How media elitism misrepresents the problems of the typical American family

From Po:

Over at Time.com, Ashley and I have a new essay called "Baby Einstein vs. Barbie." We argue that much of the media has lost touch with the real issues being faced in American families. Instead, because the media is itself increasingly affluent, and has affluent friends, they look to their own lives for story ideas - and end up devoting a lot of ink to microcrises that only affluent families run across.

Of course, they never admit that these are just the issues of the affluent class; rather, they are held up as representative of us all.

In the Time essay, we focus on the media coverage of parents who push their kids too hard. But there are many other examples: the endless coverage of "adultelescence" in the New York Times; the "coddling crisis" repeatedly mentioned by the Wall Street Journal; a San Francisco Chronicle story that asserted "the new commute is by plane"; a Boston Globe report on students going to 3rd world countries to pad their resumes for college applications; a New York Times story on affluent families hiring teachers away from private schools to tutor/homeschool their kids at home; another SF Chronicle story on parents hiring "parenting coaches" to come over to the house and do the hard parts of parenting.

One of the many consequences of this is that prosperity is made to look rife with problems. They imply that parental success is bad for kids. Like there's something wrong with providing your children good education, a nice house, and plenty of extracurricular options. A few kids are, indeed, pushed too hard. But for most, the good life is indeed a nice life, and not one to complain about. I think this media coverage goads them into complaining about their life, endlessly worrying about problems that don't really exist. I think in our current society, nobody likes to admit they're "upper class." Everyone likes to pretend they are middle class, or maybe "upper middle class," even though their income would put them in the top 10% in the country. In the same way, nobody in our society likes to admit they have an easy life; we all like to be seen as struggling and overcoming and facing issues. In this culture, families with very good lives rarely admit it; they always find something to complain about.

In our essay, we call the books devoted to the affluent class "Supermom Lit." Ashley says "they're not self-help, they're beyond help." These people aren't trying to keep up with the Joneses; they're trying to keep up with the Carringtons. Their problems are routinely of their own making. We can only sympathize so much. Our tears are crocodile tears.

The Supermom Lit books have a hard-to-describe effect on society. In each case, they point out those few crazy parents and insist "Stop The Madness!" But when these books enter the media bubble, they don't seem to reduce the madness at all. They actually increase it. It's sorta like how stories of anorexics work. When anorexics tell their story, it is invariably to warn other young girls "stop!" But if, in telling their story, they mention how it was that they managed to lose so much weight, the intended audience takes that as a tip. Here's how to lose some weight. The act of passing on the story increases the disorder, not decreases it.

And so it is with these parent madness books. Parents who didn't even realize there was a parent-competition going on hear about these books, and they have a reciprocal reaction: they think "gosh, my son's only 4, but maybe I should make him memorize those 130 sight words this article mentions." Parents are drawn into the madness.

Anyway, go read the essay at Time, and please comment here.