache and consternation there as it does over here.

In her Epilogue, Russell writes that she knows the idea of the Viking spirit isn鈥檛 a package of ideas that can be shipped and adopted wholesale; they are elements to strive toward. By 2050, she writes, economists predict that 40 percent of current jobs will be lost to automation. Right now, we simply don鈥檛 know what our jobs our children will be doing in their adulthood. But they will need resilience, adaptability, grit and the ability to think for themselves.

That鈥檚 the Viking spirit.

Today, children across all racial identities are increasingly likely to live with a grandparent. The share of children living with their grandparents has doubled since the 1970s (from 3.2 percent to 8.4 percent), and more children are being raised by their grandparents today than ever before in U.S. history. The majority of these kids live in multigenerational households, where they receive care from at least one biological parent in addition to a grandparent. A growing minority of those kids live in 鈥渟kipped-generation鈥� households, that is, where their parents are not present and grandparents, especially grandmothers, are taking on the chief responsibility for their grandchildren’s care and well-being.

In – A Twenty-First-Century Story of Love, Coercion and Survival, University of Washington Professor of Sociology LaShawnDa Pittman dives into the emotional, financial, medical and legal struggles of their daily lives. Pittman conducted extensive interviews with 74 Black grandmothers heading skipped-generation households in the Chicago area. Pittman argues that they represent the growing number of families made up of our country鈥檚 two most vulnerable populations 鈥� children and the elderly 鈥� and that they have very few legal rights, while facing public policies not designed for families like them, as well as a host of intersecting inequalities and barriers.

Early Learning Nation magazine contributor Haley Swenson interviewed Pittman about the book and about what child care advocates and providers should know about the rise of grandparent-headed households.

Haley Swenson: Why did you feel it was important to focus on kids in skipped-generation households in particular with this book?

LaShawnDa Pittman: When I started this research, I was interested in Black grandmas raising kids. I had not gotten as nuanced as multi-generational or skipped-generation arrangements. It took just a few interviews for me to realize that these were very different experiences. I was primarily interested in a story of resilience and coping, and I felt like these women in skipped-generation households were having to cope in very different kinds of ways from other grandmas.

One thing that became really, really clear was that child-rearing institutions, like educational and health care systems, are not set up for [these skipped-generation families]. I was having conversations with them about just how difficult it was to navigate those institutions. That鈥檚 mainly because of grandmothers鈥� legal marginalization, relative to parents and to the state. Grandparents have no inherent rights to their grandchildren. That illuminated a piece of the puzzle for me, and I thought that was a really important story to tell.

We know that the bulk of grandparent caregiving happens informally, but even inside of that informal bucket, we include both no legal relationship at all and legal guardianship of various sorts, and depending on which state you鈥檙e in, that’s called different things. Sometimes it’s temporary. Sometimes it’s not. The decision to become a legal guardian was often driven by the need to navigate the childrearing institutions, to get healthcare or child care for the kids, or the need to protect children from their parents.

And then we鈥檝e got formal arrangements, which include some relationship to the child welfare system. The child welfare system has increasingly relied on relatives to provide care, and in many states they get less support for that care than non-family foster care providers. It really became apparent that the relationship with the child welfare system is something that is shaping contemporary grandparent caregiving in a way that prior generations just did not have to deal with.

Swenson: In one of the final sentences of the book you say Black grandmas are like 鈥渃anaries in the coal mine, warning us of the dangers of transmitting social injustices from one generation to the next.鈥� I think one of the ways the book shows that happening is with messy, almost impossible-to-navigate social and family policies.

Because of their legal marginalization, grandmothers describe immense red tape to get access to basic care and financial support for their grandkids. What are some of the things that these grandparents have to go through and negotiate in order to get by, whether that鈥檚 by keeping their jobs, or accessing benefits their grandchildren should be entitled to receive?

Pittman: When it comes to resources, it鈥檚 like, well, if I don’t get these resources, my grandkid could be taken, but if I do get these resources, then perhaps it exposes me to a whole set of issues that I wasn’t anticipating, and my grandkids could be taken.

鈥嬧�婨ven with their best efforts, their best efforts have no match for the sort of structural issues that they face or that they were already facing [before taking in their grandkids]. They鈥檙e largely Black women, or indigenous women, who were already economically marginalized. And there are two kinds of issues they face when they raise their grandchildren: How do I hold on to what I already had, and then how do I secure the additional resources they need?

On housing, here is a kid that鈥檚 now living in my home that I did not expect to be here. For some folks, it might mean not having enough room, for others, a safe enough community or home. For others it was the child welfare system requiring they have so much space and so on and so forth. So, they have to deal with these housing issues. Some grandmothers in my study have housing assistance, and so then [the change in their household] becomes an issue. How do I hold on to something that’s incredibly difficult to get in this country? There was a freeze on Section 8 housing in Chicago for well over a decade. We all know subsidized housing is becoming a thing of the past. There鈥檚 less and less of it.

One of the things I found that was really, really hard to hear about were the ways they were given misinformation about what was required in order to both utilize or hold onto their housing assistance. So, there are federal protections for grandparents raising grandchildren, in terms of not requiring legal guardianship of the kids that they care for, in order to have that assistance. And yet they were often told by street-level bureaucrats, the housing authority or landlords that they needed legal guardianship to have them in their houses. And there are all kinds of reasons why they don’t want legal guardianship. They might hope they don鈥檛 have to do this for long, or they don鈥檛 want to hurt their children, the children’s parents, who might be relying on some of the benefits they get to raise other kids.

The majority of these caregivers are still working. So, they might ask: How do I maintain my work and take care of this kid, and if that kid is under five, how do I get child care? We know in some places, child care is more expensive than rent. And child care subsidies are not set up for these families. To get these subsidies, a grandma might need to get custody taken from their parents, or her income might hurt her eligibility or her health might be too poor to work the required hours to qualify. And, we know as it is. So, who do they go to when they need to drop them off, when they are the person everybody else comes to?

I saw women who were already marginalized and fragile, vulnerable, having to decrease their work and income. Then I saw women who had to increase work, who didn’t have the health at times to do that, or were retired and had to go back into work. I saw women do more informal work, selling dinners, selling cigarettes, things like that just to get income coming in.

Swenson: There’s a strong belief among many early educators in 鈥渨hole-family solutions,鈥� not just providing care and education to the kids but giving some wraparound services, job training for parents, healthy food, to the whole family. I’m struck by what you say in the book about how few of these families are even accessing that formal care and education for young children. It鈥檚 heartbreaking to think of this whole field of educated, compassionate people who want to be doing this work for these families, and that they’re unable to access the families who really need it, that you describe in your book.

What would it look like if our child rearing systems were remade, to meet families as they are, and to really work for grandmother-led families. What would be different? What kinds of changes would you like to see?

Pittman: If we were actually creating policies that made it less difficult to get the resources that these families need in terms of housing, in terms of child care, when it comes to resources, the outcome would be improved mental and physical health. We talked about the burden of securing these resources, and remember that鈥檚 on top of experiencing multiple systems of oppression, from racism to sexism to classism and to ageism. The stress of that, the impact on their mental and physical health, is real.

I imagine that if we addressed that, instead of blaming individuals or the parents for what they aren鈥檛 doing, these grandmas would be around longer, and they’d be around with better health, mentally and physically. And that means the kids would be having a better parenting experience. Imagine kids who are getting their needs met, because our child rearing institutions are thinking about the whole family. Without that mental load, they鈥檇 all be able to breathe and to get the respite that they need.

The brilliance of Stockstill鈥檚 work is in how she brings readers down from the abstract to nitty-gritty reality: How do concentrations of poverty or privilege influence the minutiae of early childhood settings, ranging from how much of the daily routine is completed to how children are allowed to interact with objects brought from home? What societal and institutional expectations are being implicitly and explicitly taught? What does this mean for the experience of teachers? And, what does understanding the implementation level suggest about our policy conversations?

Whether you are a child care veteran or new to the issue, you鈥檒l walk away from False Starts buzzing with thoughts. I had so many I decided to schedule an interview with Stockstill to go deeper.

The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Elliot Haspel: One of the fundamental points you make is that there are several different ways of thinking about preschool, and two of the dominant ones are 鈥榗ompensatory鈥� versus 鈥榮upplemental.鈥�  Can you talk a little bit about that distinction, and how you saw it underlying different characteristics in the two programs you observed?

Casey Stockstill: I think you see preschool as compensatory all over Head Start. I think that’s maybe a controversial claim these days, because I’ve seen a shift. In the sixties, definitely, Head Start was supposed to be a compensatory program to make up for these quote-unquote 鈥渟hortcomings鈥� of poor families. But the discourse has shifted and I think Head Start describes itself as a whole-child, whole-family approach. They talk about wraparound supports. They don’t want to have a deficit framing, that’s not the intention.

Yet for me, when I was in the classroom with teachers, that is some of the [deficit] language they were using. And I mean, honestly, I’m like, how do you say something is missing without applying a deficit? I heard expressions like, 鈥極h, we gotta take the kids outside because some of their parents might not take them outside.鈥� 鈥楾hey might not be able to brush their kids鈥� teeth at home.鈥� 鈥榃e can’t do show and tell. The parents are really busy and don’t always have toys for their kids.鈥� It’s interesting because some of it is reflecting real scarcity and real gaps. But some of it is not.

What was interesting to me is this framework of Head Start’s going to compensate for challenges at home. It makes a lot of the classroom rules go to the least advantaged kid.

And then I’d say, preschool as a supplement – – that’s more coming from my analysis. It’s something I want us to consider in the way we talk about preschool. I hear it in mom groups, honestly the thinking being 鈥業 have many options for the kind of child care I could have, or maybe I could even be a stay-at-home parent, should I send my kid to preschool?鈥� And the thinking is like, 鈥榊eah, it’s a positive social experience that will add on to the great stuff you’re probably doing at home.鈥�

Haspel: That makes sense. I’ve always remembered the LBJ quote in announcing Head Start about how it was going to 鈥渞escue these children from the poverty which otherwise could pursue them all their lives.鈥� Even though we鈥檝e tried to move away from that, it鈥檚 still in there from the very beginning. One of the impacts of segregated classrooms you write about is that they aren’t neatly captured in the observational checkboxes that are used to rate the quality of classrooms. As you know, there’s been a debate in recent years around how we think about quality in ECE settings and how we think about Quality Rating & Improvement Systems (QRIS). So given that, what do you think your research suggests for the future of quality?

