The Anatomy of Neglect - Part I

In April 2012, a father in a south hills suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, leaves his two children, aged 6 years and 9 years to play by themselves for two hours in the playground of a local park. He drives away to do his errands. A patron in the park is alarmed that they are playing unsupervised for a long time. She calls the police. The father is charged with two counts of child endangerment.

In August 2011, a woman leaves her one-yr old child in her stroller outside a restaurant in Amherst, Massachusetts, and goes inside to order her food. The child is unattended for about ten minutes. Passers-by who see the unattended child in the stroller on the sidewalk, are alarmed. They call the police who alert the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families to investigate the woman for potential abuse or neglect.

In December 2009, a woman in Phoenix, Arizona, leaves her sleeping son, strapped in his car-seat, inside the car that is parked in the first parking-spot outside a bookstore. She goes inside the store with her older child. A passer-by, alarmed at the sight of an unattended sleeping child in the open car, calls 911.  The mother is charged with one count of neglect.

Under the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003, the minimum standards that all states must adopt in their individual definitions of endangerment, neglect and abuse, is as follows:

“Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caregiver, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”

There are common threads that connect the cases of alleged neglectful parenting outlined above. For one, the accused parents who were involved in all three cases were immigrants/foreigners. They are not native to the culture of fear-driven parenting that seems to have taken hold of mothers and fathers (native and immigrant) in America today.

The father in Case # 1, Govindaraj Narayanasamy, a name that’s a mouthful for anyone who is not from Southern India, was put through what I know must have been a harrowing four months before the two charges against him of child endangerment were dropped. His case came to my attention through the website run by Lenore Skenazy, FreeRangeKids.com, that shuns the current norm of helicopter parenting and promotes “free range” parenting. She is the mother who, in 2008, let her 9-yr-old son ride the New York subway alone, sans cell phone. You can read about it here. But back to Mr. Narayansamy who shares with me commonalities that go beyond ethnic origins. After this incident, there was an outcry from the public in support of his decision to let kids be kids and play, of all the places, in a park! Without knowing the details in the legalities of this case, I venture to guess that his status as an immigrant/foreigner (someone new to the culture of American parenting and its concomitant laws) and Mr. Narayansamy’s efforts to educate himself about the same, via parenting classes, played a pivotal role in the dismissal of his charges.

The mother in Case # 2 is from Sweden. When this mother was criticized for her actions, she said that she “found nothing wrong with the situation,” and pointed out that in her country it is common practice for mothers to leave children unattended in their strollers outside restaurants or other shopping establishments. She was investigated for potential neglect, but the police and the Massachusetts Dept. of Children and Families went with their better judgment and decided not to press charges despite the hysteria of the passers-by who had called the police. The woman’s husband, an American, recounted the incident: “The people who reported the incident to the police were there when my wife came out of the restaurant…. They were hysterical, screamed at her in front of our child, told her she was a bad mother and there should be laws against people like her having children.”

The mother in Case # 3 from Phoenix, Arizona, if you haven’t suspected already, dear reader, is me. My children and I were on our way to get my son’s hair cut. I was early for our appointment, and we decided, on the spur of the moment, to take a detour via our favorite used bookstore. When we arrived at the bookstore, my son was fast asleep. I tried to wake him, but he wouldn’t wake up. I did not want to forcefully rouse him and risk having him be cranky and uncooperative for his haircut. Against my better judgment, as I realized very shortly thereafter, I left my son to continue his nap and walked my daughter into the bookstore. I told her to go to the children’s section, which was at the back of the store, and pick her books. I stayed and browsed at the front of the store, from where I could see my car. I had got the very first parking spot outside the store, which played some part in my decision to leave my son asleep in the car. After about ten minutes, I noticed a police car parked next to mine. I ran out of the store. I explained the situation to the officer.

During our conversation, and while I explained my perspective to the officer, he asked me if I watch the news or if I had been to the post office to see all the missing children’s posters. I said “Yes.” He then asked me if I knew “how long it takes to steal a kid?” I answered, “Probably a few seconds.” He said: “Exactly!”

