Generation of diapers

Via The Queen of Myself: Meaning, Moxie, and Majesty for Midlife Women.

Shorter David Brooks, "It Takes a Generation", New York Times, January 24, 2014:

It goes without saying that the problem with poor people isn't the fact that they don't have enough money. It's that they can't control their impulses, can't form attachments, don't possess resilience, and lack social and emotional skills. Even people who can afford to live in $300-per-night hotels while they recover from a divorce can suffer from these issues, which shows that they're more important than what's in your bank account. [jump]

Thus, rather than trying to eliminate poverty with intrusive big-government programs like early childhood education, not that that's not important, we should focus on a more modest, Burkean gradualist strategy like taking over people's lives from before conception* until they're 25, building lifelong social and emotional development and monitoring their cortisol levels**, since government is obviously good at doing that, and I don't know how much it will cost but it can't be more than a guaranteed income, can it? Also it turns out that marriage isn't as important as I thought.***

Image from Aliosa Popovici. 

*roughly half-a-million children are born each year as a result of unintended pregnancies, often to unmarried women who are not on contraception or are trying to use contraceptives like condoms or the pill.... if these women had free access to long-acting reversible contraceptives like I.U.D.’s, then the number of unintended births might decline and the number of children with unready parents might fall, too.

**in schools where 15 percent of the students are disruptive, where large numbers of students live with so much stress that it has stunted the development of the prefrontal cortexes, sent their cortisol levels surging, heightened their anxiety responses and generally made it hard for them to control themselves.

***For the time being, we probably should spend less time thinking about marriage and more time thinking about parenting skills.