Pantechnicon; Dr. Urie Bronfenbrenner

What's been happening to American families for years. What's happened to what's supposed to be the basic unit of social structure in America. Well according to one researcher from Cornell University who has been studying the population statistics since 1948 the size of the American family is shrinking. The extended family and the nuclear family have both been reduced in size thanks in part to a devastated socio economic condition for the most American families. That researcher is named Yuri Brown from Brenner. And he was doing the research for a presidential commission and for the National Academy of Sciences he studied the census figures the population statistics since 1948 and came up with some startling conclusions including the fact that the family is shrinking including the fact that alienation is on the rise. Judging by the number of people who now live alone in America and the number of vandalism occurrences going up in the schools is also an indication of exactly what's happening to the American family. So for the next 30 minutes on tonight Ben technic on will be talking with Yuri Brown

from Brenner a human development specialist from Cornell University in Ithaca New York. And now here's Dr. Yuriy Brown from Brenner. The well-being of children and families in our country has been a major concern of mine as a student of human development in the family at Cornell which is where I am and a few last year in connection with some work that I was doing for two committees one was a Committee the National Academy of Sciences another was a committee of the president's bio Sciences panel. I did analysis of census data the regular data that's available every year in the current population reports mainly families and children and turned up to my surprise nobody ever looked at this systematically.

And when one looks at it it presents a picture that I think that deserves the attention of the public and I mean summarize it for you. If you look at the changes over the past quarter century. Any institution that bears the primary responsibility for the care and development of the nation's children that is the family. What one finds is progressive fragmentation and isolation of the family and its child rearing role. Let me explain what I mean by that. First to start with a familiar fact. Many more mothers of course have gone to work and we know that not over half of mothers with school aged children are in the workforce one third of those with children under six and even with very young children children under three it's almost as high 30 percent of mothers of children under three are not in the workforce. And irrespective of the age of the child two thirds of these mothers are working full time. So that's the first fact which we know. The second fact that is not so well known

is that as more mothers have gone to work the number of adults are left in the home who might care for a child has been decreasing. It's been decreasing in two ways. First there's a way of getting at from the census data of what we call extended families that is from relatives other than the mother and father grandparents aunts uncles you know cousins and so on. The number of relatives like that living with the family has been decreasing steadily. But even more dramatically so the extended family sort of becoming a nuclear family and the nuclear family as has also been changing and becoming a single parent family. Today one out of every six children under 18 is living in a single parent family. Often when I report this people will say But that's that's radio. We don't have to be so worried about that that's a temporary state. You know remarriage has gone up. Yes remarriage has gone up but divorce and separation are going up much faster

and remarriage doesn't keep up especially for women. The chances of a women of a woman with young children of remarrying is one fourth the chances of a man's remarrying when he has children. So that means that in effect most of these children do not end up in reconstituted families. OK that's the first major complement in the shrinking of the family the second one is the sharp rise in the number of unwed mothers. More and more young women are postponing the age of marriage but still having children. And then when you ask you know where what families are changing. You find out and many people don't recognize this that the changes are most rapid among families with young children

who are themselves young and. There the the the shrinking of the family is most heavily concentrated in low income neighborhoods in central cities where up to 80 percent of all the families will be single parent families. In our big cities. So but I want to I want to make two things about that very clear first of all. People often say but this is much more common in nonwhite families than it isn't black families. That's true. But if you look at white and black families that are living in similar economic and social settings you find that the rates of change are just the same. You know the words the critical factor isn't race. It's the condition under which the family lives. And finally and this is the thing I want to stress that this general trend is applying across the board. It's faster in some sections of the society a little

less as among the poor as among the big cities. But middle class families in cities in suburbia and non urban areas are changing in the same ways specifically in terms of the kinds of characteristics that I've been talking about the middle class family today. Now resembles is now where the low income family was in the early 1900s. So we're talking about middle class families today we're talking about the kinds of families that were found among low income families just 15 years ago. What does it all mean. Well the first thing that it means is another question who cares for America's children. Just who's there. Because I think as you know in terms of vailable. Substitute care for children in the United States of whatever form whether you're talking about nurseries or Group K or family daycare or just a body to babysit where the situation is terrible what they're regardless of what parents may