Statistics show that our children are far more likely to die from or be injured by gunshot wounds than be vulnerable to abductions by strangers. It is known family members and acquaintances who carry out the vast majority of “kidnappings” of children. Not the perverted stranger.

To be clear, a statistic of one missing child, is one too many. The point is not that the statistic of stereotypical kidnappings is small and therefore unimportant enough to be ignored. The point, rather, is that when it comes to missing children, the media focuses overwhelmingly on the type of kidnapping that comprises 2% and 3% of total missing incidences. According to the reports brought by the US Dept. of Justice’s NISMART (National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children,) – and yes, you read that last category correctly, - stereotypical kidnappings by strangers comprise 2-3% of all missing children reports. The categories of ‘runaways’ (children who leave home without permission and stay away overnight) and “thrownaways” (children who are asked to leave or prevented from returning home without alternate arrangements) comprise 48% of all missing cases. About a quarter (28%) of missing cases have benign reasons such as miscommunication and misunderstanding between child and caretaker. Children who were missing because they became lost or injured accounted for 15% of all missing children. Finally, about 9% of children are abducted by family members. And to re-iterate: stereotypical kidnappings comprised 2-3% of all missing reports.

Why does the media not focus on the lives of runaways and the unbelievably-termed “thrownaways?” Regarding the latter, could they really not think of another name? How about ‘sentaways?’ Are social workers and social scientists challenged in sensitivity and vocabulary?  But back to the issue: Why does the media not focus on the social issues that feed the numbers of the largest category of missing children? They have cherry-picked the smallest category and made that the ever-playing sound-byte in the background of our daily lives - that of Stranger-Danger.

In his article in Time magazine, Invasion of the Baby Snatchers, Walter Kirn points to the overwhelming attention brought by the media to kidnappings with melodramatic storylines which are hugely disproportionate to the stories we don’t hear about children who are harmed and neglected in a thousand other ways. He asserts: "One wonders if the abduction reports are a runaway habit whose internal momentum can get the best of reporters and editors, flattening everything else that lies before it: stories of war and preparations for war, of corruption among the elites, of floods and droughts. What, no kidnapped kids this morning? Well, find some!"

When I explained my perspective to the officer, the two hyperventilating, ultra-judgmental “good Samaritans” one of whom had called the police, both contradicted my account, in particular, my time estimations. When the officer asked me how long I thought I was in the store, I answered “seven to nine minutes.” In response, Good Samaritan #1, who goes by the name of Jennifer, said that I was lying because she had been watching my car “for over thirty minutes.” The other do-gooder going by the name of Tracey reported to the officer that she saw me browsing in the store for twenty minutes. When I began to refute their estimations, the officer separated us and took the witnesses aside. Weeks later, as a part of the formal investigation, video surveillance tapes of the parking lot showed that my absence from the car spanned thirteen minutes.

For over two hours, the investigating officer vacillated. He told me a dozen times “I could go either way with this case.” He interviewed the witnesses. He questioned me. He called his superior. Throughout the ordeal, which lasted over two hours, my son continued to sleep peacefully, oblivious to the turmoil his mother was now in.

The phenomenon of neglect, like any other social ill, is rife with complexities and contradictions. Despite years of research, there is no clear, reliable and valid definition of child abuse and neglect. “The vagueness and ambiguities that surround the definition of this particular social problem touch every aspect of the field—reporting system, treatment program, research and policy planning.” To name just a few, there is a lack of consensus over what constitutes dangerous and unacceptable forms of parenting. There is uncertainty about whether to define maltreatment based on adult characteristics, adult behavior, child outcome, environmental context, or some combination thereof. There is conflict over whether standards of endangerment or harm should be used in constructing definitions. (Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect, 1993.)

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD) recommended, in 1989, that definitions of neglect include behavior towards another person that (a) is outside the norms of conduct, and  (b) entails a significant risk of causing substantial physical or emotional harm, and (c) are behaviors of omission and commission that may be intentional or unintentional.

