HYMOWITZ, Kay S. 1948-

PERSONAL:

Born December 25, 1948; children: three. Education: Brandeis University, B.A. (magna cum laude); Tufts University, M.A. (English literature); Columbia University, M.A. (philosophy).

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Ivan R. Dee, 1332 North Halsted St., Chicago, IL 60622-2694. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Taught English literature and composition at Brooklyn College and Parsons School of Design, both New York, NY; senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute; associated with the Institute for American Values.

WRITINGS:

Ready or Not: Why Treating Children As Small Adults Endangers Their Future—and Ours, Free Press (New York, NY), 1999.

Liberation's Children: Parents and Kids in a Postmodern Age, Ivan R. Dee (Chicago, IL), 2003.

Contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New Republic, Newsday, Commentary, Public Interest, Dissent, and Tikkun. Contributing editor to City Journal.

SIDELIGHTS:

Kay S. Hymowitz is an expert on child development who rejects the changes in the way childhood has been viewed over the last several decades. Her values are made clear in her first book, Ready or Not: Why Treating Children As Small Adults Endangers Their Future—and Ours. Hymowitz feels that where children were once protected and guided toward adulthood, they are now seen as independent, mature, miniature adults, who need only minimal guidance to develop into the responsible, rational people they are destined to be. She sees modern parents as putting themselves in the role of their children's friends, boosting their children's self-esteem and providing them with the information they need to make their own decisions, all of which takes the pressure off the parent. She comments on child-care practices from infancy, including the use of "infant development toys." Furthermore, she notes that teachers are often referred to as "co-learners" and "facilitators," and then says that it is not surprising that there is a fifty percent attrition rate during teachers' first five years, since "why would adults want to be teachers in a society that believes adults have nothing to teach?"

Hymowitz says modern childrearing practices are a threat to the futures of both children and adults. Previously, people believed that it takes fifteen to twenty years to raise a child who is responsible to himself and to the public good. It was also believed that these formative years should be overseen by a mother and father, with the help of society, all of whom nurtured a child's heart and mind. Now these traditional ideas have been turned upside down, and the blame, according to Hymowitz, goes to liberal-leaning sex educators and classroom teachers, as well as marketers who concentrate on turning children into consumers. She writes that "tweens," children from ages eight to twelve, are encouraged to be "cool" by wearing the right clothes and using the right electronic gadgets and toys.

Public Interest writer Diana West felt that "what is ultimately unforgivable is how they [parents] have come to enable their own children to be exploited and dominated by the crudest influences of the market-place—from MTV to the horror movie Scream to Beavis and Butthead. Having abdicated their own authority, parents have allowed noxious media influences to fill the breach and promote what the author calls 'the cult of the teenager,' probably the single-most destabilizing influence on traditional childhood." Margaret Talbot wrote in the New York Times Book Review, "This may seem like any awfully diverse crew of culprits—like Reds under the bed, the childhood snatchers are all around us. And it's true that Hymowitz stretches her thesis just about as far as it will go. But if that's a weakness of Ready or Not, it's also a strength." Talbot noted that although the Manhattan Institute, where Hymowitz is a senior fellow, "is known for its conservative agenda, the argument here is nuanced enough and politically balanced enough for neither left nor right to dismiss."

Talbot further felt, however, that Hymowitz does not adequately consider the fact that it is now often necessary for both parents to work, and she does not explore the reasons why so many people are "marrying later, lingering in college, and job-hopping." Hymowitz does provide statistics, though, including those that show that in 1960 about seventy percent of children had stay-at-home mothers, while thirty percent of preschool children of working mothers are now in daycare. She estimates that seven million children go home to an empty house. Hymowitz writes that "children who spend the bulk of their time in an institution are going to learn a fundamentally different way of constructing an inner life than those who spend most of their days with an adoring parent." "The outcome of enforced early maturity, Hymowitz believes, is that youth-deprived children and teenagers extend their childish ways into their twenties and thirties," noted A. J. Hewat in the Wilson Quarterly. "From boomers on down, adults are dressing in jeans, sneakers, and baseball caps, watching action-packed dinosaur movies, throwing themselves Halloween parties, and fussing over their food."

Commentary contributor Mary Eberstadt felt that this book is not just for parents, but for "every psychologist who has pondered the skyrocketing rates of disorder in prepubescent children, every teacher and principal and school-board member who has lost sleep over the vulgarity and violence in even the best public schools, every doctor concerned with teenage medical plagues from eating disorders to STDs. But perhaps Ready or Not should be reserved especially for all those angry and defensive souls, most of them female, who let fly with letters to the editor whenever anyone dares to wonder how it ever came to pass that so many American children—figuratively and often literally—have ended up home alone."

With Hymowitz's next book, Liberation's Children: Parents and Kids in a Postmodern Age, the "main thrust," according to Booklist critic Ray Olson, is "penetrating dissections of Sesame Street and contemporary feminism." The volume is a collection of Hymowitz's articles published in the urban policy publication City Journal. She addresses many of the same topics that are included in her previous book, and both books have a distinctly urban slant. With this volume, she writes about Manhattan parents who strive to get their young children into the best daycare and kindergartens, particular in the essay titled "Fear and Loathing in the Day Care Center."

Times Literary Supplement reviewer Terri Apter wrote that "Hymowitz's argument is not directed against pushy parents: instead, the target is what she identifies as 'ecstatic capitalism'—the belief that success in the workplace is the greatest good to which we can aspire, and the consequent lost opportunities to encourage wider development." Apter called "On Sesame Street, It's All Show" Hymowitz's "best essay." Here Hymowitz points out that the publicly funded show uses the flash typical of television, as well as other anti-intellectual devices to teach toddlers to read. National Review contributor Michael Potemra, who called the Sesame Street chapter "a masterpiece of culture criticism," also noted that in a society where adults place the most importance on money and sex, "should anybody be surprised that the children are following suit?"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Alberta Report, January 24, 2000, Nathan M. Greenfield, review of Ready or Not: Why Treating Children As Small Adults Endangers Their Future and Ours, p. 58.

Booklist, May 1, 2003, Ray Olson, review of Liberation's Children: Parents and Kids in a Postmodern Age, p. 1559.

Commentary, November, 199, Mary Eberstadt, review of Ready or Not, p. 55.

Insight on the News, November 29, 1999, Liz Trotta, review of Ready or Not, p. 26.

Library Journal, October 15, 1999, Kay L. Brodie, review of Ready or Not, p. 88; May 1, 2003, Mary Ann Hughes, review of Liberation's Children, p. 141.

National Review, August 11, 2003, Michael Potemra, review of Liberation's Children.

Newsweek, December 6, 1999, George F. Will, review of Ready or Not, p. 98.

New York Times Book Review, November 14, 1999, Margaret Talbot, review of Ready or Not, p. 18.

Public Interest, winter, 2000, Diana West, review of Ready or Not, p. 109.

Publishers Weekly, September 6, 1999, review of Ready or Not, p. 92.

Times Literary Supplement, October 3, 2003, Terri Apter, review of Liberation's Children.

Wilson Quarterly, winter, 2000, A. J. Hewat, review of Ready or Not, p. 111.*