want for their kids. Where many millions of children are is not where any parent would want their kid to be in terms of the kind of care that's available. There's been a study by Mary Keyserling called Windows and daycare which describe not how many children are in daycare but what kind of daycare they're in. And good daycare is very hard to come by and there are hundreds of thousands of children in bad day care in no care at all essentially somebody's supposed to be watching from the next well way up stairs and the like. And that's children under six. That's not to mention the millions more kids who are latchkey children come home to an empty house. And if you look at the data there you'll find that they say that these latchkey kids are now increasingly coming from all across the society again middle income families not just low income and they contribute far out of proportion to the ranks of pupils who have school problems difficulty in learning to read or

dropouts who are drug users and delinquents and so on. So we have a national problem. The implication of your tying in the shrinking size of the family with say just purely the socio economic conditions of the family leads me to wonder if as a general rule in this society that a fixed non mobile socio economic position leads to an inevitably shrinking family size which leads to all the problems with who's raising the child that you mention before you set a fixed non-mobile. It's just the other way around. It's not the fixed non-mobile it's the mobile unfixed situation that leads to it leads to the circumstance that you're talking about. And I want to perhaps correct another. Conclusion that people might reach that would not be correct. Every now and then people say well it's the break up in the family that's causing it's broken families that are causing

broken children. That would be I think in my judgment and correct the broken family the broken child are both effects of something else. They're both products of a society in which And it's not just children and not just children who are victims of this or families it's it's old people it's sick people it's the disenfranchised it's anybody who isn't paying his own way. We have a we have ceased to be a caring society so that one sees the effects most notably of course on those who need care most and children need care. We don't notice about lonely people who are living by themselves who. One of the most remarkable developments in the census is the increase in the number of people who are little people who live alone. We're talking about the phenomenon of a nation which takes its heaviest toll among

the very young the very old the sick the stranger in our midst and so on. But we've got a problem that cuts across the board. And if you say what's what's the heart of the problem. Give you an example that will I think evoke some controversial reactions among our listeners. A couple of years ago I had the privilege in connection with the scientific exchanges that Secretary Kissinger arranged with the Chinese I was with a group of scientists all specialists in human development. We were in China looking at their children's programs and programs for families in China which are incidentally very impressive. And one of our Chinese hosts said to me Mr. Brown from Brenner we have a guiding principle in our society. It's serve the people. What is the guiding principle in your society. You know I kind of gave up

and some words came to my mind which I didn't say. Do your own thing by doing your own thing. There's the heart of the problem. For some reason our seconds and we've taken only half the slogan that's the American slogan of E Pluribus Unum. That's on our Flagstaff you know we've taken the Pluribus Unum we're all we're all for the individual and not for and not for common concern we're all for competence and not for compassion and we're all for paying your own way. And there are some things you can't pay for. Given the. The inevitable conclusion that there are some families in the country that do work properly what function do they serve. What do people in those so-called good families get out of the family situations that other people can't.

Well you see when you define the problem that way it's very hard to come up with an answer. Because of the way we define a problem and I'm very glad you did it that way because our tendency in American society now we have a very interesting sort of assumption about human nature. We start with the assumption that each individual is responsible for his failure and for his success. So if he does poorly it's his fault if he's done well congratulations. You know you did it you know. We might be willing to go a little bit beyond that and say well that's not the kid it's just family you know. If the kids are not doing well in school it's his family or of or if he does well it's because he's got good parents. Further than that we won't go out as we're looking for the cause and the explanation inside these of the individual or if we're being real far out we say it's the family. The notion that it is an individual who succeeds it isn't families succeed. It's what what the determining factor is the circumstances the position the

conditions under which that family has to live. And so now I can answer your question. Families that you call are competent are families that have had some kind of support from others outside the family. They had have had others who care their parents cared for them their community has cared for them and they now think it's all you know anybody can do it because it's so easy for them. And one way of demonstrating that is to see what happens to competent people when they get into incompetent situations. And you had a dramatic example of that. And some studies that were done during World War Two in concentration camps when the best of Europe got into concentration camps and began behaving like their Nazi captors. It's very easy to think that it's all you know it that everything is under your control. When you had it made since before you were born.

