Losing The Next Generation

By Anastasia Toufexis

Dr. David Hamburg does not flinch from using strong words. The U.S., he says, is committing "atrocities" on its children. "We've already lost a substantial portion of the generation of kids under age 16," declares Hamburg, president of the Carnegie Corporation, a leading foundation in child- development research. "They're lost to drug abuse, crime and teen pregnancy, but also to more subtle corrosives like malnutrition, illiteracy and poor self-esteem."

The destruction that Hamburg chronicles in his new book, Today's Children: Creating a Future for a Generation in Crisis (Times Books, 376 pages, $25), has been inadvertent, a by-product of the social and economic changes that have convulsed U.S. families in recent decades. But Americans -- from government officials to educators to parents -- have been shamefully slow in addressing the impact of such upheavals on youngsters. "Among the more developed countries of Western Europe and Japan," says Hamburg, a noted psychiatrist and educator, "the U.S. now ranks in the bottom quartile in caring for children."

He argues that special attention must be paid to two crucial stages of development: prenatal and early childhood, and early adolescence. Brain damage to the fetus through malnutrition or drug abuse can diminish intellectual ability. And failure to form a secure attachment to an adult in the first two years of life can hamper a child's learning as well as emotional growth. To forestall such damage, Hamburg asserts, women must have access to prenatal care, drug-treatment programs and nutrition counseling. It also helps to assign parental mentors to new mothers (and fathers), and to consolidate social and health services into "one-stop shopping" at local hospitals and clinics.

Youngsters ages 10 to 15 are also vulnerable. "The original idea of junior high school was to ease the transition from childhood to adulthood," notes Hamburg. "Unfortunately, junior high has become a replica of high school. There are no distinctive social relationships or curriculum. It's actually wound up forcing children to make the transition to adulthood even earlier." Hamburg favors abolishing junior highs, or at the least radically reforming them, by creating smaller, more intimate schools within larger institutions and setting up a curriculum in the sciences and health that builds on students' natural preoccupation with their changing bodies.

The major stumbling block to reform, Hamburg notes, is not a lack of money: simply reallocating current resources could yield dramatic gains. The higher hurdle is social selfishness. "People resist giving up what they have," he explains. One group that may be called on to sacrifice is the elderly, on whom vast sums are spent to sustain the last few weeks of life. Says Hamburg, who is 66: "People my age need to understand that our well-being depends on the workers of the next generation. Moreover, as a society, we've got to stop concentrating on the short-time horizons -- the next election, budgetary cycle or quarterly report -- and start taking stock of the long term. Children are a long-range investment."