The End of American Childhood

"Why have we reached 'the end of American childhood'? What explains the surge in 'helicopter parenting'? A virtuoso historian, Paula Fass offers convincing answers. With vivid examples and persuasive arguments, she takes us on a memorable tour looking at two centuries of parent-child relations. A pathbreaking interpretation of American childhood, her book will attract all those concerned with contemporary families."--Viviana A. Zelizer, author of Economic Lives"Childhood is primal and no one has looked at it more deeply or clearly than Paula Fass. In her book The End of American Childhood, our hopes, obsessions, and mistakes are laid bare. The way we have raised our children from Revolutionary times to the present perfectly mirrors our society and Fass is a terrific and surprising guide. She brilliantly shows us how we got to where we are today--starting in childhood. This is nothing less than a modern-day Rosetta stone for understanding America."--Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids"This richly detailed account of the continuities and variations in Americans' childrearing values and methods puts our contemporary anxieties and challenges in historical perspective."--Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap"This ambitious book sketches major developments in the history of American childhood and parenting from 1800 to the present. Fass shows, with striking insights, that a distinctive American approach to children runs through the entire chronology covered, despite major changes from one period to the next."--Peter Stearns, author of World History in Brief"The End of American Childhood provides a brisk account of the histories of childhood and childrearing from the Revolution to the present. It unifies these stories with a single thread--the way that Americans raised their children with a sense of independence. With a strong and meaningful point of view, this book brings a historical consciousness to contemporary thought and policy."--James Marten, Marquette University