Stockstill: I think, yeah, this is being talked about. I’m happy to see it discussed. But I feel like the discussion is more 鈥榟ow can we tweak these QRIS systems to make them fold in equity?鈥� I think we need more discussion and more of an examination. I hope my book pushes that along a little bit, because I feel like quality is how we sleep at night. People often seem to care about segregation because they’re worried that poor kids or kids of color are more likely to be in low-quality programs. The assumption being: as long as we get those kids into high-quality programs, this is all fine. And so much of the texture and the feel of classrooms for children is not captured at all in quality systems.

So yeah, I don’t know if it’s a rethinking or, more unlikely, QRIS would be abandoned. But I鈥檇 like to see more of incorporating families鈥� feelings about their school. Are they getting what they need out of school? I do like the discussions of equity; like, you shouldn’t be able to be a five-star or 鈥渉igh quality鈥� program and be expelling and suspending Black children at a higher rate.

Haspel: Absolutely, it’s a live conversation. I think there’s not one clear answer. I think this book really does contribute to that conversation, too. Because you show so clearly that you can look at a program that has the things that check the boxes, but if they don’t have the other characteristics in place, they are not necessarily getting the quality for the kids.

One thing along those lines: I was really struck by the part where you talked about the daily routines. How many books Great Beginnings had read, how many books Sunshine Head Start had read and so on. Is it fair to say that segregation is getting in the way of learning opportunities or the building of that academic foundation that we’ve been increasingly asking early childhood education to provide?

Stockstill: Would I say, were the Head Start teachers doing a good job? Yes. Were they doing what they should have done with the group of kids that they had? Yes. However, like all teachers know, you have to teach a whole group of kids and that includes focusing on the ones that take most of their attention. So there were kids that could have sat through a book, that wanted to read more, wanted to have more engagement, but could not because we have clustered so many of the challenges of poverty and structural racism in one class.

And I just really want people to see the link between doing that and having these schools that are all affluent and mostly white. Like Great Beginnings, which is able to be the way that it is because it’s not asked to serve kids of color and poor kids. And they chose to use what I saw as time and attention to spare on reading. So yeah, I think it does play a role in school readiness for both groups.

Haspel: One interesting difference was the way that the Great Beginnings teachers much more tightly controlled the play in the classroom, like directing free choice time versus the autonomy that was given with Head Start kids. It really reminded me that a lot of the discourse 鈥� and you even mention this 鈥� around intensive parenting being the dominant parenting philosophy. So my question is, why do you think that the Great Beginnings teachers were being so much more prescriptive? What do you think was underlying that?

Stockstill: I think they see it as encouraging well-rounded skills. And they talked about social exposure and liking the kids to mix up their playmates. So you know, Ms. Erika in the book talks about like, 鈥榦h, if I see one girl only plays with this other girl, I want to make sure she can connect with other kinds of people, so I’ll make sure she’s paired with one of the boys.鈥� But yeah, I definitely see intensive parenting in it, too, this idea that we need to curate children’s experiences.

Haspel: Speaking of the teachers: We talk a lot in the field around compensation as being the key factor in recruitment and retention. And it is, of course! But you talk about Great Beginnings teachers 鈥� who don’t get paid a whole lot more than market rate 鈥� who had such low turnover. So is there something that’s missing, do you think, in the workforce conversation?

Stockstill: Yeah, I mean, it’s an uncomfortable conversation. But kids, behaviors and families 鈥� what families are needing or demanding or assuming that teachers can do 鈥� that is workload! That is a teacher’s workload and their workplace environment. The Head Start teachers had better benefits from what they told me, but the pay wasn’t great, and all of them worked second jobs. And then at Great Beginnings, they had [worse benefits], similar pay and they also worked second jobs. Yet they have this satisfaction. That’s not even just about being a preschool teacher. But it’s the Great Beginning teachers saying, 鈥業 want to work at this school for life, I鈥檓 a lifer.鈥� They would say that the kids are so great, the families are so great, my co-workers get it. They also really appreciated lesson planning autonomy.

I find this fascinating because we are trying so hard to deliver a good preschool experience for poor kids. The way that gets done is kind of like other social programs for kids in poverty. We layer on paperwork and requirements, because if we paid for something to happen in that classroom, we want it documented that it happened.

So Head Start has meal counts and tracking interventions and developmental checklists and 4K curriculum. All this stuff that in many teachers鈥� view, takes them away from the job. It adds stress without adding benefits. Teachers know it is hard to find a preschool where you’re gonna make great money. So if you’re going to be low paid, they are like, where can I find respect and support for my craft of teaching? My new project is actually a deeper look at how teachers experience workloads across 60 segregated classrooms.

Haspel: You have this great quote: 鈥淚n the U.S., we ask for preschool to do something we don鈥檛 ask of any other institutional experience. Through one fantastically enriching year, the hope is that poor kids will be equipped to succeed in navigating underfunded, unequal institutions as they progress through the rest of their lives.

Public discourse is normalizing pouring more into the fourth year of a child鈥檚 life than into their first, second or third years of life.鈥� Broadly speaking, then, how do you think society should properly position preschool?

Stockstill: I’m so tired of the preschool discourse and I was so into it. By the way, that’s part of what inspired the project: working as a teacher aide in a Head Start being like 鈥榯his is great. These kids are gonna benefit so much that they wouldn’t without this!鈥� All of that.

I was completely inside of that discourse watching presentations from poverty scholars about how 鈥�look at the impact we can have. If we just spend this money, we spend this X amount on a 4-year-old, it gives these returns. It’s cheaper for society to invest here as opposed to elsewhere.鈥�

I’m tired of that narrative. It’s an efficiency narrative. I know that’s not popular, because we don’t have unlimited funds. But I see child care as part of families, villages. I want to see that we’re making a lifelong investment in citizens. Because, you know, hopefully, we all want an educated, thriving citizen base and workforce. And that starts from birth. I want families to have options for affirming, respectful, exciting child care from birth.

Haspel: Here’s my last question for you. If the book has the impact you want it to have, what’s gonna look different when you and I talk 10 years from now?

Stockstill: We’ll have more preschools that are not segregated by accident. We might have some [segregated preschools] left that are culturally affirming, providing a protective kind of a buffer effect for families of color that want that. But we’ll have a lot more class- and race-integrated preschools.

We are hopefully at an inflection point where we’ll continue expanding and integrating preschools [as part of a system that starts at birth]. Unlike K-12, where we built so many schools in an era of segregation by law and then we’ve been trying to undo that, we’re not done building preschools. So we have the opportunity to make them fantastic for kids, right? But we have to ask slightly different questions, I think, than what we’re currently asking.

The Latin origin of the word 鈥渞adical鈥� is radix or root, and in that regard, this book is a profoundly radical work, digging down to the historic, structural, racists roots of our child care system. As this volume deeply argues, that system is anything but just.

Child Care Justice comprises research-based chapters by guest authors with deep connections to the field of early care and education (ECE), edited by Maurice Sykes and Kyra Ostendorf. The editors and panel of 10 authors were asked to examine the historical, political, economic, educational and cultural barriers that have oppressed and continue to oppress ECE workers. The authors then met monthly to discuss and work together on the chapters, creating a 鈥渃ommunity of practice鈥� in which they exchanged ideas, provided feedback and emotionally supported each other throughout the process.

The first chapter, 鈥淲et Nurses, Nannies, and Mammies,鈥� was eye-opening in that way that makes one wonder what else one doesn鈥檛 know. Sykes, who authored the section, provides chapter and verse of how the histories of slavery and child care in the U.S. have always been intertwined, with enslaved Black women forced to serve as wet nurses to their owners鈥� children. This relieved the white mothers of the necessity of breastfeeding their own children and set up the view of this fundamental act of caring for children as befitting only the 鈥渦ncultured lower class.鈥� Household work was stigmatized as the work of 鈥渘egro鈥� women, history鈥檚 鈥済irls,鈥� who were 鈥渄rawn in disappearing ink.鈥�

From the country鈥檚 beginnings, the care of children has related to the commodification, oppression and exploitation of women, specifically women of color. Though the economic model has shifted from 鈥渓egal ownership to legal, unethical control over wages, status, and economic mobility,鈥� Sykes writes, the caste system and mental model for how child care workers are perceived, treated and compensated is deeply imprinted on the American psyche. He observes, rightly, that it鈥檚 astounding how little progress we鈥檝e made since the wet nurse and mammy days in the social status and compensation of those who work in child care. Though Congress approved the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery in 1865, slavery鈥檚 residuals linger as the 鈥渘eo-slavery performed by the servant class 鈥� workers in child care, health care, home care 鈥︹�� carried out primarily by women and disproportionately by women of color. This 鈥渟ervant class,鈥� Sykes writes, is the fastest-growing industry in the U.S., with low-wage earners representing 44 percent of the workforce aged 18 to 64.

This current situation is, and it isn鈥檛 only born of slavery. It is and isn鈥檛 only rooted in white supremacy. 听Class as much as race has created the caste system of which Styles writes. The colonial mindset baked into this nation鈥檚 beginnings has always exploited the labor, resources and lifeblood of its poorest and most vulnerable populations 鈥� regardless of race 鈥� to enrich itself and create the ease that allows it to lord its lifestyle over others. Wherever three or more are gathered in the name of privilege, you鈥檒l see them standing on the backs of others poorer, most likely darker and more female than themselves. Plus 莽a change, plus c鈥檈st la m锚me chose.听

Chapter Two, 鈥淟iberatory Education: We Are the Ones We鈥檝e Been Waiting For,鈥� is grounded in the work of Paolo Friere, the Brazilian educator and philosopher whose “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” is foundational to the critical pedagogy movement, which views teaching and learning as the access to social justice and democracy. Through education and consciousness-building, those who had been oppressed become 鈥渢hink tanks and action incubators to transform their world,鈥� authors Alexis Jemal and Sarah Ross Bussey write.

The chapter outlines the Critical Transformative Potential framework grounded in Friere鈥檚 work and discusses practical (though not necessarily easy) ways those in the ECE field can address their own inequitable treatment and that of their students, who frequently come from marginalized communities as well.

Steps Forward, Steps Back

Iheoma U. Iruka鈥檚 chapter, 鈥淔rom a Pedagogy of Poverty to a R.I.C.H.E.R. Framework,鈥� connects the dots to show how classism is interwoven in U.S. history to ensure the continued power of the wealthy and well-connected. (R.I.C.H.E.R. refers to a framework that focuses on re-education, integration, critical consciousness, humility, erasing racism and re-imagination.) Uruka offers infuriating evidence of the many missed opportunities to right or at least mitigate the wrong of slavery, beginning with the derailment of the post-Civil War Freedmen鈥檚 Bureau, which could have been an agent for change that permanently and positively altered this nation鈥檚 future. White Southerners engineered the highly effective bureau鈥檚 closure by 1872, less than six years after its founding. In that time, the bureau built hundreds of schools for Black people, including those that would later become Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).