The other part of it is that if you give just a little bit of help and concern to other human beings not in terms of money but in terms of commitment. Now I'm not I'm not downgrading money money is essential but we try it very often in American society to pay off. We even do that within the family we try to pay off our kids for for the fact that we ourselves can't be available. And we do that even more in our way welfare system. We try to pay people off so to speak instead of committing ourselves we tend to hire professionals to act like human beings toward those who are in need instead of taking it on as a responsibility that exists in my neighborhood and Nama neighbor. You say that the social worker take care of it. There are limits to what a hired person can do. That's especially true of course in relation to children I was talking with. I

do a lot of work in other countries in the study of children and there was a time in the Soviet Union when they were going very heavily for boarding institutions. They were going to give everybody the best care that money could buy in a boarding set up. They just went away from that and I asked one of my colleagues there how come you moved away. He said well you can't pay a woman to do what a mother will do for free. What he's saying is that the children need somebody who is irrationally irrationally committed to them. You can't begin to pay a person to do what a child needs. So you've got to find somebody who is nuts about that person. Well it's pretty hard to find parents fulfill that. I'm not I'm not knocking people in my field who are many you know child care workers who are committed to kids but you can't be you can't be committed to 20 kids the way you can be committed to do the three or four or five or even eight in your own

family. So one way of summing this up if I were to say what's the heart of the problem in the heart of the solution I put it this way and I hope that the meaning is clear. When the day comes that families aren't as important in American society as football is on that day. These curves that I've been talking about on increases in family break up will turn around and kids will be learning to read in school. With it even though they may be as interested in the family as they are in football that's not going to change the basic socio economic problem that they had to start with which looked like the thing that triggered off all of the other family problems. I like your questions very much. Yes it will because if we begin to think that

families are as important as football we'll put as much money into families as we put into football big time. Well recognize what it takes. So in a sense I'm saying let me give you an example I said that you look at other countries and you begin to see Sweden as a recently passed a law that says that if you have a child who is sick you can take sick leave. How can business operate. You say we say. Well that's precisely the kind of issue we're talking about. But that's a very important recognition a major change that has taken place in modern industrial societies that we in the United States are not yet ready to recognize and we won't face up to it. And it's a hard fact and we just make believe it doesn't exist that hard fact is we have I think quite properly and quite correctly made some moves to enable women to fulfill themselves as human beings do at least

to the extent that men can if they have abilities they have contributions they can make to society we finally said they ought to have that opportunity. We've done that not in anywhere near enough but we've begun to do it. But in doing it we haven't at all changed the conditions of work. That is you still have to put in 9 to 5 9 to 6 you still have to be prepared to work overtime if they want you to work overtime. You still have to meet all of the obligations or requirements of a man's world if you're a woman. Well. Who cares for the kids in that situation until we are willing as the Swedes are to say alright if we're going to if we're going to take people away from the kids in one area we have to enable people to come back to kids in another area. And the way to do that of course is to say children belong

not just to mothers they belong to parents children belong to parents they belong to to friends to neighbors to the community even to business and industry has a stake in kids and sell business and industry the Swedes now are working on another interesting law that says if you have children under three you work six hours a day in the remaining two hours are paid for out of Social Security and both man and wife have to participate in that in order to get benefits. You can't just noticed what I mean by that you can't just have the woman working six hours a day and the man working eight they've got even-Steven it. Now those are the kinds of measures that we have to be willing to undertake we have to have flexible working schedules so we don't have a situation where a kid comes home from school and there's nobody there. Everything we know about the human being says that the children need people who are going to bring them home to an empty house we're going to get destruction. In the last analysis we're going to get physical destruction. There's an ironic fact again that we

should be able to read the handwriting on the wall in the old biblical phrase. There's hardly a school in the United States now in which vandalism isn't the major problem. I think what that means the principal institution for raising the next generation of Americans is the place in American society where meaningless violence too. Bookstore walls desks paper the things of learning takes place every day. That's saying something not about kids that's saying something about the situation. The way kids are treated and those who care for kids. So the and the problem and I want to emphasize it is not who's caring for the children but who cares for those who care for children. You can't care for kids unless somebody else cares that you care. You mention that your work takes you into a lot of different countries and I wonder why such a program would be successful in Sweden.

