No Exit: What Parents Owe Their Children and What Society Owes Parents

Extract

No Exit: What Parents Owe Their Children and What Society Owes Parents. By Anne L. Alstott. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 272p. $27.50 cloth.

By any account, the United States lags far behind other industrialized nations in providing positive support for child rearing. Politicians utter maudlin paeans to the sanctity of the American family while shredding income-support programs for poor mothers and children, while on the popular front, advocates of “childfree” living bemoan the “culture of parental privilege” (Elinor Burkett, The Baby Boon, 2000). Anne Alstott makes the case for state support of families by examining the well-being of caretakers rather than dependents. She argues that society imposes a “No Exit” obligation on caretakers, and it is the increased vulnerability of caretakers flowing from that obligation that provides the foundation for the analysis.