Since then, the nation鈥檚 history has been one of two steps forward, more steps back for Black Americans, such as the GI Bill that provided financial resources for veterans of World War II to purchase homes, attend college or pursue vocational training 鈥� to this day the greatest wealth transfer in U.S. history. The Black veterans who had fought as heroically and endured as much loss as their white peers were, however, were excluded from this opportunity for dramatic economic progress.

Caution: You can鈥檛 read this book without sometimes feeling sick. It鈥檚 full of hope and possibility, but also undeniable instances showing that the stifling of liberty and opportunity for people of color has never been accidental: It is and has been by design 鈥� a fact we must face if we are ever to dig out of this mess.

Multiple Approaches

Each chapter of “Child Care Justice” is penned by different authors, so each is different in tone and writing style, though all lean heavily to the academic. The collective approach has many strengths but also can result in a certain lack of objectivity. In this case, one wishes the authors had been more rigorous with each other in calling for judicious trimming of overlong and redundant passages. Several segments would have been stronger with a greater economy of words.

“Child Care Justice: Transforming the System of Care for Young Children” is intended as a catalyst for change, a call to action and marching papers for a national grassroots movement of those committed to addressing the racial, gender and economic injustices endemic to the ECE field. The transformation of child care is long overdue 鈥� as readers of Early Learning Nation know too well 鈥� as we鈥檝e been at this for a very long time.

We鈥檙e now at an inflection point in our society as the pandemic laid out the fissures in the ECE system in high relief. If you have children or are an employer trying to retain workers, you鈥檙e aware of how broken our child care system is. We can鈥檛 help but see the inequities baked into the system if we鈥檙e even tangentially connected to it. Child Care Justice aims to make certain the reader pays attention and seeks to support them in 鈥渨orking relentlessly to become an antiracist.鈥�

Denisha Jones鈥� excellent chapter, 鈥淐hild Care Justice, Lessons from #BlackLivesMatter,鈥� engages with the question of how a movement for child care justice can learn from BLM how to 鈥渢urn a moment into an international movement.鈥� Job One is to name the injustices that have necessitated the moment and explicitly pinpoint those problems as part of the vision for a better future. We鈥檙e at a ridiculous societal confluence right about now: when we most need to be taking a hard look at our history of racism and how systemic racism impacts the child care system upon which our economy rests, politicians and school boards are trying to prevent even talking about racial justice so white people won鈥檛 be offended.

In condemning the 鈥渨oke mind virus,鈥� a segment of American society has become allergic to acknowledging that their 鈥� our 鈥� past includes profound ugliness. But vision and a new direction begin with pointing out what isn鈥檛 working. If they don鈥檛, if racial justice isn鈥檛 front and center in the movement for child care justice, all we鈥檙e doing is fussing with the salad forks on the Titanic.

Now, reading Jennifer Banks鈥� “Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth,” I have some insight into why. It wasn鈥檛 just about avoiding unpleasantness, mentally putting our hands over our ears to shut out the world (though, judging by the number of wine glasses seen in our Zooms, there was plenty of that as well); it was that we needed some creation in our lives. Amid all that death, we needed birth.

Birth is humanity鈥檚 greatest unexplored subject, Jennifer Banks writes in her excellent “Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth.” Banks, a senior executive editor at Yale University Press, begins to explore the subject by looking back at humanity鈥檚 earliest writings, where, in 2300 BCE, the first identified author sang hymns to the goddess of childbirth, linking birth to creativity, divine powers and her hope for change in the world. In Banks鈥檚 introduction 鈥� which, for my money, by itself is worth the price of admission 鈥� the author writes that birth, for all its recurring presence in the written record, has played second chair to death as humanity鈥檚 defining experience. Mortal creatures who wrestle with our own mortality, we are born and then pffft let birth recede into memory, 鈥渢o that forgotten realm where uteruses, blood, sex, pain, pleasure and infancy constellate.鈥�

In flipping the script, Banks writes that birth is immense, that birth has existential, moral and theological significance at least as great as death. 鈥淲hat does it mean that the greatest power humans have had鈥攖he power to create another human being 鈥� has been relegated in nearly all periods and all places to a secondary status, turned into a task to be performed by an underclass of people assigned that task on account of their gender?鈥�

The book isn鈥檛 a paean to some sentimental or idealized image of motherhood 鈥� which, as Banks writes, can be 鈥渟uperficially championed but deeply undermined by mothers鈥� cultures鈥� when it comes time to pay the bill for the maternity ward, offer maternity leave, feed the mothers鈥� children or come up with child care. The book is instead an investigation of birth itself 鈥� not just childbirth, but birth as creation and creative renewal; an embrace of life and the recognition that each of our births indelibly shape not just our own lives but human life itself. In a provocation that is both wide-ranging and deep, she asks for a set of principles different from the 鈥渄eath-drive that runs deep in Western societies,鈥� imagining a culture less reconciled to its own extinction, 鈥渞ooted in gestation, intimacy, vulnerability, growth, creativity, reciprocity, change and otherness.鈥�

Banks explores the idea of birth through the works of seven prominent Western thinkers: Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Sojourner Truth, Adrienne Rich and Toni Morrison鈥攚ho have wrestled with the idea of birth in their own eras and shaped our understanding of our own humanity. She offers their thinking as a powerful antidote to the nihilism with its fatalism, paralysis, cynicism and despair that are the 鈥減revailing features of 21^st century life.鈥�

Hannah Arendt knew a thing or two about nihilism and despair. Born in 1906 in Germany to a family of left-leaning, prosperous Jews, a circumstance that ultimately would see her stripped of citizenship and belonging, with her simple right to exist taken away. During her childhood years while she was running outdoors, reading books and 鈥渂lithely singing off key,鈥� she and her family were being turned into the 鈥渟cum of the earth 鈥� an undesirable鈥� by anti-Semitic propaganda.

Arendt had been interested in birth before the war, writing that birth and 鈥渢he miracle of our creative beginnings鈥� are what shape humans and give us our capacity to act creatively in the world. After the war, despite surviving years of unimaginable loss and betrayal, she continued to engage with the idea of birth, now as less of an existential concept than a political one: creative renewal as an act of resistance. She wrote of the connections between birth and freedom and found one English word to encompass that thinking: 鈥渘atality,鈥� the 鈥渕iracle that saves the world,鈥� one that decades later gave Banks the central theme for her challenging book.

Arendt鈥檚 writings after the war are her attempts to process that cataclysm 鈥� how the people she had grown up among and loved had turned against her and her people. Banks鈥檚 rich chapter on Arendt could easily be overlaid onto much of our contemporary world. Alienation from one another, dehumanization, racism, cynicism the 鈥渇ateful repudiation of Earth the Mother鈥� 鈥� all fertilize the totalitarian impulse that thrives when people come unmoored from each other. Humanity鈥檚 capacity for action, for new beginnings and an embrace of the world repudiate that impulse for tyranny.

Banks gives each of the seven thinkers their due, spending time with each one as she explores their views on birth and their demonstration that each person 鈥渋n simply being born, creates an opportunity for history to begin again.鈥� She writes of Nietzsche calling for the end of what he saw as the Protestant enchantment with the afterlife toward the earthly, embodied life that comes after birth and imagining a new spiritual tradition embracing birth, life, creativity, sexuality and procreation. Wollstonecraft, with her 鈥渟oul most alive to tenderness,鈥� recognizes the contradiction of birth鈥檚 importance to society and how little value is placed on it. Shelley, with her “Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus,” created the hideous monster 鈥渁 motherless human life engineered by ambitious male inventors.鈥�

Banks describes how often Sojourner Truth repeated the phrase 鈥渃are for one another鈥� in her narrations, and her view that a woman giving birth is a 鈥渃osmically significant鈥� event, with women as actors capable of changing their worlds. American poet Adrienne Rich saw birth as a source of human power, sacredness and mystery, but critiqued the institutional motherhood that grew up alongside capitalism and its beneficiaries 鈥� a legacy some might say explains why we can鈥檛 move the needle on getting child care today. Birth was an integral part of Toni Morrison鈥檚 artistic vision, from her first novel to her last, and Banks writes that her era, which saw the confluence of the women鈥檚 movement, the fight for racial justice and the postwar years produced one of the 鈥渞ichest periods in the history of writing about birth.鈥�

Life is under threat in the 21^st century, Banks writes, but birth is constantly with us as well. Like Arendt, who had born witness to the Holocaust of neighbor slaughtering neighbor, still never lost 鈥渁 shocked wonder at the miracle of Being.鈥�

“Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth” is not an easy read. It takes some willingness and effort, especially for those of us not familiar with the thinkers whose work Banks shares. But in that it provokes us to think of natality 鈥� of birth, creation, nurture, belonging and care 鈥� as the antidote to dehumanization, nihilism and despair, it鈥檚 an important and beautifully written read.

Reading that title, many of us have a Wait. What? moment, unable to connect one idea with the other. Expulsion? For little kids? Isn鈥檛 that for incorrigible troublemakers who鈥檝e exhausted all their chances with school officials and teachers?

One would think so. Tragically, as author Dr. Katherine M. Zinsser writes, for thousands of American children that point comes well before their fifth birthday, when they are labeled as 鈥渃hallenging,鈥� 鈥渄efiant鈥� or 鈥渄ifficult,鈥� and are ejected from early childhood education before they even reach kindergarten. Children 2, 3 and 4 years old 鈥� especially boys and Black children 鈥� are being kicked out of their schools at 鈥渟taggering rates,鈥� she writes 鈥� more than three times that of K鈥�12 school children.

Drawing on research and interviews with teachers, program administrators, parents and policymakers, Zinsser鈥檚 “No Longer Welcome” provides a thoughtful, nuanced appreciation of the complex factors contributing to the expulsion epidemic. Foremost, she makes it clear the children are not to blame. Even though preschoolers can behave in intensely emotional, combative and even destructive ways, they are acting out in developmentally appropriate ways for small children without the language to express themselves or the capacity to self-regulate their emotions.

Nor does she blame the teachers who are often maxed out on their own stress levels from jobs that would be demanding even if everyone were well-paid, well-trained and had their own emotions well-regulated. Far too frequently, none of this is the case.

