<p>There are always exceptions, so there will be exceedingly resilient children from low-income families whose resourceful, resilient, education-oriented (though poor) parents cultivate the social emotional and cognitive resources that the children need to succeed. Outliers show what is possible, not what is probable. </p>
<p>I work with families of young children, some of whom are very low-income. The upper- and middle-income families whose children I see have benefits such as time off (paid vacation, sick, or personal business leave) that they can take in order to meet with therapists, medical staff, or early intervention teams. My lower-income families have to ask for unpaid time off. Try meeting with a parent in tears because, rather than being able to take a few hours off for a mandatory appointment, she had to take a whole day, unpaid. She did not have the economic cushion to miss a day’s wages. (If I had known this, I would have met her after my work hours.) </p>
<p>My upper- and middle-income families have the resources to pay for quality daycare; my parents who work a number of part-time jobs with ever shifting hours cannot even predict their work schedules. They hobble together childcare of atrocious quality; the lucky ones have a family member to watch their children. These are parents who have jobs that, in the past, might have been unionized and provided a more stable income. Now, without training or education, they barely survive. </p>
<p>My upper- and middle-income families also struggle mightily to maintain a work-family life balance in an economy in which workers are increasingly expendable, so I’m not suggesting that they have it easy – just like most of us worked/work very hard (whether at home or to provide good substitute care). It is just that the support and experiences that young children receive varies substantially by social class. Even in early intervention for children with learning challenges or disabilities (my field), there is no acknowledgment of this fact or systematic even-ing out of resources and supports for the lower income children. Quite the opposite; better educated, wealthier families advocate to get more services for their children! (Not to fault them; of course, this is what knowledgeable, caring parents do!)</p>
<p>The fact remains that inequality in income and in access to resources is growing, not diminishing in this country. Studies have shown that, at this time in history, there is less social mobility in the US than in other countries that we tend to consider more class-based (England, France as examples). Someone born into poverty is overwhelmingly likely to remain in poverty or near poverty (again, probability not possibility). One of the findings in one of the studies cited in the NYT article was that this gap in achievement between the wealthy and the poor was already wide at entry to kindergarten; the school years did not serve to narrow the divide. </p>
<p>I personally think that, as a society, we will be better served when most of our young are provided with rich opportunities to grow and learn throughout their entire childhoods and that social policy should not be based mainly on outliers (since some do well, that proves that nothing is needed to help those that don’t). This is not to devalue or diminish the individual responsibility and roles that caring parents at all levels of income play in the lives of their children.</p>