The one you described why the Chinese have the slogan serve the people but we seem to be interested only in football and the family as you mention takes such a low priority. What's different about American society what's different about the makeup of the US here. Well I think we should be careful not to not to. Make two sweeping statements even about not only about other kinds about ourselves us here now in one thousand seventy six. We have other themes in our history other themes in our traditions besides doing your own thing we've got as I study Pluribus Unum which is not doing your own thing. We've got a neighbor neighborliness which is an old American tradition we've got all kinds of other things why is it that we're hitting the selfish thing and not some of the cooperative themes that are also very strong in our history. I mean we're we're known as a society that can do teamwork we're great on teamwork. You know back in World War 2 the the teamwork of the American

armed services showed was the envy of everybody else there was something fantastic about the way we could do things. We still can. There are a lot of factors here. Let me mention let me mention two of them. One that. And I'm now moving out of an area where I have competence in the one in which I don't know as much but nevertheless I see that area entering my area. I think the Nixon years have had a terribly destructive effect on America which will take us a long time to get over. And if there is anyone who epitomizes the notion of being up for number one it was that whole period and one of its principal destructive effects is the cynicism which now hangs over the land that we get even when somebody does a humane thing. We don't see it that way I see magnificent incident on TV the other day. There was a man lying in a subway station bleeding and some black teenagers picked him up and took to the station and they had

done so after they had waited nobody was helping him so they moved in. And then they interviewed some people in the people who were watching them thought that the teenagers were mugging the man you see and didn't want to and didn't interfere didn't interfere. And the reason is you see we have the cynicism that anyone would be helping another human being sort of people aren't like the people our people are. The budget to the our impulses are healthy and good we just don't recognize them in each other. That's one thing another thing is a strange business. The essence of American society as many observers have pointed out over the years from our very beginnings in fact right up through in both foreigners and Americans have come to where pragmatics is we know we respect what works and we can make things work. But for a strange reason

we have taken that position in relation to the the physical world gadgets. You know we can make any kind of gadget work where we will invent the better mouse trap but we have a different position about social situations. There we have this hang up that everything is inside the individual and therefore we have given no attention to what one might call social technology. How do you make a humane neighborhood How do you make a. And we've allowed our material technology to sort of go its own way without thinking of what it does to the relations of human beings to each other. And so progressively we've been destroying neighborhoods we've been destroying family lives we've been destroying opportunities and support for irrational commitments by what we've been doing. Technologically I'm not saying the technology is bad but if you use your technology not pay attention to what

it's doing to human relationships you're going to destroy the social fabric. You're going to make an impossible is that when you have for example when you have a pattern in in business and industry where where parents can't get home to see their kids you're going to have the consequence of that the kids will start behaving like kids who don't have parents even though their parents love them and want to get home. When you have as we now have a legal system which makes it more profitable to be divorced than to be married if both parents are working you're going to have people both young and old legally separating in order to be able to get financial benefits which they need. And once you become legally separated it has an effect on you know you start being separate in other ways. And we have so many ways in our society in which we are undermining making it difficult so that now days the person who says I'm going to be a parent for my kids finds that he's black that every turn

his career is blocked his social opportunities are blocked he's looked down upon. And if you're somebody who doesn't have kids and you want to spend time doing kids you saw that you know he's nuts very unpractical he works with children all day. Dr. Yuri Brown from Brenner a human development specialist from a Cornell University in Ithaca New York whose survey of the American population statistics and census surveys has been funded by both the White House and the National Academy of Sciences to you every. Day.