Excluding a child from school can have significant negative impacts on the child鈥檚 academic achievement. Children removed from school for just a few days can have trouble catching up. Studies show that children who are pushed out of the classroom for disciplinary reasons don鈥檛 do as well on test scores or other measures of academic learning; exclusionary discipline fuels widening achievement gaps during this critical period of development.

The excluded child loses their connection with classmates and misses the social-learning opportunities they can鈥檛 get at home. They feel alienated from school, which 鈥� no surprise 鈥� makes them more likely to drop out altogether. One of the worst effects of expulsion is that children begin to be labeled as 鈥渂ad kids,鈥� and to think of themselves as such. Imagine the future unfolding for a child of 3 who is thrown into the 鈥渂ad boy鈥� track and begins to think of himself as a 鈥渢hreat to themselves and others.鈥�

Researchers have traced significant lifelong negative outcomes to school exclusion, notably delinquency and incarceration, Zinsser writes. A 2015 study showed that children who were repeatedly suspended were eight times more likely to be incarcerated than those who never were. Ultimately, society pays, as older kids who鈥檝e been expelled or suspended are more likely to drop out, putting them at risk of financial insecurity and the need to depend on public assistance. Studies also have shown an association between expulsion and later problems with substance abuse. All of which may seem far removed from that little 3-year-old, but Zinsser鈥檚 point is that early experiences of exclusion can launch a cascade of negative interactions with schools.

For every child who is expelled, a family pays the price. Parents suffer emotionally when their children are expelled, and they can begin to see themselves as failures as parents. They suffer financially as well, reporting employment issues such as having to leave work suddenly to retrieve their child, lost hours and wages, and even having to quit their jobs when they can鈥檛 find alternative child care. Families who are receiving child care subsidies lose eligibility when they lose their jobs, which makes finding alternative child care sometimes impossible 鈥� or impossible to afford. Nearly a quarter of the expelled children in Zinsser鈥檚 research team鈥檚 surveys didn鈥檛 find alternative child care and were kept at home instead.

Bias at Work

Biases, both explicit and implicit, play a powerful role in expulsions, Zinsser writes. A teacher states that girls are 鈥渆asier鈥� or 鈥渕ore fun鈥� than boys, or that boys are innately more 鈥渉yper鈥� and 鈥渁ggressive,鈥� and it isn鈥檛 hard to guess which kid is going to meet harsher discipline as they gallop to the art table or run in the cafeteria.

Implicit biases are the insidious factor in many expulsions. Though all humans have unconscious biases, in the U.S., our collective biases fall along racial, cultural and gender lines. Implicit biases are at play all the time in the American education system but, Zinsser writes, three in particular contribute to disparities in early childhood expulsion: 鈥渂eing a boy, being Black and being big.鈥� The more these 鈥渢hree Bs鈥� describe a child, the greater the likelihood adults will be biased against that child. Black boys are perceived as being 鈥渄angerous or aggressive鈥� (At 4 years old? Unfortunately, yes), which eventually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as teachers anticipate misbehavior among kids who鈥檝e been stereotyped as disruptive or dangerous.

鈥淚n light of all this evidence,鈥� Zinsser writes, 鈥渋t is clear that American preschools are choked with the same 鈥榮mog of racism鈥� that Dr. Beverly Tatum in high schools nearly 20 years ago.鈥�

The Kids Aren鈥檛 to Blame; the Issues Are Real

And yet, what鈥檚 a teacher to do? What鈥檚 a school to do? Some of the case studies Zinsser presents offer truly frightening portraits of out-of-control children who, though preschoolers, have inflicted serious damage on school personnel or classmates. A 3-year-old鈥檚 tantrum turns into something else when they鈥檙e strong enough to throw a chair, shove another child to the ground, or kick a teacher hard enough to require stitches.

Zinsser approaches the topic of expulsion through an ecological lens, pointing out that the process occurs on multiple levels at once, with children, teachers, parents and administrators all experiencing the process differently.

We expect a lot of providers, she writes. They work in a system that routinely discounts their value, and they report more stress and worse physical health than their non-teaching peers. Preschool teachers are among the most economically insecure workers in the U.S., with a median annual wage that generally hovers just above the federal poverty line. The demands on these educators are colossal. Many even say they can鈥檛 easily take breaks or step out of the classroom for a minute 鈥� even if they need to step away from a disruptive student and take a few deep breaths to regulate their own emotions.

Early childhood teachers may enter the workforce because they are empathetic to the needs of children who face adversity but may not have the tools, experience or support to be effective in the face of a 4-year-old in bloody-murder-tantrum mode.

鈥淭o me,鈥� Zinsser writes, 鈥渢he exclusion of a child is indicative of a teacher at the end of their rope 鈥� a teacher so emotionally or physically exhausted that they must triage how to expend their limited remaining energy.鈥�

Promising Paths, but Few and Far Between

Throughout her excellent book, Zinsser describes programs and approaches that can intervene and interrupt problematic behavior. Workplace climate and culture are decisive, with 鈥渉igh effort鈥� programs engaging in the complex process of working with a family to address a child鈥檚 disruptive behavior. But for teachers and administrators trying to cope with chaos in the classroom with inadequate staffing and anorexic budgets, it may seem that just getting rid of 鈥渢hat kid鈥� is the only solution.

It doesn鈥檛 have to be this way, nor should it. “No Longer Welcome” thoughtfully details how parents, teachers, preschool administrators, researchers and policymakers all have a role to play in ensuring that no child is excluded, and all can remain in high-quality early care and education settings. Zinsser outlines roles that every member of the field, from classroom aide to legislator, must play in sustaining this change.

More than 20 percent of 2- to 5-year-olds display 鈥渃hallenging鈥� behaviors. If 20 percent of children in a school had peanut allergies, Zinsser writes, and a school persisted in serving peanut butter in the cafeteria, parents, pediatricians and politicians would be outraged and demand structural reform. Peanut allergies affect only 1.4 percent of U.S. children, yet entire infrastructures have shifted to rightfully accommodate their needs. Nobody blames the children for being allergic, but we do blame children who need help managing their emotions.

The time has come, Zinsser writes, to flip the script and consider that the deficiency lies with the adults in the picture. The kids deserve support and huge scoops of compassion.

1. We don鈥檛 buy anything that鈥檚 advertised on Saturday morning TV, a rule I鈥檇 override for birthdays and Christmas. Otherwise, nope.
2. If you pester or nag me in the store, we go to the car. If you persist, we go home. Game over. It took twice for each child to get the message.
3. We don鈥檛 buy cereals with sugar as one of the first two ingredients. This sentenced my children to a life of Cheerios, Shredded Wheat and Wheat Chex 鈥� as they would tell anyone who鈥檇 listen.

And that was that.

But that was Before. Before an entire multi-billion-dollar industry developed for the explicit purpose of getting kids to pester and nag their parents to buy absolutely everything. Before an entire children鈥檚 media ecosystem grew up as a venue for advertising and marketing to kids more than for educating or entertaining them. Before digital technologies made it possible to swamp children in advertising more sophisticated, invasive, manipulative and devious than any of us could possibly have imagined. Before every parent trying to do the right thing became David trying to say no to a Goliath so pervasive and entrenched in every moment of their child鈥檚 life that it is rendered practically invisible.

In her excellent book, “Who鈥檚 Raising the Kids: Big Tech, Big Business, and the Lives of Children,” Dr. Susan Linn brings this insidious behemoth to the foreground and underscores it with bright red lines. She maps the current landscape of children鈥檚 marketing and advertising through deep research and the eyes of an insider who鈥檚 been involved for decades in children鈥檚 media. A ventriloquist and entertainer, Linn worked with Fred Rogers, first as a guest with her Audrey Duck puppet on “Mister Rogers鈥� Neighborhood,” and later with his production company creating video programs. Linn, a psychologist and expert on creative play and the impact of commercial marketing on children, was founding director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (now called Fairplay). She is a research associate at Boston Children鈥檚 Hospital and lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is also a mother and grandmother and writes that her activism is as deeply rooted in that personal perspective as in her professional experience.

Since Linn began working in the late 1990s to stop corporations from targeting children, the situation has gone from bad to unbelievable 鈥� a progression launched in the 1980s with the deregulation of children鈥檚 television. It became legal then for companies to create programming whose sole purpose was selling children toys鈥攁nd they took to it with gusto. Consider, for instance, the 1994 marketing conference in London called 鈥淧ester Power: How to Reach Kids,鈥� or the 1998 marketing research study on 鈥淭he Nag Factor,鈥� written not to help parents cope with children鈥檚 nagging or reduce it responsibly, but to provide corporations more tools to support kids in becoming successful naggers.

Advertising Immersion

With the advent of smartphones and tablets, most children are in front of a screen whenever and wherever they go, despite growing evidence that excessive screen time is harmful to children鈥檚 鈥� especially young children鈥檚 鈥� health and development. They are inundated by ads in every game they play, every store they enter, every video they view. In-app purchases urge kids to buy cool new gear for their avatars and to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade, fomenting envy and shame for kids who can鈥檛 keep up, and turning every game session into a battle of wills with parents who may not be able to afford the constant financial demands or who simply resent the incessant pressure to pay up.

As Linn describes in her chapter, 鈥淏randed Learning,鈥� school is no respite from this constant barrage. In their classrooms, 鈥渇ree鈥� tablets are an opportunity for companies to instill lifetime brand loyalty, and clever teaching materials promote Disney properties or fossil fuel companies鈥� hype along with their lessons on nature. The list is endless; this chapter will blow your mind with the many and varied ways corporations insert themselves into the hearts and minds of our kids in educational settings.

Advertising sells values and attitudes right along with the products it hawks to children, and those values are often antithetical to healthy family relationships or even the old-fashioned idea of good citizenship, Linn writes. Children are constantly sold on the belief that competition is king and the things will make us happy, when research suggests that the opposite is true: More materialistic children are unhappier than their less acquisitive peers.

In the chapter, 鈥淏ias for Sale,鈥� Linn shows how prejudice, bias, stereotyping, and social stigma are baked into many games, virtual worlds, social networks and even in the search engines we rely on throughout the day. A study in the journal ACM Queue from the Association of Computing Machinery showed that ads implying that someone had been arrested were more likely to appear in searches for 鈥淏lack-sounding names,鈥� such as 鈥淟atanya Sweeney.鈥� While a search for 鈥淜ristin Lindquist鈥� turned up neutral ads.

