--There has been a dramatic increase in ear infections, technically known as otitis media, in children. Eberstadt quotes a specialist: "Virtually every study ever done on the increase in otitis media has shown that day care is the most important difference."
--According to Eberstadt, "Practically every index of juvenile mental and emotional problems is rising." Many of these maladies are linked to absent parents. A Department of Health and Human Services report found that "children in single-parent families are two to three times as likely as children in two-parent families to have emotional and behavioral problems."
--Despite recent dips, crime and suicide rates among teenagers are higher than they were three decades ago. Eberstadt writes, "A causal chain is suggested in which home-alone teenagers pick up alcohol and drug habits that, in turn, make it easier to imagine and act on feral behaviors, including suicide."
--"The percentage of overweight children and teenagers tripled between the 1960s and late 1990s," she reports, attributing the rise largely to absent parents, who aren't there to keep their kids from sitting in front of the TV, to breast-feed (mother's milk reduces the risk of obesity later) or to supervise outdoor play.
Absent fathers or mothers might read all this and feel guilty. Eberstadt doesn't consider that a bad thing, arguing that the reflex to protect parents from ever feeling guilt serves "to stop discussion just when it needs to start." She pleads for a broad cultural shift: "We need to replace our current low moral bar regarding nurture with a more humane standard acknowledging that individuals and society would be better off if more parents spent more time with children."
This book cries out, as surely do so many children: "Mom, Dad -- where are you?"