Overview
In Raised in Captivity, cultural critic Lucia Hodgson examines the contradictory and even harmful responses Americans give when faced with the issues that most dramatically affect children's lives. Hodgson illustrates her points with references to several cases that became media hotbeds: the Baby Jessica case, the Menendez brothers, Amy Fisher, the McMartin Pre-School abuse trial, Susan Smith's murder of her children. Hodgson's approach, however, is to strip away the hype surrounding these cases to reveal America's self-deception about children's realities. Hodgson doesn't pretend to solve the problems facing American children. But her groundbreaking book urges readers to remove the blinders that have allowed us to evade truly progressive reform. She sets the stage for a new dialogue about how to ensure that children are protected, provided for, and guaranteed basic civil rights.Lucia Hodgson reveals America's self-deception about children's realities.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Child activist Hodgson considers childhood "a disadvantaged social and political status for all people under eighteen." Americans may claim to treasure children, but in reality, she says, the best interests of young people are routinely ignored in favor of adult rights. Using high-profile cases such as Baby Jessica, Susan Smith and the Menendez brothers as starting points, she examines the numerous forces in society that harm children, from physical and sexual abuse to television commercials. Hodgson says she focused on popular culture in order to reach as wide an audience as possible, and she has a jargon-free style. That said, her arguments are still unlikely to find broad support. She describes family structure as "inherently dangerous," since it favors parents' authority over children's autonomy. She puts forward some ideas that are not only dubious but also half-baked: she gives no thought to the huge bureaucratic nightmare that would plague parental screening or of where children would go if they were allowed to "divorce" their parents. Other arguments and research are equally fuzzy and while Hodgson makes a point of keeping herself above the political fray, dismissing the views of both the "liberal" media and conservative politicians, she also oversimplifies both sides. Ultimately, this book discusses problems that we all know too well, without offering realistic solutions. (Sept.)Library Journal
In this essay on the rights and welfare of children, Hodgson, director of a children's studies center in California and a consultant for the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children, covers children's vs. parental rights, child custody, child abuse intervention, teenage pregnancy, children as consumers, the economic rights of children, sexual abuse, and handling of juvenile offenders. Both Hodgson's ideas (as a passionate advocate for children's rights) and her analysis of recent controversial cases (Baby Jessica and the McMartin child abuse case, among others) are interesting and compelling. She paints a picture of a society largely insensitive to the protection, rights, and best interests of children and affected by "unconscious conceptual frameworks" that are antichild. Although she makes some unsupported assumptions, her thought-provoking presentation of one viewpoint on the overall issue makes this book a worthwhile purchase for public and academic libraries.Mary Jane Brustman, SUNY at Albany Libs.Kirkus Reviews
America, which considers itself a child-centered society, is, according to Hodgson, anything but.The author, director of a children's study center in Santa Monica, Calif., and a consultant to the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children, uses recent high-profile cases like the Menendez brothers' murder of their parents and Susan Smith's murder of her two children to illuminate how Americans both misread and misdirect their concerns about children's conditions in this society. In chapter after chapter, she lifts rocks from the latest trends in politics, economics, and social theory to reveal a scurrying nest of notions that give priority to powerful adults rather than needy children. For instance, she raises a deceptively simple question regarding the hotly contested issue of children's legal rights: If giving children more standing regarding their home life and upbringing will find them leaving home in droves, as some conservatives have argued, then might there not be something wrong with the homes? In another chapter, she suggests that children are not always better off with their biological parents. The "nearly unconditional parental power" over children shows a society, she asserts, deliberately blind to the fact that most known child abuse occurs within the home and not at the hands of fearsome strangers. Moreover, Hodgson points out that even though we know now that sexual abuse of children is far more widespread than previously believed, the testimony of children about their abuse is regarded as highly suspect. She also fingers poverty as a more likely culprit than moral decay in the so-called breakdown of the family. It is, she concludes, "terrifying, difficult and dangerous to be a child in this society."
No quick fixes suggested here, but a thought-provoking, well-argued examination of the hypocrisy that surrounds America's view of its children, and the tragic consequences of that view.