There is little doubt that the three cases described at the beginning of this essay involved parental behavior outside the norms of current American parenting. I am also in agreement with the notion that when in Rome, one must do as Romans do, especially if there are legal ramifications if you don’t. However, it is necessary to examine the anatomy of neglect from other angles:

While the quote “It takes a village to raise a child,” has its origins in an African proverb, it has now assumed, thanks to Hilary Clinton, the guise of yet another American sound-byte, albeit one that rings hollow in the ears of this writer. You only need to read some of the comments by parents on articles of instances where mothers deviate from the normative hyper-parenting of today, to get a feel for the vicious, judgmental mentality of fellow mothers/parents. The “Good Samaritans” in the three cases I described failed in their roles of being avenues of support from the community. They chose to involve themselves in the incidents. They volunteered their “services.” Yet, instead of being the supportive passers-by who filled the apparent gap in vigilance by the parent, these Samaritans turned into predators. They took pleasure in bringing down their compatriots for an error in judgment that is best described as a cultural faux pas.

From the standpoint of law enforcement, too, the State failed in its assessment of the incidents in two ways. The “significant risk” that was assumed to have been created by the apparent lapses in vigilance may be an artifact of our media’s obsession with sensational storylines.  Abduction statistics do not point to a significant risk. And while the spin of the media may turn the layperson into a paranoid, hyper-reactive individual, specialists in law enforcement and social services ought to be better aware of the reality. As professionals who are exposed to truly horrific instances of abuse and neglect, they must have a better sense of sifting out cultural differences masquerading as misdemeanors. With the absence of other factors that might impair judgment such as intoxication or drug use, and the presence of exotic names and/or accents, the deviation from the norm in the behavior of these parents should have been viewed via the lens of cultural variation, and not through the lens of condemnation. A warning is all that is required to make the New Settler aware that there are laws in America, and fears in America where there are none in the country of origin.

Tarzan and his mate, Jane

Today would have been my father’s 78^th birthday. I am posting a poem written by him on a long-standing effort by him to get my mother to trade wearing sarees and chappals (slippers) for wearing salwar kameezes and shoes, when they traveled. My mother, who is most comfortable in the saree, would resist.

My changes and additions are only in formatting.

Tarzan and his mate, Jane

Prologue:

Sometime in 2003 the children decided that we should be treated to our Ruby Wedding Anniversary in great style. Gauri took the initiative and, through her contact, located an exciting location at a time-share spot on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. Her contact sent a picture of the said accommodation that awaited us at this place, and, in prankish jest, had it pictured as a dwelling on a tree-top – showing a ladder placed on the ground, denoting the sole access to the house. This sent my mind also equally whirling – leading us to accept the taunt by placing ourselves in reciprocating jest, aptly as Tarzan and Jane. This also gave me a chance to narrate Tarzan’s overtures to Jane to wean her away from being all too rigidly conservatively clad by suggestions of attiring oneself as occasion demanded.  

Time = Around 2003

Matron = married woman (usually middle-aged with grown-up children) who is staid and dignified

Willful = habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition

Thy Find = Wedding Day

Ruby Time = Ruby Wedding Jubilee (40 years)

Matador land = Spain

Distant mountain lands = Alpine resorts

Long trip in September = Visit to Copenhagen in 3 hops: 

(1) USA – Frankfurt 

(2) Frankfurt – Hamburg by train

(3) Hamburg – Copenhagen by Boat and Train which includes

(4) Ferry boat crossing Germany – Denmark across the Sound

Here, there, on deck = On the plane, on the train, on ferry boat deck

Flying Maharajah’s aides = Air India Hostesses

Concert Habit = Dress suitable only for Social Evenings

Doth not skintight bodice, a chimp suit, choke you all day?

'Tis amazing that this thou now taketh even to bed to lay;

Cast that off for mate’s sake, woman, and slip into airy gown,  

Wherefore cramp thyself further underneath our eiderdown?