People believe Google searches turn up fair and unbiased information 鈥� statistically, younger users believe this more 鈥� when the fact is that racism is embedded in the algorithms and inflicts harm on children as well as adults. Imagine the effect on a child who googles her name and finds it associated with criminality. A watchdog group reported in 2020 that the tool Google uses to help companies decide what search terms they should link their ads to was linking the phrases 鈥淏lack girls,鈥� 鈥淎sian girls,鈥� and 鈥淟atina girls鈥� to pornographic search terms. It isn鈥檛 a stretch to imagine how hatefully these biases play out on children.

No Legal Obligation

In the current U.S. regulatory landscape, the tech companies that create and own these algorithms have no legal obligation to share how or why their search results are selected. These algorithms are written by humans whose biases influence their creations, Linn writes. These employees don鈥檛 work for institutions whose mission is to serve the public interest, but for tech companies whose primary goal is to maximize profits. 鈥淛ust as Facebook isn鈥檛 a public square, Google isn鈥檛 a public library,鈥� she writes.

Linn is not anti-technology 鈥� she just wants it to assume its proper place in our lives and the lives of our children. Her goal isn鈥檛 to make parents feel guilty about failing to cope perfectly with the tsunami of carefully targeted temptations every child encounters every day, but instead to help anyone who cares about children understand the 鈥渢oxic, digitized, commercialized culture鈥� so many children wake up to in every day.

This culture鈥檚 impact extends beyond individual well-being to the well-being of our larger society. The solution doesn鈥檛 rest in individual parents, she writes, but in working together to push back against the monetization of American childhood. Her 鈥淩esistance Parenting鈥� chapter offers excellent suggestions for how to introduce tech to young children and how to manage their use of technology into their teen years. Most importantly, she emphasizes that this isn鈥檛 a battle that can be fought on an individual level but something we must embrace as a society. Powerful forces are invested in manipulating children for profit, but they are not all powerful. Parent groups, communities and fed-up friends have formed advocacy groups, undertaken educational campaigns and even, in the case of Minnesota鈥檚 Digital Well-Being Bill, gotten a state legislature to provide $1 million to promote resources, education and a leadership program to support young people鈥檚 balanced use of devices.

The situation isn鈥檛 hopeless, and no one is helpless, though it will take concerted effort to create the social change needed to put technology in its proper place.

“Who鈥檚 Raising the Kids?” is the perfect place to start 鈥� a research-based primer in what鈥檚 at stake, who the players are and how we got to this place. It鈥檚 truly a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of America鈥檚 kids.

Grose, a New York Times opinion columnist and former editor of their Parenting section, has written a part-memoir, part-history, part-reportage, part-manifesto that arrives at a moment when parents around the nation are not only contending with a vicious , but a . Her main thesis is as simple as it is powerful: when it comes to the ideals of modern motherhood, 鈥渢he ideals as they are created now serve almost no one. They may serve industry, but they do not serve us or our families.鈥�

Grose adds that these impossible ideals are also dangerously individualistic: 鈥渢he contemporary set of expectations 鈥� don鈥檛 engage with the broader community in any way, shape or form. Rarely do babysitters, teachers, grandparents, aunties, uncles or friends appear in heralded images of motherhood that are beamed into our phones. If the pandemic taught us anything, it should have taught us that we need to invest in our local, national and international ties to raise the next generation.鈥�

All of this is extraordinarily relevant for current discussions around the first five years of life. After tracing the evolution of American thought about mothers (from the are-you-kidding-me Colonial idea that a craving for a certain food would cause the baby to emerge with a head of that food, to the are-you-kidding-me idea that mothers鈥� emotional state caused miscarriages, leading one woman to be sterilized in 1953 simply because she had clinically extreme morning sickness), Grose turns to the pivotal last half-century.

Here, echoing Maxine Eichner鈥檚 , Grose shows how Nixon鈥檚 pointed veto of the 1971 Comprehensive Child Development Act combined with increased female labor participation led to the rise of the 鈥楽upermom鈥� model: 鈥淎s professional mothers flooded the workplace in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, despite a basic safety net, the 鈥榮upermom鈥欌�攁 star at work and at home鈥攂ecame the unrealistic ideal splashed on the cover of magazines.鈥� Since then, Grose argues, the expectation pile has only grown somehow higher, nowadays including the fact mothers are supposed to be engaging in 鈥渟elf-care鈥� — the responsibility, again, falling on their shoulders.

Grose鈥檚 work is continually nodding鈥攊mplicitly or explicitly鈥攖o the disastrous way American motherhood is circumscribed and isolated. The choices mothers are offered around work and care are often no choices at all. Her chapter on work reminded me about the so-called 鈥淢ommy Wars鈥� between working and stay-at-home mothers in which sociologist Melissa Milkie and her colleagues concluded, 鈥渁n emphasis on choice deemphasizes the social aspect of the problem, instead individuating the problem and its solution to mothers themselves, thus leaving the weighty burden of responsibility for mothers to bear alone — and a symbolic wedge between them on other mothers.鈥�

Of all the themes in the book, that one is arguably most telling for early care and education. There is a surprising around child care from parents, despite it being a pain point that goes broad and deep. Reading Grose鈥檚 book helped me better understand one aspect of why, perhaps one that would have been more evident were I a mother: the weight of our cultural ideals make every step toward demanding public support excruciating and transgressive. As Grose summarizes one interviewee鈥檚 perspective, 鈥淢others are trained to feel like they should be grateful for whatever they get.鈥�

That鈥檚 why the final chapter of the book is a refreshing burst of hope. Grose points out the progress that has been made, and highlights promising parents, politicos and policies — the last of which, including affordable child care and robust paid family leave, are frustratingly distant but not unfathomably out of reach. One walks away from Grose鈥檚 book feeling as if we have come through hell and high water when it comes to American motherhood, but that with a concerted effort we may just find our way to solid ground. As Grose puts it, 鈥淲e need allies in our lives, in our workplaces and in our government who are going to use their power to make the United States a friendlier place for our families.鈥� This book will make you a better early care and education advocate and a better ally, and anyone will be better off for reading it including, if not especially, men.

Every parent on some level wants what鈥檚 best for their children. Only a privileged few have the means to pursue that goal 鈥� frequently at the expense of less-privileged children, though they may never be aware of the price that鈥檚 been extracted. That鈥檚 the hard news in this kind-hearted book. The thing left unsaid when privileged parents say they want what鈥檚 best for their child, Jaffe writes, is 鈥渁nd not for other children.鈥�

Jaffe doesn鈥檛 blame parents of privilege 鈥� a category to which she belongs 鈥� for the terrible circumstances of other children鈥檚 lives, but she does make clear that we all have a responsibility and a role in creating and perpetuating that disparity. Her book is directed primarily at parents of privilege, which she defines as 鈥渁ny family who writes down six or more figures on the 鈥榯otal household income鈥� line of their tax return,鈥� and it is both an unflinching invitation for them to do better and a roadmap for how they can use their privilege to see to it that all children have what鈥檚 healthy and what鈥檚 best.

In interviews with child care and policy experts, parents, labor activists, attorneys, nannies, educators and others, Jaffe methodically lays out the reality of inequity that saturates every molecule of the U.S. child care and education system, starting before a child even comes into this world. (In Seattle, she writes, families trying to get on waiting lists for day care may see an option for 鈥渢rying to conceive.鈥�) The conversation she has with her readers isn鈥檛 accusatory or scolding, but there鈥檚 no softening of the fact that it鈥檚 a hard conversation to have 鈥� and one we all must engage in if we have any hope of our children living in a just and equitable world.

Jaffe starts her story with the birth of her daughter in September 2017 when she joined a listserv for parents in her Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. The daily meetups for these women and the occasional man were friendly, calm affairs dotted with small talk about babies鈥� sleep schedules and other minutiae of day-to-day life with an infant.

The listserv was an entirely different kettle of fish, with 30-part threads dissecting the many and varied ways the parents could get it wrong. The abiding theme was 鈥渨orried鈥� 鈥� If you skip the iron-fortified cereal, do you worry about your baby getting enough iron? Every conversation presented a new variation on the theme, things Jaffe had never even considered worrying about. Iron? Do I need to worry about that now? But worry was in strong competition with the listserv鈥檚 other theme: getting the best for their child 鈥� the best waffles, the best teething necklaces, pediatrician or strollers, the best pre-K. The best life.

The conversation gave her a sense of whiplash, Jaffe writes. She was working as an attorney for a nonprofit law firm that brought lawsuits on behalf of children in foster care; one of her responsibilities was to read fatality reports of children who died in foster care after their state鈥檚 government already knew they were in danger. Finishing her workday immersed in questions of abuse and neglect, opening her computer to the litany of worries from the privileged parents of Park Slope felt like a 鈥渇able about the children in the city I lived in.鈥�

Acknowledging how hard it is for just about anyone to be a parent in the U.S. 鈥� the only high-income country in the world without paid leave for new parents, where child care costs more than the average mortgage payment, schools are chronically underfunded and 鈥渙ur college admission process is reminiscent of 鈥淭he Hunger Games鈥� 鈥� Jaffe is sympathetic to the challenges. But the point of her book is not to comfort the comfortable; It is to paint a clear picture of the country鈥檚 two-tiered system between the top 10 to 20 percent of income earners and everybody else. Outcomes for children not born into one of those top brackets are vastly different from the privileged few: Racism is at the root of that inequity. The practical outcome of parents with privilege relentlessly pursuing their own child鈥檚 interests 鈥� hoarding resources within the public school system, for instance, or maneuvering to keep their children (and their resources) out of majority low-income, majority Black and Latino schools 鈥� leaves other children behind.

Beginning with early childhood, Jaffe looks at the child care system鈥檚 deep segregation by race and class. Because the U.S. has no child care infrastructure, she writes, most parents have little choice when finding their young child鈥檚 care, but parents of privilege have the option of touring various programs and finding the best among choices. Low-income families are relegated to publicly funded programs in a fractured system. Families in the middle struggle to make the 鈥渓east bad鈥� choice among limited options. No one asks about the wages and benefits of the child care workers and pre-K teachers in any of those choices, and few of us ask about the structural forces that have created this impossible situation.

It would matter if we did, Jaffe writes, and then offers a list of questions to prompt that conversation, a format she follows in each chapter with takeaways detailing individual choices, collective action and further reading for readers wanting to act or to find out more about that chapter鈥檚 issues. You can鈥檛 read 鈥淲anting What鈥檚 Best鈥� without gaining a clearer understanding of the inequity baked into everything concerning children鈥檚 lives in the U.S. and without seeing at least some way to take action precisely where you are.

