The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis

by Nate G. Hilger

Overview

How parents have been set up to fail, and why helping them succeed is the key to achieving a fair and prosperous society.

Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, and its primary workers—parents—labor in isolation. If they ask for help, they are made to feel inadequate; there is no centralized organization to represent their interests; and there is virtually nothing spent on research and development to help them achieve their goals. It’s almost as if parents are set up to fail—and the result is lost opportunities that limit children’s success and make us all worse off. In The Parent Trap, Nate Hilger combines cutting-edge social science research, revealing historical case studies, and on-the-ground investigation to recast parenting as the hidden crucible of inequality.

Parents are expected not only to care for their children but to help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in today’s socioeconomic reality—but most parents, including even the most caring parents on the planet, are not trained in skill development and lack the resources to get help. How do we fix this? The solution, Hilger argues, is to ask less of parents, not more. America should consider child development a public investment with a monumental payoff. We need a program like Medicare—call it Familycare—to drive this investment. To make it happen, parents need to organize to wield their political power on behalf of children—who will always be the largest bloc of disenfranchised people in this country.

The Parent Trap exposes the true costs of our society’s unrealistic expectations around parenting and lays out a profoundly hopeful blueprint for reform.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262046688
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	04/26/2022
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Nate G. Hilger is an economist and data scientist in Silicon Valley. His work on the origins of success in children has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets. He has published articles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and other leading academic journals.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1
1 An Alternate Reality 21
2 What Parents Really Do 57
3 Teaching Old Parents New Tricks 85
4 Why Parents Can't Build Skills on Their Own 111
5 Skill Development and Racial Inequality 133
6 Getting More by Asking for Less 165
7 Why We Don't Invest in Skill Development 189
Appendix 215
Acknowledgments 225
Notes 227
Index 287

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The Parent Trap is a provocative, well-written, and creative analysis of the problem of parenting in America and what to do about it, making a bold case for policy changes to support parents and children in new ways.”
—James J. Heckman, Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College, University of Chicago; recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics
 
“Hilger expertly weaves together cutting-edge science and historical narratives to give us a fresh perspective on how we can help parents raise children and combat growing inequality across generations. Captivating, rigorous, and insightful, this book will be valuable for everyone from parents to policy makers.”
—Raj Chetty, William A. Ackman Professor of Economics, Harvard University
 
“Few books open your mind to a new way of seeing an issue. This book is the rare exception. The right role for parents, according to Hilger, is not to provide children the skills they need to succeed but to band together to advocate for new and better policies in the public domain. This impassioned and highly readable book lays out an ambitious policy agenda supported by a fresh way of seeing deep inequalities by race and class.”
—Isabel Sawhill, Senior Fellow, the Brookings Institution; author of The Forgotten Americans and Generation Unbound
 
“DON’T READ THIS BOOK—unless you want assumptions on the origins of inequality replaced with facts. Nate Hilger brilliantly weaves together the very best social science research on youth outcomes and parenting to highlight our successes but also how our society can [VC4] do much better if we dare.”
—Bruce Sacerdote, Richard S. Braddock 1963 Professor in Economics, Dartmouth College
 
“Surely among the most important books of the year. This groundbreaking and clearly written book offers concrete solutions for one of the biggest problems facing contemporary society: the unreasonable expectations we place on parents. A must-read for scholars, policy makers, activists, and, yes, parents.”
—Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times bestselling author of Everybody Lies

Editorial Reviews

A Greater Good Magazine Favorite Parenting Book of 2022


A Next Big Idea Club nominee



“The Parent Trap is a provocative, well-written, and creative analysis of the problem of parenting in America and what to do about it, making a bold case for policy changes to support parents and children in new ways.”
—James J. Heckman, Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College, University of Chicago; recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics
 
“Hilger expertly weaves together cutting-edge science and historical narratives to give us a fresh perspective on how we can help parents raise children and combat growing inequality across generations. Captivating, rigorous, and insightful, this book will be valuable for everyone from parents to policy makers.”
—Raj Chetty, William A. Ackman Professor of Economics, Harvard University
 
“Few books open your mind to a new way of seeing an issue. This book is the rare exception. The right role for parents, according to Hilger, is not to provide children the skills they need to succeed but to band together to advocate for new and better policies in the public domain. This impassioned and highly readable book lays out an ambitious policy agenda supported by a fresh way of seeing deep inequalities by race and class.”
—Isabel Sawhill, Senior Fellow, the Brookings Institution; author of The Forgotten Americans and Generation Unbound
 
“DON’T READ THIS BOOK—unless you want assumptions on the origins of inequality replaced with facts. Nate Hilger brilliantly weaves together the very best social science research on youth outcomes and parenting to highlight our successes but also how our society can do much better if we dare.”
—Bruce Sacerdote, Richard S. Braddock 1963 Professor in Economics, Dartmouth College
 
“Surely among the most important books of the year. This groundbreaking and clearly written book offers concrete solutions for one of the biggest problems facing contemporary society: the unreasonable expectations we place on parents. A must-read for scholars, policy makers, activists, and, yes, parents.”
—Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times bestselling author of Everybody Lies

“Hilger makes a compelling argument for federal investment in child-rearing.”—Library Journal

"Hilger is willing to say truths that are often not said. . . . An interesting and challenging book."—Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution
 
"[Hilger's] book is both informative and a call to action for those who care about the well-being of children—which should be all of us."—Jill Suttie, Greater Good Magazine
 
"Terrific—smartly argued and very well written. The basic theme is that society needs to do more to help children build skills outside of the normal school day."—Greg Mankiw's Blog
 
"[The Parent Trap] brings together a lot of data in pursuit of a valuable and noble goal. Many kids in the US (and Europe) get a bum deal and their talent is not realized! . . . The Parent Trap has a clear diagnosis of the problem, and believes it is worth trying to fix it."—David Hugh-Jones, Less Wrong blog

From the Publisher

02/01/2022

Outside of their own work, parents in the United States provide unpaid around-the-clock child-development services to more than 74 million children each year. According to Hilger (economics, Brown Univ.), if these services were provided at market value, the sum of output would be more than $5 trillion a year. Here he argues that the U.S. should consider child development a public investment or an entitlement like Medicare; he proposes "Familycare," with a centralized organization, funding for research, and federal aid to parents. Parents who are isolated or don't have access to parenting guidance or skill building—especially women, non-white people, and impoverished people—are at a disadvantage and often face compounding inequity, which further impacts the children they raise. For instance, a child raised by parents who are in the U.S.'s wealthiest 25 percent will, when they're an adult, earn an average of $50,000 more, each year, than a person raised by parents in the poorest 25 percent. VERDICT This analytical tome may be better for those in public policy than for parents themselves; nonetheless Hilger makes a compelling argument for federal investment in child-rearing.

Library Journal