My cloth hath clung to me over the years ever so well,

My good man, behold! Can't you see it clads me so swell?

Many that this land do trod, be seen they’ll in only such turnout,

As matron forsake this can I, and be one to such tradition flout?

Come summer we travel to Europe to distant mountain lands,

So, willful woman, stock thyself with attire that occasion demands;

See how you'll then leap with ease o’er brook and ditch alike,

In footwear stitched for rough ground and very tedious hike.  

As college lass on picnic trips, and many great outings thereafter, 

This garb oft survived misadventure, in fun and such loud laughter;

Thy inutile palaver pray cease, and watch how on shape so svelte,

Sits this vestment thou decrieth, gracefully sans pins or any belt.

Come September, the long trip that we planned goes at last afloat,

Which taketh us far – now by plane, then train, and again ferry boat.

Let Concert Habit be, stuff only rugged Wear in thy travel bag, oh Jane,   

Must you really parade in orient garb – here, there, then on deck again?

         

      This garb hath test of time withstood, and turned many admiring heads,

       At seaside, sports site, so too on flying Maharajah’s magnificent aides;

       Be quiet, and bug me no more, you thoughtless bully, you silly ape,

       Forsake I won’t my precious blouse and that ever-so-faithful drape!

This time next year to celebrate thy find, we will in sunny Matador land,

In a pretty hideout on the treetops amidst miles of glorious golden sand;

Splash by day and swing by night, from high branch with grasping strap,

Senora, shed at least for Ruby Time blooming blouse and awkward Wrap!

My father with his wife and daughter in sarees!

An Open Letter to Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, in Response to 'Lean In'

Dear Sheryl Sandberg,

I am taking seriously the invitation you extend on page 173 of your book to continue the conversation you have begun with Lean In, on women and leadership.

I waited with great anticipation for your pre-ordered book to arrive at my doorstep on March 11^th, and now that I have read it, I have much to say in response. My acquaintance with your philosophy of female empowerment began with your 2010 TED lecture. Like thousands of other women, listening to your talk kindled in me a general sense of self-empowerment. Your message of “sitting at the table” and “not leaving until you leave” hit home hard as things that I had clearly failed to do well enough in my own life. As a woman, as an emerging writer, and as someone who has straddled both sides of the fence, namely, the stay-at-home and “working woman” sides, I had many perspectives and angles that were begging to be fit into some philosophy. That your philosophy was an imperfect match I attributed to the fact that yours is mostly tailored to suit the woman in the corporate world. There were many contradictions and questions that I knew could not be addressed or clarified in a TED lecture or commencement speech. That is why I waited, truly eager to read what you had to say in the leisure and expanse of a book. I hope you will take my points of reaction to your book in the spirit of someone who wishes the same end-goals for women as you do, albeit from different pathways and perspectives.

As someone who has been “the only woman in the room” far too many times, it is natural that you have begun your efforts at bridging the gender gap in professional achievement by focusing on issues that you have grappled with yourself. Your spotlight on the issue of ambition and leadership roles fills a much-needed gap in the literature of women’s roles in management.  You make a compelling case for targeting the barriers of self-limiting behaviors and internalized stereotypes, because, as you say, “they are under our own control. We can dismantle the hurdles in ourselves today. We can start this very moment.” You offer valuable advise on how to navigate the terrain of the corporate world which is seemingly a minefield for women. Why then has (initial) support for your book not been unanimous? I offer a few explanations and suggestions:

The statistics surrounding the ambition gap (as quoted in your book) are alarming and not easy to interpret. As you point out, there is scant evidence of the ambition gap when graduation rates are taken into account, as girls out-earn boys in degrees at the undergraduate level (57% of degrees are conferred to girls) and at the graduate level (60% conferred to girls.) However, as you also point out, the ambition gap is a gaping morass when one looks at women several years after graduation. Even among Harvard graduates, the percentage of women in full-time jobs ten years after graduation is around 60%, and for women who have two or more children, it’s less than 50%. The ambition gap is therefore a robust phenomenon that’s hard to ignore. But the reasons underlying this gap are not so transparent. One interpretation of these numbers, and the one you favor, is that a few years after taking educational measures that reflect a prior ambition, women give up on their aspirations and “opt out” of careers by succumbing to negative messages and internalized stereotypes. You treat the ambition gap as predominantly an internal issue, and the thesis of your book, as stated in the introduction, is, “We can re-ignite the revolution by internalizing the revolution.” Many have mistakenly interpreted this approach as an indication that you view women as primarily responsible for their lack of a greater presence in roles of leadership.

Another source of criticism for your philosophy stems from the idea that there are many factors that contribute to the notion of ambition.

An alternate interpretation of the dismaying statistics surrounding “opting out” and the ambition gap that must also be given voice is that ambitions may be muted and squashed as a result of inadequate support in the work and home environments. To use the jungle gym analogy, many women who climb onto the jungle gym are forced to jump off when children arrive because their spouses and work environments do not adequately support their new responsibilities. And it’s very difficult to hang on to the bars of the jungle gym while also holding onto a baby or two. Much of the dissent about your book revolves around this issue.

My contention about the ambition gap doesn’t concern your particular approach to remediation, but rather, concerns itself with questions about the studies that generated the alarming statistics in the first place. Were questions in the studies posed in a general manner that assumed the status quo of inadequate infrastructure and stereotypical gender-roles for women? Or, were the questions skillfully worded to tease out only the element of ambition? For example, consider the question: “If you had the requisite infrastructure and support in terms of childcare and other domestic responsibilities (a condition that the average man takes for granted), would you pursue roles of leadership and greater responsibility at work?” My guess is that if the questions in the studies controlled for variables in the environment that are known to put a damper on ambition, the ambition-gap between men and women would be significantly bridged. Thus, the question still remains: Are women truly less ambitious, and more fearful of risks than men are, or are the differences in ambition an artifact of being too aware of the stereotypical gender roles and sub-optimal conditions in which women are expected to sustain a career? Perhaps the best method to fueling ambition in women involves a multi-pronged approach where women are urged and taught to dream big, as your book most certainly does, but to also create a home and work environment where those dreams are sustainable.

Many critics have also pointed out that a top-down method will not spark a movement. I am of the same opinion. In an essay on feminism titled ‘The Problem with Women,’ I wrote: “Top-down solutions are capable only of  ‘trickle-down’ effects, and not capable of larger brush-stroke changes. For a solution to bring about meaningful changes within a single lifetime, it must begin with a broad base that is common to women of all ages, socio-economic, educational and ethnic backgrounds.” That the focus of your book is primarily on educated women in the corporate world is another reason why I think there is such a polarized response despite the fact that everyone with an opinion wants the same end results for women! The media has already identified a Sandberg camp and a Slaughter camp. While I do not wish to add to the growing commentary about these camps, I will state for the record that I, like Prof. Joan Williams, think that you are both right. I see the shortcomings of your philosophy in its scope and not in its content. In other words, if your philosophy could be extended to include all women, you are sure to ignite a movement. To that end, casting the idea of leadership as a way of life rather than a role is imperative. When we cast the idea of ‘leadership’ as a role or position that women should aspire to, we create certain corollaries that develop from that viewpoint: If you are not in a designated leadership role, you are automatically in the category of the less empowered. You are not in control of the wheel. A “worker bee” who is satisfied with her level in the corporate hierarchy is automatically considered a non-leader when external labels of leadership are applied. And when exclusionary criteria are applied to groups within a group, i.e. women in non-leadership positions within the larger cohort of “working women,” there comes about unnecessary divisions among an otherwise homogenous group.

On the other hand, if leadership is viewed as an attitude, a mindset, a philosophy, and a way of life, it doesn’t leave anybody out of its spectrum. And from anywhere on the spectrum, one could still aspire to external roles of leadership.

