It is misleading to discuss recent changes in family life without emphasizing the fact that for generations some Americans have had to raise children under particularly appalling pressures. Although much of what is worrying American parents is shared by them… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
The myth of self-sufficiency blinds us to the workings of other forces in family life. For families are not now, nor were they ever, the self-sufficient building blocks of society, exclusively responsible, praiseworthy, and blamable for their own destiny. They… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
Today's parents have little authority over those others with whom they share the task of raising their children. On the contrary,most parents deal with… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
The myth of the self-sufficient individual and of the self-sufficient, protected, and protective familytells us that those who need help are ultimately inadequate. And it tells us that for a family to need help--or at least to admit it publicly--is to confess failure. Similarly, to give help, however generously, is to acknowledge the inadequacy of the recipients and indirectly to… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share
Confronted with the unhappy facts of exclusion, we sometimes reassure ourselves by telling stories: the poor boys who made it, theblacks who became a "credit to their race," the women elected to high office, the handicapped who made "useful contributions" to our society… Just as we believe in the self-sufficient family, we also believe that any child with enough grit… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share
Within forty years of their arrival in the Plymouth colony, the first white settlers were afraid their children had lost the dedication and religious conviction of the founding generation. Ever since, Americans have looked to the next generation not only with love and solicitude but with a good measure of anxiety, worrying whether they themselves were good parents, fearful that… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share
In the early nineteenth century, the doctrine of self-sufficiency came to apply to families as well as individuals… The familybecame a special protected place, the repository of tender, pure, and generous feelings (embodied by the mother) and a bulwark and bastion against the raw, competitive, aggressive, and selfish world of commerce (embodied by the father)… In performing this protective task,… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share
Recognizing that family self-sufficiency is a false myth, we also need to acknowledge that all today's families need help in raising children. The problem… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
The psychological pain--and the ethical shame--of American poverty are made greater by the fact that this country possesses the wealth and the energy to… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
Mothers work outside the home for many reasons; one of them is almost always because their families need their income to live up to… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
In the end, the fate of children depends on our ability to use technology constructively and carefully. The connection of childrenand technology is not… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
One current reaction to change in families, for example, is the proposal for more "education for parenthood," on the theory that this training will… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
The most important difference between these early American families and our own is that early families constituted economic unitsin which all members, from young… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
Poor children live in a particularly dangerous world--an urban world of broken stair railings, of busy streets serving as playgrounds, of lead paint, rats… — Kenneth Keniston Copy Share Image