Throughout 鈥淲anting What鈥檚 Best鈥� Jaffe reiterates the fact that even though individual choices matter, the solution to fixing our broken system doesn鈥檛 lie with any individual. The U.S. has no cultural understanding of child-rearing as a communal activity and doesn鈥檛 acknowledge the commonsense reality that everyone in our society benefits when every child has enough to eat, a safe place to sleep, loving adults to care for them and good schools to educate them 鈥� the best, in other words.

鈥淏ut collective action,鈥� she writes, 鈥減articularly when it鈥檚 undertaken by people with privilege, creates change. Decisions about child care, schools, and how we use our time and money may not feel like political decisions, but they are.鈥�

What would it look like, she asks, if we fought for other people鈥檚 children as if our own children鈥檚 future depended on it?

In 鈥�,鈥� Paul effectively makes the case that most of the metaphors we have for cognition are not useful because they allude to Western society鈥檚 assumption that thinking only happens inside the brain: the ubiquitous admonition to 鈥渦se your head.鈥� Our scientific journals, she writes, mostly proceed from the 鈥渂rain in a vat鈥� premise that considers our mental organ a disembodied, asocial entity, a computer encased inside our skulls doing all the thinking for a body that barely registers in the hierarchy of value.

The reality is much richer, more complex and delicious. And while it might seem overblown to call a book on cognition 鈥渞evolutionary,鈥� the ideas in 鈥淭he Extended Mind鈥澨齛ctually could change everything.

We鈥檝e been led to believe, Paul writes, that like the Mighty Oz, the brain is an all-purpose, all-powerful thinking machine 鈥� and it is impressive, what with its lightning processing speed and its magnificent mutability. But it turns out, the brain 鈥� not just my brain (huge relief!) or your brain 鈥� is limited in its ability to pay attention, to remember, to deal with abstract concepts and even to persist at challenging tasks. So much for bearing down.

The smart move, she writes, is not to lean harder on the brain but to reach beyond it. Replace the brain-as-computer and brain-as-muscle metaphor with a more fitting one that compares our brains to, say, magpies. Like the magpie 鈥� famous for building its nest out of an astonishing array of materials it finds throughout its environment 鈥� our brains weave the bits and bobs of everything they encounter and turn them into cognition. We think with our bodies, our surroundings, our relationships. We think with gestures, with movement and sensation; we think with natural and built spaces, and the spaces we build with our ideas. We think with the other minds with which we interact 鈥� our family, coworkers, classmates, teachers, friends.

As Paul explains the new research into these three types of thinking 鈥� embodied, situated and distributed cognition 鈥� she convincingly and entertainingly makes the case that the research 鈥渘ot only produced new insights into the nature of human cognition; it has generated a corpus of evidence-based methods for extending the mind.鈥�

Then, she goes a step further and lays out the purpose of her book: to operationalize the extended mind. To turn the discussion from something strictly philosophical into something practical and useful. If, when you reach the end of this book, you don鈥檛 view yourself and the world at least somewhat differently, well 鈥� I invite you to give it another read. And maybe dance more.

Contemplating what this new view of cognition might mean for early learning had me going overboard on the marginalia鈥攚ith multiple exclamation points (Imagine having kids 鈥渁ct out鈥� the solar system! Children play more imaginatively outdoors鈥攃heers for forest schools!!!). First, as Paul mentions several times, children already come into the world with their thinking extended in these 鈥渘ew鈥� ways. They certainly think with movement and with their relationships 鈥� and continue to do so until our education system succeeds in getting them to sit down and stop talking. Children spend an average of 50 percent of the school day sitting, Paul writes. That proportion increases as they enter adolescence; adults in the workplace spend more than two-thirds of the average workday seated 鈥� all rooted in society鈥檚 erroneous belief that to be thinking, we need to be sitting still.

What this attitude overlooks, she writes, is that human鈥檚 capacity to regulate our attention and our behavior is a limited resource and we use it up by suppressing our natural urge to move. In multiple experiments, children who were given license to move were 鈥渕ore focused, confident and productive.鈥� One study of young people diagnosed with ADHD found that the more the kids moved, the more effectively they were able to think. Instead of insisting that children stop moving so they can focus, a more effective approach would be to allow them to move around so that they can focus. Throughout the U.S., recess has been reduced or even eliminated to generate more 鈥渟eat time鈥� devoted to academic learning. Paul argues that parents, educators and administrators should be arguing for more, not fewer, opportunities for children to be active.

One of the most profound and possibly revolutionary concepts Paul covers is that of interoception, an awareness of the inner state of the body. All of us start life with our interoceptive capacities operating via our onboard sensors taking information from the outside world鈥攐ur retinas, cochleas, taste buds, olfactory bulbs鈥攚hich send a constant stream of data to the brain from all over our bodies. Our conscious minds can鈥檛 process all they encounter, but the insula, the brain鈥檚 interoceptive hub, takes the constant data feed and uses it to navigate the world: the body 鈥渞ings like a bell,鈥� Paul writes, to alert us with a shiver, a sigh, a cringe.

Research has found that that how caregivers communicate with children about these bodily prompts can strengthen or weaken a child鈥檚 sensitivity to these internal signals. Other research has found that greater awareness of these sensations can give us agency in actually creating our emotions. Consider, for example, the difference in a child鈥檚 life if their caregivers took their sensations seriously and helped them learn to reappraise their physical sensations鈥�my palms are sweaty; my stomach has butterflies鈥攁nd label 鈥渘ervous鈥� or 鈥渁nxious鈥� as 鈥渆xcited鈥� and 鈥渆ager.鈥�

Some of the most exciting and potentially transformative research cited in 鈥淭he Extended Mind鈥� is found in the chapters on thinking with relationships. Humans evolved to learn from other humans and to learn from teaching other people. We are social to our core and a large body of evidence points to the striking conclusion that we think best when we think socially. We evolved to reason, to persuade others of our views and to guard against being misled by others. If you ever wondered why your preschooler can argue you into exhaustion, they鈥檙e only fulfilling their evolutionary calling. Humans argue together, Paul writes, to arrive jointly at something close to truth. The key element is learning to argue over ideas with mutual respect. Argument, when done in the right way, produces 鈥渄eeper learning, sounder decisions and more innovative solutions 鈥�.鈥�

Our modern life has gotten too complex, too jammed with information and sensory overload for our brains to manage by themselves. Fortunately, we鈥檙e just beginning to realize how far and how well humans can think beyond those limitations. Taking Paul鈥檚 information-packed volume as a starting place, it鈥檚 thrilling to imagine what futures might be concocted by a whole society of magpie minds thinking together in ways informed by, but no longer bound by, the human brain.

I felt as though I were right back in those days as a single mom when someone had a cold, someone had a science project, I had a deadline and how was I going to get all this mess to work? Always with the question running in the background, 鈥淚s this what my life is about?鈥� Then, I read Garbe鈥檚 eloquent reflections on mothering as maintenance and maintenance as essential and honorable. It makes the world go round; it keeps life happening.

I don鈥檛 know that I鈥檝e ever read a book that made me feel more seen; I wish I had had it years ago when I was up to my neck day in and day out with all that mothering.

The way Seattle author Garbes defines mothering, though, a lot of us are always up to our necks in it. She traces her understanding of mothering beginning with her first book, 鈥�,鈥� about the science and culture of pregnancy, to her much broader view now that mothering is a verb and 鈥渢he action of mothering 鈥� includes anyone who is engaged in 鈥榯he practice of creating, nurturing, affirming, and supporting life.鈥欌�� The work of raising children is mothering, she writes, and includes people of all genders, extending to nonparents 鈥� preschool teachers, babysitters, good friends who are so close with their caring that they almost become co-parents.

Garbes wrote 鈥淓ssential Labor鈥� during the pandemic as her daughters鈥� preschool, along with much of the rest of the world, locked down. As a writer, she didn鈥檛 get a regular paycheck or health insurance and her husband did, so by default it became her job to care full-time for their daughters, 2 and 5 at the time. The pandemic underscored for all of us that the essential work of caregiving is the only truly essential work humans do. During the 鈥渓ong, strange season鈥� of the pandemic, people began to see 鈥� maybe for the first time 鈥� that caregiving is hard work 鈥� mentally, physically and emotionally exhausting. It is also highly skilled labor without which nothing in the world works as it should. Yet, what recognition do those involved in this essential labor receive in reality? Beyond hollow atta-girls and sentimental talk about the importance, yea even the sacredness of mothers, how does American society actually recognize the people do the care work, the maintenance and domestic labor that keeps the whole shebang running?

Garbes alternates her well-researched, fact-based reportage on the state of mothering and caregiving in the U.S. with personal reflections of her upbringing as a Filipinx-American with two parents in the health care field, a lens that allows a particularly powerful insight into the work of caregiving in America. The Philippines has for decades served as the farm team for the U.S. health care workforce, providing nurses and other healthcare workers to make up for shortages in the U.S. workforce. As is always the case, the immigrants ended up taking or being assigned the jobs the white workers didn鈥檛 want, which for nurses often meant the ICU or critical care jobs that required them to be more intimate with patients鈥� bodies.

During the pandemic, Garbes writes, she read that Filipinx nurses made up 4% of the nursing workforce in the U.S. and accounted for 34% of Covid-related nursing deaths 鈥� a gut punch, she says, because any one of those deaths could have been her mother. When she saw all of her 鈥渨ild, racing thoughts and frustrations about the state of caregiving in America鈥� showing up all over the media and in every Zoom conversation, she felt in her bones that the time had come to, as she writes, blow open the conversation, invite in new perspectives, and imagine new possibilities. As a growing body of us have realized during the past two and a half years, if we don鈥檛 fix this, our society is going to go off the rails. It鈥檚 time to double down on the radical power of mothering, she says. (And let all say, 鈥淎men.鈥�)

Lest it seem that 鈥淓ssential Labor鈥� is a scolding polemic, it is anything but. She writes deliciously about mothering as survival, mothering as valuable, sensual and even erotic labor, taking Audre Lorde鈥檚 depiction of the erotic as 鈥渢he deepest life force 鈥� which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.鈥� Love is an action verb, acts of attention. Mothering is service and attention to the body, the 鈥済eography of mothering鈥� (lovely!), which can鈥檛 be conveyed to a child in words. If ever there were a situation that demanded deeds not words, it鈥檚 mothering.

She also writes about mothering as interdependence and underscores what so many of us have seen during the pandemic: No one gets out of this alone: Community sustains us, even if it鈥檚 limited to our Covid pod or wine shared by Zoom after the kids are asleep. To nurture our children, support our elders and our disabled, and to tend to our sick, we have to take care of each other.

