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Quote by Kenneth Keniston

“For Americans the contradiction between national ideal and social fact required explanation and correction. Ultimately this contradiction did not lead to the abandonment of the ideal of equal opportunity but rather to its postponement: to the notion of achieving for the next generation what could not be achieved for the current one. And the chief means to this end was a brilliant American invention: universal, free, compulsory public education. This "solution" was especially important for children and families because it gave children a central role in achieving the national ideal.”

Quote by Kenneth Keniston

Book:All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

Work

All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

This book delves into the various pressures affecting American families, examining the social, economic, and psychological factors that shape family dynamics and the broader American family unit. more

Author

Kenneth Keniston

Kenneth Keniston, born on January 6, 1930, is an individual whose profession and category are unknown. His life story and contributions are not well-documented, and further research is needed to understand his background and achievements. more

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“We measure the success of schools not by the kinds of human beings they promote but by whatever increases in reading scores they chalk up. We have allowed quantitative standards, so central to the adult economic system, to become the principal yardstick for our definition of our children's worth.”

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Author:Kenneth Keniston

“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 raise all children to a minimally decent standard of living.”

Children Made Country Facts Pain Energy Wealth Poverty Greater Standards Shame Raises Psychological Decent Ethical Standards Of Living Psychological Pain American Poverty

Book:All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

Source: All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

“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 is not so much to reeducate parents but to make available the help they need and to give them enough power so that they can be effective advocates with and coordinators of the other forces that are bringing up their children.”

Needs Giving Children Self Enough Helping Problem Today Force Parent Available Myth Acknowledge Recognizing Raising Children Need Help Self Sufficiency Sufficiency Coordinator

Author:Kenneth Keniston

“One current reaction to change in families, for example, is the proposal for more "education for parenthood," on the theory that this training will not only teach specific skills such as how to change diapers or how to play responsively with toddlers, but will raise parents' self-confidence at the same time. The proposed cure, in short, is to reform and educate the people with the problem.”

People Self Play Problem Parent Teach Example Theory Skills Training Raises Currents Self Confidence Reactions Cures Reform Parenthood Educate Proposal Diapers Toddler

Author:Kenneth Keniston

“Parents still have primary responsibility for raising children, but they must have the power to do so in ways consistent with their children's needs and their own values.... We must address ourselves less to the criticism and reform of parents themselves than to the criticism and reform of the institutions that sap their self-esteem and power.”

Way Needs Children Stills Self Values Parent Responsibility Self Esteem Criticism Institutions Esteem Reform Primaries Addresses Consistent Raising Children Sap

Book:All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

Source: All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

“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 their children would not turn out well.”

Source: All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

“Mothers work outside the home for many reasons; one of them is almost always because their families need their income to live up to their standards for their children.”

Needs Children Reason Home Mother Family Standards Economics Work Out Income

Book:All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

Source: All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

“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, the good family was to be as self-sufficient as the good man.”

“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 all, the most grievous problems are those that especially afflict a large minority--the poor, the nonwhite and, in various ways, the parents of handicapped children.”

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Book:All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

Source: All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

“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 those others from a position of inferiority or helplessness. Teacher, doctors, social workers, or television producers possess more status than most parents.... As a result, the parent today isa maestro trying to conduct an orchestra of players who have never met and who play from a multitude of different scores, each in a notation the conductor cannot read.”