Raised In Captivity

I’ve been reading a book by Lucia Hodgson, Raised In Captivity: Why Does America Fail Its Children? I have to return the book to the library tomorrow, and I hadn’t gotten a chance to finish it, so I skimmed through the last of the chapters today. I picked it off the shelf in the library around a month ago, and i’ve been pleasantly surprised by her arguments and viewpoints. I assumed it was going to be one more book railing on how we need to protect our children from violence and TV, but she has decidedly more of a radical tinge:

“I am not suggesting that children should be allowed to ignore the laws that make civilization possible. But I am arguing that children have the same right to self-determination as adults: the same right, for example, to pursue the religion or sexual orientation of their choice. I am arguing that we should raise children to be what they want to be, not what we want them to be, and, therefore, the goal of ideal child rearing should be to provide a safe, nurturing environment with as few restrictions as are necessary to maintain it. I am arguing that children deserve safety and protection whether their behavior pleases the adults around them or not. They deserve to be protected and empowered.”

For much of the book, Hodgson describes how Americans believe that they care about their children, but through examples shows that in fact most parents are acting on their own fears and wishes. Most examples are nationally well-known court cases from the early ’90’s, involving child abuse, child custody, murder, and foster care laws. I wish she had given more detail on these cases. Because they were recent at the time of publication, there was an expectation that the reader would already know the details of the cases and people involved.