RAISING CHILDREN

No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child raising is not good for women or children.

-- Barbara Ehrenreich



Q. Television, especially cartoons, can have an enormous effect on little kids. What do you want your young viewers to come away with?

A. When I was about 7 years old, I built a leprechaun trap out of a cardboard box, a biscuit tin and some toilet paper tubes. My mom said: “There’s a flaw. Leprechauns have magic. They might escape.” I asked her what to do, and she said: “Whiskey. That’s their weakness.” So she got a shot glass of whiskey for me and put it in the biscuit tin. The next morning, a hole had been busted through the tin, the whiskey was gone and there was green glitter everywhere. That day, my awesome mom gave me something invaluable — a 10th of a second of believing. I’m giving other kids, perhaps, something like that moment.