“Rebuilding America’s social capital starts with the early years — addressing the youth mental health crisis”
The Washington Examiner | June 26, 2023
Social capital, that rich network of relationships that builds trust and predicts beneficial life outcomes, is long on the wane in the United States.
An often overlooked area of relational development that could help to reverse this decline is the "early years," those first years of life where patterns for all future relationships are established. The human brain is too large to develop in utero, growing from 25% of its adult size at birth to 80% by age 3. Often taken for granted, this brain development — with synaptic connections made at the rate of one million per second in the first three years of life — takes place in the context of a relationship. In particular, a connection with the mother: her voice, eye-to-eye contact, and touch invested in predictable, abundant, attuned care. Fathers play a significant but secondary role in this process.
Yet much of this science is casually ignored in an economy that pushes both parents into work: 1 in 4 mothers, often out of necessity, return to work two weeks after giving birth. In a report out this week, the Social Capital Campaign publishes research that explores the positive effects of secure attachment on 0-3s on overall mental health, self-regulation, empathy, performance at school, and quality of relationships in adult life.
Nonmaternal care for over 30 hours a week, by contrast, is associated with "problem behaviors" and lack of social skills that persist through childhood, adolescence, and into young adulthood — similar to the effect size of poverty on behavioral outcomes.
The benefits of secure attachment are an inconvenient truth. It requires a stay-at-home mother in order to achieve it. Surrogate care from a father, a grandparent, or a nanny is good but a second best, with institutional care the least desirable option.
Other developed countries accommodate the reality that women give birth, and provide paid support to allow mothers to bond with their children. The average total paid leave available to mothers in the European Union is 64.6 weeks. The OECD, 50.8 weeks, up from 17 weeks in the 1970s. The United States offers 12 weeks of unpaid leave nationally (for those working with 50-plus employees within a 75-mile radius).
When the average OECD mother was enjoying 17 weeks of paid leave in the 1970s, 39% of American mothers with children under the age of 6 were in the labor force. In 2022 that figure was 67.9%. In consequence, two-thirds of young children receive some nonparental care (day care) in America, compared with one-fifth of children in the mid-70s. Not only is secure attachment harder to achieve, therefore, but also stay-at-home mothers are less likely to find relationship support from peers than mothers in previous generations, making parenting lonelier and harder.
This is an issue because America is putting its children and youth at a significant disadvantage. With a rise in anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide, almost half of adolescents report having had a mental health condition at some point in their lives. Studies show university freshmen are increasingly overwhelmed and unable to handle stress. Yet foundational stress systems are established through attachment in the early years. A rise in self-harm is explained as an attempt to self-soothe. Yet emotional regulation is established in the early years through attachment. When anxiety and depression increased by 63% among 18-30-year-olds between 2005 and 2017, we would do well to ask whether a rise in nonmaternal care is a contributing factor.
For now, parents, feeling the need to bring in two incomes to manage the $300,000 cost of raising a child, struggle to find child care in order to hold those jobs down. Infant care in 2021 was more expensive than college tuition in 33 states and Washington, D.C. More than half of U.S. residents live in areas where there are three children under the age of 5 for every licensed child care space — assuming they want one.
Our research shows that most parents want to have one parent stay home to look after a child, at least in the early years. But in America this is considered a luxury. As such, current policy solutions are focused on how to expand nonmaternal child care, principally through day care centers. This is perhaps a misguided place to prioritize spending.
The U.S. is an outlier in its lack of support for mothers and families. America is the second most expensive place in the world to give birth but reports the highest maternal mortality rates among all developed countries. It is the only developed country in the world that doesn’t offer paid family leave nationally. A truly inclusive economy and forward-thinking society would allow women to participate in the labor force within a climate favorable to maternity leave and career breaks without penalty.
As America looks to its future, it should reconsider the value and investment it places on 0-3s. With a focus on the early years, the United States could be a global leader: rebuilding social capital and making it the best country in the world to start and raise a family.
“The Early Years — Youth Investment.”