Part of my eagerness to read your book stemmed from the desire to learn about the theoretical bases of your philosophy. Why, in your opinion, is the female sex beleaguered (other than the fact that she internalizes stereotypes)? Do you subscribe to the Marxist origins of early feminist thought? Or, what, in your opinion, are the historical roots of female oppression? I was especially looking forward to seeing how your senior thesis at Harvard on the economic determinants of social behavior might have informed your current philosophy. I was particularly hopeful that you would address the question of how, when there is a significant wage-gap between partners (a topic closely related to your thesis), the lower-earning partner could “lean in” (without much financial leverage) if doing so meant scaling back for the higher-earning partner? While these issues were not directly addressed in the book, you hinted at your theoretical leanings in your discussion of the “mommy wars” and the phenomenon of many women rejecting the label of ‘feminist.’ I would like to present my own analysis of these two issues.

The phenomenon of the “gender wars” or what the media loves to call the “mommy wars” is a predictable outcome of the way in which we have framed the issue of female empowerment within a broader theoretical framework. While Prof. Joan Williams (as you quote in your book) attributes these conflicts to a clash of identities and a clash of social ideals, I attribute them to the way we perceive gainful employment within the larger theoretical framework of feminist theory. A detailed account of my explorations is delineated in my essay ‘Is Feminism Elegant?’ In that essay, I explore the shortcomings of dominant feminist thought from the viewpoint of the aesthetics of theory. But briefly: The dominant modus operandi of the feminist movement is gainful employment outside the home. This method has been cast as the unique and singularly powerful pathway to female emancipation. In addition, this technique of empowerment is viewed as a principle of empowerment, and not a parameter, or one expression of a higher principle. Thus, by solely viewing women’s work outside the home as a means of empowerment, we have gravely undermined the value of women’s work inside the home - and by extension, the value of the woman herself. Furthermore, because we view the presence of women in the workforce as a manifestation of a principle of feminist empowerment (and not a parameter), we view those who do not practise it, and do not enter the mainstream workforce as somehow not sipping from the cup of empowerment. They are viewed as ideologically indifferent to the general feminist agenda, or worse, ideologically under-developed! Therein lie the attitudes of superiority from the “working moms” and the counter-attacks of attempts to induce guilt by stay-at-home moms. These judgments are thus predictable products of our perception that gainful employment is the singular method of female empowerment. If however, both gainful employment and domestic work were on equal footing in the theoretical framework of feminist theory, the mommy wars would diminish. Thus, to remedy this, perceptions must be changed. We must learn to view all work undertaken by women, domestic and otherwise, as having monetary value.

Like many others, I too reject the labels ‘feminist’ and ‘feminism.’ My objections are on linguistic grounds. A full exploration of my viewpoint can be found on my blogpost ‘The Feminine Mistake.’ In brief, I reject those labels because they have (negative) connotations of being the “other.” As someone who belongs to the group that makes up half the human population, I deeply object to being classified as the other.

In conclusion, I’d like to offer some unsolicited advise: If you hope to ignite a grass-roots movement with your book and with LeanIn.org, you must broaden your message to include ways in which a woman without a job outside the home can assume leadership roles within her domestic precinct. When I heard you say, in one of your speeches, that women need to “sit at the table,” my immediate reaction was to broaden your message to apply to all women: A woman needs to sit at the head of the family dining table, especially if she is the primary domestic worker. Then, when I read your book and saw that you ended chapter eight ‘Make your Partner a Real Partner’ with “We need more men to sit at the table…… the kitchen table,” I thought to myself: Damn - She beat me to the dining table analogy!

Finally, while many in the media are getting dizzy pointing fingers at your standpoint on female empowerment and supposed lack of experience with female oppression, I want to commend you for beginning a conversation and bringing about awareness regarding the intangible barriers that women succumb to in their professional lives. As you are someone in a position of great influence, I hope that you will eventually broaden your message of self-empowerment to target the intangible barriers that suppress the voices of women in their homes and daily lives.

Sincerely,

Nandini Ramakrishna