Home Alone America Review -- Part 2

Methodologically this book is a disaster area. At times, the author refers to other research studies to support her hypothesis and other times on her hunches. (This book does not put forward any original research.) This back and forth becomes confusing at times and the reader loses track of what is empirically proven and what the author is assuming.

I do think that it is okay, especially in books aimed at a mainstream audience, to make broad and unproven claims. This then provides fodder for later academic research. It's good to have books that attempt to make grand theory and allow others, who have more resources and less imagination, prove or disprove those claims. However, unproven statements should be clearly identified and qualified. Good qualifying phrases are “this observation may suggest” or “it worth further study” or “it could possibly indicate.”

Eberstadt also confuses the reader by switching her unit of analysis around. Sometime she discusses children at daycare v. children at home. Other times she looks at impact of working mothers on all children and society in general. Sometimes she looks at children over time.

The largest problem with this book is proving causality. Let’s look more closely at Chapter Three: Why Dick and Jane Are Fat.

Eberstadt claims that children are fatter than they used to be because more women are working. She points to real studies that show that kids are bulking up. A 2002 study in the AMA found that overweight children had tripled between 1960s and the late 1900s.

Eberstadt writes, Between 1980 and 1985 the percentage of mothers with children under six who were in the labor force first “crossed” the magic line into being the majority. By 1990 that percentage had become higher still – 58.2. By 2000 it had climbed further, to 64.6 percent. In other words, the years in which the obesity epidemic appears to have accelerated are the same years that the number of mothers of small children entering the labor force became the statistical normal. (p.40)

No. No. No. No.

Just because the two factors of weight gain and mother employment increased at the same time, does not prove causality. You have no way of knowing that employment caused obesity without ruling out other variables. (Hell, maybe disgust at their fat kids, drove women into the workforce.)

There were many other changes in society and popular culture that happened during that time. Increased number of fast food restaurants, increased mobility of families, the decline of the use of mass transportation and reliance on walking, video games and cable TV (1980 was the first year of MTV), the continued decline of kids working on farms or summer jobs, increased time doing homework. In order to prove causality between mother employment and child obesity, she would have to rule out all those other factors. An impossibility.

Of course, mother employment could be a contributing factor towards obesity, but she doesn't get that subtle.

How would employment affect weight gain? 1. She says that children of absent parents watch more TV and play more video games. 2. Kids who don’t get breast milk are fatter. (But is that in the long term? And how much does SES intervene here?) 3. Both latchkey kids (her term) and kids in daycare are less likely to get exercise than kids with at home parents. For daycare kids, there is no one pushing them to try new sports. Instead they are given snacks to keep them quiet. Latchkey kids are forbidden to leave the house for safety reasons. 4. Guilty parents give more treats.

Then she makes an interesting point. It's not just daycare kids who are disadvantaged by daycare. Even kids who are at home with their parents are disadvantaged. “The more parents are out of the house, the more reluctant they are to have their kids outside – because with so many other adults also out of the house, there is no informal network of like-minded adults to be alert to them. The fewer children who are allowed out to play, the less likely that other children will be allowed out.”

This claim saves her butt. Because there is no evidence that kids with at home parents are thinner than kids of working parents. It also makes a lot of sense. I buy it. But I would add several other factors. Kids play outside less because of increased media stories on abductions and child abuse, the decrease in neighborhood playgrounds within walking distance, and increased number of sprawling suburban developments where neighbors are unknown. All this reduces after-school playtime.

(to be continued....)

Comments

[Russell Arben Fox]

Laura, thanks for this review; you've got a great eye for finding salient points and dragging them out into the light. I don't think I'd care for much of what Eberstadt is arguing for, or how she's arguing for it, but to the extent that her claims at least tangentially connect to the larger economic, demographic and social factors which contribute to the breakdown of play-friendly neighborhood environments, then I'll be happy to give her credit where it's due.

[Alison]

It sounds like Eberstadt is using the usual labor force statistics. I'm sure those stats are useful to someone, but they aren't a good representation of how many kids are take care of by their parents. Lots of at-home moms work -- Tupperware, Discovery Toys, Avon, seasonal retail work, babysitting, consulting, etc. So while I'm sure that 64% (or whatever) of women are in the labor force according to the DOL, I bet that many of those women consider themselves at-home moms. Unless we know more about the number of at-home moms, it's hard to postulate causalty about anything. The number of women out of the labor force according to the DOL may not exactly track the number of women who actually consider themselves "at home."

