Mother Childhood Individualism

A nation’s growth is not just dependent on the economical and natural resources but it lies more in the kind of quality of the wealth of its children and youth. It is they who will be the creators and shapers of a nation’s tomorrow. Compare to other countries, American society recognizes the future contributions of children as private responsibility rather than public responsibility. The ethos of individualism is deeply embedded in our culture in that raising children’s cost and care is solely the private problem of the individual. In this essay, the main argument is that America promotes the principle of individualism in raising children as personal duty and not as public responsibility which results in the lack of public policies and laws
And because their work isn't quantified, they disappear from pictures of the economy. This exposes women to higher risks of poverty in old age or in the event of divorce. These risks are aggravated by the built-in bias of law and policy toward paid employment. In “The Price of Motherhood,” Ann Crittenden said, “Unpaid work in the home does not count, Because unpaid child care is not measured and counted as labor, caregivers earn zero Social Security credits for rising children at home” (2001: 77). The present structure of Social Security often wipes out their contributions. Mothers work in caretaking should be valued as an economic investment because they nourish the next generations. There hard work should not be seen as private contributions. Providing care to the next generations should be also considered a public responsibility and the society should also contribute to the children of the future
The article Marriage, Poverty and Public Policy written by Stephanie Coontz and Nancy Folbre, discusses the causes and effects of child poverty. “In Canada and France, single mothers and children in general are far less likely to live in poverty. Sweden and Denmark, which have higher rates of out of wedlock births, have much lower rates of child poverty and hunger than does the United States” (2010:191). The primary causes of poverty are unemployment, poor education, and lack of affordable child care. Two-parent families are not guaranteed from the economic stresses that put children at risk, and that single parenthood does not inevitably lead to poverty. two-parent family is in poverty due to rising cost of raising children, childcare, being penalized for taking time away from job responsibilities to provide family care, lack of education, unfairly getting significantly less earned income tax credit than the single parent, and less income assistance. Public policies toward marriage should be improved; eliminating the marriage penalty on taxes or benefit reductions on low-income couples and designing better public