Garbes shies away from nothing 鈥� ear wax, stinky toes, the incessant role of mucus, barf and other bodily fluids in caregiving. Bodies do all of that, and attention must be paid. Her frankness extends to details about some of her intimate moments with her husband which may land as TMI for some of us, but her point about the power 鈥� and necessity 鈥� of pleasure is well-taken.

She鈥檚 also not afraid to tell one on herself, relating how a friend on a camping trip showed her how to blow on the campfire to get it going. When she asked how this (white) friend learned how to do that, the friend said that as a kid her family was too poor to stay in hotels, so when they went on vacation, they always camped. In that moment, Garbes had a sudden reckoning with her own privilege, in many ways a typical, middle-class family whose parents could afford to send their children to private school and take vacations that involved staying in hotels with swimming pools.

But she writes of also seeing the way her successful, hardworking parents endured the immigrant indignities of having their competency questioned, being condescended to socially and professionally, being essential yet infantilized, oddly echoing motherhood itself. Garbes demands more for mothers, for caregivers 鈥� more acknowledgment, more information, more pleasure and compassion, more recognition that cultivating and nurturing a child鈥檚 life force and essence can be more deeply satisfying for both child and caregiver than any other life experience.

鈥淓ssential Labor鈥� is both a memoir and a call to action. The caregiving crisis the U.S. finds itself in now will outlast the pandemic and we must figure out ways to care for each other. Individual people patching together individual solutions will never work, and it鈥檚 up to all of us to take what the pandemic has taught us about essential caregiving and turn it into political will and action. It isn鈥檛 rocket science: Societies throughout the world have sorted this out and created solutions that allow caregivers to be acknowledged and caregiving to be shared. Part of mothering, Garbes writes, is to insist on worthiness. It鈥檚 time the U.S. does that now 鈥� insist on the worth of caregiving 鈥� and in the process, build something more powerful than we鈥檝e ever known, based on love, inclusion, mutuality, and acceptance.

鈥�,鈥� Dr. Josiah Rector鈥檚 dense, deeply researched history of Detroit鈥檚 water disasters, lays out the origin story of this most recent catastrophe. Beginning with the mid nineteenth century, Rector meticulously layers fact upon fact to detail how politics, policy and societal changes ebbed and flowed in Michigan鈥檚 largest city over multiple generations to create a witches鈥� brew of race, class and gender inequalities that translated into polluted water and scandalous policies. If Rector鈥檚 cataloguing of these events has a certain here-we-go-again, rinse-and-repeat quality, it鈥檚 because since the late 19^th century through present day, Detroit鈥檚 history has seen incessant waves of income inequality, unregulated mass-produced industry, lackadaisical or non-existent financial regulation, environmental degradation and unrelenting racial segregation.

Along with this history of metastatic industrial development, staggering pollution, relentless corruption and breathtakingly bad policy, Rector presents the other side of the coin: the fierce, courageous, dogged commitment of activists pushing back decade after decade, demanding cleaner air, better working conditions and water that wouldn鈥檛 poison their children. Rector draws on dozens of oral history interviews and extensive archival research to tell in relatable terms what is likely the most comprehensive history of Detroit鈥檚 environmental justice movement to date.

At the heart of the issues raised in 鈥淭oxic Debt鈥� is the question of whether access to water should be considered a human right available to all, or a commodity available to whoever can pony up sufficient money to pay a water bill. The irony baked into this question since Detroit鈥檚 earliest days is the fact that what Rector calls the 鈥渄ehydration of Detroit鈥� has occurred in an urban area surrounded by the largest freshwater system in the world.

Throughout the Rust Belt in the 1990s and 2000s, union busting, cuts to welfare programs and neoliberal trade policies that sent thousands of jobs to Mexico took a toll on America鈥檚 working class. For Michigan鈥檚 Black-majority cities, like Detroit and Flint, the toll was even more profound as decades of racist housing policies, white flight, and industrial and commercial disinvestment hollowed out the cities鈥� economic core.

Rector doesn鈥檛 mince words in laying the water disasters of both Flint and Detroit solidly at the feet of neoliberal policies of austerity, deregulation and privatization throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Wall Street shares a sizable part of the blame as legislation during President Bill Clinton鈥檚 tenure removed the firewall between commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms and insurance companies, supercharging Wall Street鈥檚 affection for mergers and acquisitions and enabling commercial banks to make increasingly risky investments. Investment banks marketed high-risk 鈥渟waps鈥� to cities and Detroit, among many others, took the bait.

In 2013-2014, Detroit declared bankruptcy, resulting in Republican Gov. Rick Snyder suspending democracy via Michigan鈥檚 Emergency Manager laws, which gave the state the power to impose economically and environmentally disastrous policies without any accountability to the residents. Snyder put Detroit under an emergency manager and imposed radical austerity measures that shut off or poisoned the water of hundreds of thousands of Americans 鈥� largely African American families 鈥� living there. (For a look at how these decisions created the public health catastrophe of Flint鈥檚 water system, see our review of Dr Hanna Attisha鈥檚 鈥�.鈥� Different calamity, same players and policies.)

During this time, Detroit鈥檚 poor and working-class African Americans became a lucrative market for subprime loans, which treated home mortgages as a casino. Balloon fees led to out-of-control mortgage payments and as the families struggled to make these mortgage payments, they fell behind on their water bills. Rather than come up with ways to mitigate these payments, as had been done during the Great Depression, the city just cut off the spigot. As the city handled its bankruptcy 鈥� the largest in U.S. history 鈥� it made a bargain with its creditors and bondholders. Unsecured creditors 鈥� pension funds representing thousands of active and retired municipal workers and their families 鈥� had to take what the financial wizards called a 鈥渉aircut,鈥� meaning they paid for the city鈥檚 bankruptcy while the banks and insurance companies came out fine.

Two-thirds of the water cutoffs involved children. In a cruel Catch-22, child welfare authorities removed children from their homes because of a state requirement that all homes housing children have working utilities. On June 25, 2014, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights released a statement calling Detroit鈥檚 policy for shutting off people who couldn鈥檛 pay 鈥渁n affront to human rights.鈥� Protesters took to the streets demonstrating against the shutoffs and blockaded the dispatch facility to stop the trucks leaving to perform shutoffs.

U.N. officials visiting Detroit at the invitation of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights found examples of the indignities families suffered from the shutoffs, such as the mothers whose daughters had to wash themselves with bottled water during their periods, parents with asthmatic children who couldn鈥檛 operate nebulizers without water, families unable to adequately bathe themselves and clean their homes. The U.N. experts said the shutoffs violated international human rights laws including the right to water and sanitation, and the right to non-discrimination.

Even as the infamous unfolded, Gov. Snyder鈥檚 policies were contributing directly to increased lead poisoning among Detroit鈥檚 children as well. Austerity cuts to the Department of Health and Wellness led to the department ending its lead abatement program, despite evidence of 鈥減ervasive exposure鈥� to lead among the children of Detroit 鈥� nearly twice the level in Flint. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no safe blood level of lead in children has been identified and even low levels of lead have been shown to negatively affect a child鈥檚 intelligence, academic achievement and ability to pay attention.

Austerity measures and outsourcing also led to a toxic water disaster in Detroit鈥檚 schools, as hundreds of the district鈥檚 unionized maintenance workers were laid off, accelerating the physical decay of its buildings. In 2016, Detroit Public Schools officials discovered toxic levels of lead and copper in 19 out of the district鈥檚 62 tested schools. As Rector writes, 鈥淔ar from fixing DPS, austerity policies had transformed centers of learning into sources of permanent brain damage for unknown numbers of children.鈥�

It would be satisfying to report that these matters are all safely in the past and Detroit residents have finally gotten a fair shake and fresh water. Sadly, that is not the case. In March 2020, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer responded to activists鈥� demands for action by issuing an Executive Order requiring that all public water utilities restore water service to any residence where water had been shut off due to non-payment. The policy would only last through the end of the pandemic. Detroit has extended the shutoff moratorium through 2022 but has shown little support for progressive water rate structures.

Rector writes that the water disasters of Detroit and Flint demonstrate the 鈥渉orrific human costs of sacrificing basic environmental health protections to the short-term financial interests of bond-holders and private contractors.鈥� A major takeaway of 鈥淭oxic Debt鈥澨齣s how misguided the free-market approach to public services is. Privatizing has an incredible allure to investors, but 鈥渆fficiencies鈥� most often lead to underfunding the resources necessary for the long-term health and viability of an economy and a society. Public systems should be accountable to the public.

As authors Joanne Samuel Goldblum and Colleen Shaddox point out in their blistering, deeply researched book, 鈥�,鈥� the fact that financial insecurity has become a way of life for millions of Americans is none of the above. Neither laziness nor lack of education, nor a matter of morality, our widespread poverty is a result of decades of U.S. policy that has shaped a society in which people can be trapped in poverty by something as simple as a kid鈥檚 bad case of strep throat or a mechanical failure of the family car. Or by the mere fact of not being able to afford to keep a baby in child care so the parents can have a job.

The authors鈥� bona fides in the field are unimpeachable and the solutions they offer are borne of deep, direct experience. Goldblum has spent her career working with and advocating for families in poverty, first as a social worker and then as the founder and CEO of the and the founder of the , both of which address the hygiene needs of low-income people. Shaddox is a print and radio journalist whose credits include contributions to the New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio and America magazine, among others. She has worked with nonprofits on projects devoted to getting children out of adult prison, ending juvenile sentences of life without parole and limiting the shackling of defendants in juvenile courts.

If we want to address poverty, the authors posit, we must first see it. Economic, social and racial segregation underpin the mechanism that keeps poverty invisible, the authors write. They then set out in the book鈥檚 first section, 鈥淏asic Needs,鈥� to provide a clear-eyed, devastating view of how that balkanization of the economic classes came into being, what it really means to be poor in this country, who impoverished Americans are and what their lives look like, on the ground, in reality.

A large study by the finds that a full 38% of people in the U.S. have trouble consistently meeting their basic needs; the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 11.8 million residents were living in poverty in 2018, according to the federal poverty threshold. The gap in those statistics occurs because the federal poverty guidelines are irrationally low, based on a methodology from the early 1960s when fewer women worked outside the home. The cost of child care, transportation, and clothing and hygiene expenses don鈥檛 figure into the government鈥檚 definition of basic necessities. In their section on 鈥淏asic Needs,鈥� Shaddox and Goldblum expand the definition to include water, food, housing, power (utilities), transportation, hygiene and health, including health care. This broader view of need provides a searing portrait of poverty that puts the broken in 鈥渂roke.鈥�

In the second section, 鈥淔orms of Oppression,鈥� the authors present a comprehensive look at the policies and prejudices that have made home ownership and generational wealth a pipe dream for racial and ethnic minorities whose high rates of housing foreclosure and inability to finance homebuying are, you guessed it, not due to 鈥渂ad choices鈥� but to bad policies. They break down why 鈥渨omen鈥檚 work鈥� in the U.S. is a recipe for poverty: The concentration of women in low-wage jobs may benefit the employers and owners of the nursing homes, hospitals and fast-food restaurants that hire them but does little to provide some of our society鈥檚 hardest workers with access to a decent standard of living.