[dave s]

I am double-posting this comment from middle class debt...

When I went to college, at Sonoma State in Rohnert Park CA, the new subdivision near the college was selling houses for 25000, which was about 3 times the then income of an entry level cop or teacher (I went to college a LONG time ago...) Now those same houses are selling for around 350000, and that is seven times the income of an entry level cop or teacher - and three or three and a half times the income of a married pair of cops/teachers.

Now that I think of it, I am going to move this comment from 'middle class debt' to 'home alone America' - with current housing prices, it's not going to happen that women stay out of the work force, it doesn't matter whether it's desirable or not that both parents work, we just have to try and manage it as well as we can.

[Ancarett]

I am continuing to enjoy your debunking, though I really must get the book on ILL and read it myself.

One thought that came to mind when reading your commentary on chapter three: one of the big complaints that has come out of the low-carb communities is how stuffed with carbohydrate calories are a whole range of foods that are marketed towards kids. Breaded chicken nuggets, pizza pockets, low-fat cookies (stuffed with more carbs or trans-fats to substitute), etc. Think about the giant-sized muffins and cookies sold today! I literally can't finish one of the muffins I buy at our coffee shop, but I see a lot of others who can, without thinking.

If you look at what is being served up as breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner in the average Western family, it's another big shift from the 50s and 60s to today. Parents and schools think they're making healthy choices in the foods they offer their kids, but I think there's a good case for enormous calorie creep along with declining levels of physical activity (Shouldn't we mourn the passing of gym classes in many school?), which is a simpler explanation for the rise in obesity.

[laura 11d]

Dave S -- yes. Of course, you're right. I sort of get to that in my next post.

Ancarett -- and yes to you, too. There is a lot of changes that have happened in recent years along with women working. Diet changes also. Though Eberstadt could argue that women who work must rely on those prepackaged treats more because they don't have time to cook nutricious meals.

[Martin L. Martens]

One problem with your suggestion of "Good qualifying phrases are “this observation may suggest” or “it worth further study” or “it could possibly indicate.”" is that mainstream readers, people who have not been trained to write for science journals, interpret those phrases as waffling at best and weasel words at worst. Mainstream readers expect certainty.

[Russell L. Carter]

"... The fewer children who are allowed out to play, the less likely that other children will be allowed out."

Essentially what Jane Jacobs said a long time ago, from the opposite side of the ideological spectrum. But note that she thought the neighborhood shopkeepers (among others composing the busy community) did a fine job of watching the kids. So presumably mothers were distracted then as now.

[Bill Gardner]

I haven't read the book... However, I think it is true that children's well-being is declining, at least in some respects. Our group published an article in Pediatrics (vol. 105, pp. 1313-1321) showing that the mental health problems that pediatricians see in kids have increased substantially in the past 20 years. We did not have data about whether moms were working. We could explain some of the increase to increases in the number of children in poverty and in single-parent homes.

[Adrian]

My experience and observations disagree with some of Eberstadt's claims about children in day care. My experience is limited. I am not a parent, but I have nieces and nephews and young cousins, and I'm close to the children of my friends.

I know a woman who sent her daughter to the best day care center she could find, and went back to work when her daughter was less than 6 months old. The little girl loved "school," and had excellent teachers and lots of kids to play with. The day care center did not allow tv, and only served healthy snacks, and had very strong recommendations about parents packing nutritious and age-appropriate lunches. She had plenty of outdoor play, learned lots of songs and stories, and was learning age-appropriate conflict resolution skills.

When the woman had a second child, she could not afford to have two kids in day care, so she quit her job to stay home with both kids. She's a good parent, with good intentions, but she has trouble keeping up with both an infant and an older child. The older child spends a fair amount of time watching tv. And things like nutritious meals, and table manners, often get forgotten in the challenge of getting everyone more-or-less fed. And of course she can't play with other kids during the day...all her friends are in day care. This means she gets much less exercise (nobody runs a preschooler ragged like a bunch of other preschoolers.)

I know this little girl used to go to an unusually good day care center. A lot of parents can't afford anything that good, or don't live in places where it even exists. And this place has a long waiting list. But there are worthwhile public policy questions around, "How can we make that kind of positive day care experience available to more kids?"

[Simon]

Eberstadt suggests that "Kids who don’t get breast milk are fatter."

If this is a major factor, kid fatness would have notably spiked during the 50s when breast-feeding was seriously out of fashion.