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| ESSAY: THE THINGS THEY CARRY | |
 March 29, 2001 
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ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: Used to be you'd see men trudging to and from work with their bulging briefcases. It was the bookend to the day, the parade of the breadwinners. Then women got into the act, barreling through the urban landscape or the airport terminals in jogging shoes toting heavy shoulder bags or backpacks. Then who should join the daily parade of the heavily encumbered but kids-- even little kids, their pre-pubescent bodies weighed down by book bags as they make their way to and from school. We're so used to it now we almost don't notice anymore, the daily, weighted comings and goings of America's children. Make no mistake: Carrying one of these book bags is like carrying a small sibling on your back, 45 pounds worth. They've grown so cumbersome kids are turning to the latest, the so-called rolly backpack, which works like one of those now- ubiquitous rolling suitcases. Sales of the item are up 30% since last fall. Okay, so this isn't just about book bags or premature back aches. It's about work, homework, what we think of it, what an appropriate amount of it is. No question, it's being loaded on, and not just at the Tony private schools. Since 1981, the average homework of the country's youngest students has tripled. Clearly homework is being seen as the increasingly popular antidote to the much-discussed educational decline, the falling test scores. We need our kids up to competitive snuff, able to hold their own in the global economy. To be fair, some of this is understandable-- the desire to have an educated child who can make his or her happy way in the world. But there is also something else-- dependency of baby boomer and post baby boomer parents to foist their own drives and dreams, met and unmet, literally onto the backs of their kids. It's not uncommon to hear parents begin talking Ivy League colleges when they're pressuring their toddlers to get into preschool. I've seen kids in tears, toting around not just book bags, but a premature sense of pressure to fulfill their parents' fantasies, and a premature sense of failure when they don't get into the schools their parents deem fast-track appropriate. The homework also clearly serves as a kind of baby-sitter when parents are missing in action. Families with two working parents have now become the majority. 51% of married couples with children now work, compared with 33% in 1976. We've seen a revolution born of economics, longings, ambitions, needs-- the whole gender upheaval and redefinition. And the fallout from that has been complicated, reverberating through every family, leaving often tired, overworked parents and tired, overworked kids. There's not enough down time, intimate family goof-off time, no family meals, no walks in the park. We live in strangely dis-intimate times. And underneath the bulging book bags, there is an even more punitive trend-- our tendency as a country to treat our kids as premature adults, to absolve ourselves of the nurturing chores and responsibilities and make them tote their own weight earlier and earlier. This can be seen in the increasing trend to try juveniles under 18 as adults. That's a piece of the same story. "They're old enough to know better. Make them pay, tote their weight." Over the past decade, as the book bags have bulged, nearly every state has passed laws making it easier to try minors in adult courts. When it comes to kids, Americans seem to be a bunch of pseudo- sentimental toughies who refuse to remember or choose not to remember how fragile and joyous and confusing and maddening it was to be one. We want them to hurry and grow up and not tug at our hearts and consciences and memories, just join the daily workaholic parade, invisible miniature adults on their way to work. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming. |
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