In their section on political power, Goldblum and Shaddox present a powerful case that the United States鈥� vaunted government 鈥渙f the people, by the people and for the people鈥� comes with a silent modifier: 鈥渆xcept the poor people.鈥� The government that low-income people encounter is far more likely to take rights away rather than protect them, from the intake worker who decides they don鈥檛 quite qualify for aid or the child welfare worker who questions how good their parenting can be if they鈥檙e working two jobs and still can鈥檛 afford diapers. Poor people in the U.S. generally do not find themselves spending quality time in the halls of Congress where the average wealth of members is more than $500,000; the Center for Responsive Politics reports that about 48% are millionaires. Electoral politics are a sport for the wealthy, Shaddox and Goldblum say, and officeholders are often oblivious to working-class and low-income concerns.

The real pleasure of 鈥淏roke in America鈥� is that it is not only descriptive but prescriptive, providing concrete strategies answers to the question, 鈥淵es, but what can I do?鈥� A lot, as it turns out. As the authors write, poverty is not gravity. It isn鈥檛 something that has to be accepted with a shrug as 鈥渏ust the way it is.鈥� It has causes and it has solutions. At the end of each chapter, Goldblum and Shaddox have included a section titled 鈥淲hat Can I Do?鈥� offering practical suggestions that can make a difference, and conversations to be had with legislators and political leaders that can alter the policies that glue poverty in place. It鈥檚 important to remember that it鈥檚 glue, not granite, that keeps poverty in place, and the book is chockful of suggestions to dislodge it.

The last section, 鈥淪olutions,鈥� presents the possibility that the poor do not always have to be with us. People are poor because they don鈥檛 have sufficient money to pay for the things they need 鈥� a straightforward problem requiring a range of approaches to solve. The past year has served to hold the economic and social fissures plaguing our country in high relief. More and more people have slipped from 鈥渕aking it鈥� to 鈥渂arely hanging on,鈥� and those who were barely hanging on before the pandemic now find their economic circumstances frighteningly diminished. The poisonous effects of racism and the glaring inequalities baked into our political, economic and social structures have never been more visible. If ever there were a time for Americans to reevaluate and regroup, this would be it. 鈥淏roke in America: Seeing, Understanding, and Ending U.S. Poverty鈥� is both a primer and a roadmap for how to go forward.

It isn鈥檛 for the faint of heart: the facts it presents are unsettling, indeed, heartbreaking. But for anyone who wants to see things change, the facts are the place to start.

Unless someone like you
Cares a whole awful lot
Nothing is going to get better.
It鈥檚 not.

Hanna-Attisha鈥檚 riveting first-person account of the public health catastrophe that has become known as the Flint water crisis not only lays out the facts of how a government poisoned its own people; it lays open the heart of a doctor who swore an oath to protect the health and lives of the children affected.

The Flint water crisis began in April 2014 when the Michigan city changed its water source from Detroit Water and Sewerage Department 鈥� which it had been using for over 50 years 鈥� to the Flint River. Elected officials, including Gov. Rick Snyder鈥檚 administration, made the switch as part of a budget-slashing, austerity initiative, despite the fact that the Flint River had been an industrial dumping site for decades. The move was made without properly training water-treatment staff or upgrading the plant.

Almost immediately, residents began to raise alarms about foul-smelling, filthy water. As a busy professor and pediatrician at Flint鈥檚 Hurley Medical Center as well as a mom of two young daughters, Hanna-Attisha was aware of complaints about the water, but water wasn鈥檛 foremost in her mind. She assumed 鈥� with the rest of the community 鈥� that city and county officials, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were serious about their job of protecting water quality. She thought they had this.

A casual family barbecue with long-time friend Elin Warn Betanzo, an environmental engineer who had worked at the Environmental Protection Agency, changed all that. 鈥淲hat are you hearing about the Flint water?鈥� her friend asked. Hanna-Attisha said she had heard complaints, but that the state said the water was fine.

No, Betanzo said, it鈥檚 not. Flint was not using corrosion control, she said, and lead from the city鈥檚 old pipes was leaching into the water. Betanzo told her that a , led by municipal water-quality expert , had found 鈥渞eally, really high鈥� levels of lead in Flint water. (Edwards鈥� team ultimately concluded that at least a quarter of Flint households showed lead levels as much as 65 times the federal action level of 15 ppb. Health advocates say that allowable number should be 0 ppb. Some homes Edwards鈥� team tested showed lead levels of 13,200 ppb.)

Loopholes in the EPA鈥檚 Lead and Copper Rule allow for utilities to game the regulations and manipulate the data, Batanzo told her. The agencies test for the results they want, not what鈥檚 best for the health of the community.  

Lead in the water.

Hanna-Attisha鈥檚 fate suddenly hit a hairpin turn. All pediatricians know about lead, a powerful neurotoxin that disrupts brain development and is especially harmful for young children, potentially causing life-long, irreversible brain damage, developmental delays, speech problems and an increased risk for behavioral issues and serious chronic conditions. The implications for her Flint kids were horrific.

Even after hearing the facts, she didn鈥檛 want to believe them. The MDEQ couldn鈥檛 possibly be testing inaccurately or intentionally juking the results of tests that could have such devastating implications for the community? Surely not. But, she writes, her experience as an Iraqi immigrant, knowing that Saddam Hussein had gassed the Kurdish town of Halabja and murdered thousands of his own people, including children, had shown her at an early age what governments could be capable of.

After that conversation, she writes, a 鈥渇og of unreality鈥� descended when she realized the enormity of what she鈥攁nd Flint 鈥攚ere facing. From that point, science and Hanna-Attisha鈥檚 self-professed doggedness drove the story.

Balancing her impulse to launch into a full five-alarm Paul Revere moment with the need for a carefully constructed, fact-based scientific report, the devastated doctor began gathering statistics, knowing that every day meant harm to the children. Lead in the water threatened every tomorrow of every one of Flint鈥檚 children.

Addressing a public health crisis is like solving a mystery, employing just the right mix of instinct, insight, footwork, solid data, strategy and pure luck, Hanna-Attisha writes. When officialdom or fondly held beliefs get in the way, it鈥檚 time to speak science to power. And she did.

She soon found that just six months after the switch, General Motors had stopped using Flint water at its plant because it was so corrosive it was destroying metal engine parts. Despite that, no alarm bells had sounded about what such corrosive water could be doing to the city鈥檚 old lead water pipes.

Over the next month, Hanna-Attisha drew together a team of expert collaborators and together they worked to form an airtight argument: lead was in the water and action was demanded now. On September 24, 2015, roughly 28 days after she first heard about lead in Flint鈥檚 water, Hanna-Attisha and her team stood at a press conference and revealed her findings. She was ridiculed by the State of Michigan, with MDEQ spokesman Brad Wurfel accusing her of being irresponsible, 鈥渟plicing and dicing numbers鈥� and causing 鈥渘ear hysteria;鈥� the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services dismissed her findings without actually looking at her study.

Though her conclusions were soon confirmed in professional journals and published in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, when Hanna-Attisha initially revealed her findings, she did so at great professional risk. Her research had not been peer-reviewed鈥攖he gold standard for scientific research鈥攁nd if she got it wrong, her reputation and that of her hospital would have suffered significant damage. With the lives of children at stake, every day mattered. So, she broke the news, urged residents to stop drinking the water and set in motion the wheels that eventually led to a $641 million settlement for Flint families and indictments against nine public officials, including now-former Gov. Snyder, on 41 individual counts.

The brilliance of Hanna-Attisha鈥檚 book isn鈥檛 simply a description of events that led up to one of the nation鈥檚 most dramatic whistleblower events. What the eyes don鈥檛 see, she writes, is not just lead in the water, but the racism, inequity, heartless austerity policies and bureaucratic indifference that led to the crisis in the first place. The book鈥檚 title and central metaphor are taken from a D.H. Lawrence quote: 鈥淭he eyes don鈥檛 see what the mind doesn鈥檛 know.鈥� She took it upon herself to inform minds so eyes could see. She used her platform as a scientist, doctor and educator to craft a fierce indictment of a society and political system rigged from the jump against its members who are poor, brown and marginalized. Telling the story from her personal life and experience, she invites the reader to know her, to know her family and her values. When she talks about Flint鈥檚 families, she makes it clear that she believes health and happiness is their birthright as well. The contrast makes the criminality of official indifference even more obscene.

What the eyes also don鈥檛 see explicitly in Dr. Mona鈥檚 book is also richly there between the lines. In reading her book, we get to know her. It is apparent that 鈥淒r. Mona鈥� was able to accomplish what she did because of who she is. Her friends and colleagues knew her to be trustworthy and a person of ultimate integrity. With that knowledge as their basis, they stood together to right a terrible wrong. In her matter-of-fact telling, she presents the facts unadorned and unembellished.

The story of the Flint water crisis broke over the U.S. like a thunderclap 鈥� and was heard around the world. In the years since, further research has confirmed that Flint is by far not the only U.S. city with lead and other toxic chemicals in its drinking water.

In January 2021 a judge granted preliminary approval to a $641 million settlement to benefit Flint residents harmed by the contaminated water. Ex-governor Snyder and former Flint Public Works director Howard Croft were each charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty; other officials were charged with crimes ranging from felony counts of perjury, extortion and misconduct in office to misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty. Two officials have been indicted on nine counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires disease associated with water-quality issues.

Both Snyder and Wurfel have apologized to Hanna-Attisha.

Through a combination of corporate and private donations and government funding, Flint has created a number of programs to help Flint鈥檚 children, including universal pre-K, literacy and mental health programs, healthcare access and access to good nutrition 鈥� assets Hanna-Attisha says she wishes for all children.

More than 200 years ago, after realizing what a fight they鈥檇 have to put up to win this country鈥檚 independence, America鈥檚 founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the cause. In this fight for the lives of America鈥檚 children, Hanna-Attisha did so as well, joining their ranks to become a true American hero.