Unsung Heroines: Single Mothers and the American Dream
Abstract
This compelling book destroys the derogatory images of single mothers that too often prevail in the media and in politics by creating a rich, moving, multidimensional picture of who these women really are. Ruth Sidel interviewed mothers from diverse races, ethnicities, religions, and social classes who became single through divorce, separation, widowhood, or who never married; none had planned to raise children on their own. Weaving together these womens voices with an accessible, cutting-edge sociological and political analysis of single motherhood today, Unsung Heroines introduces a resilient, resourceful, and courageous population of women committed to their families, holding fast to quintessential American values, and creating positive new lives for themselves and their children. What emerges from this penetrating study is a clear message about what all familiestwo-parent as well as single parentmust have to succeed: decent jobs at a living wage, comprehensive health care, and preschool and after-school care. In a final chapter, Sidel gives a broad political-economic analysis that provides historical background on the way American social policy has evolved and compares the situation in the U.S. to the social policies and ideologies of other countries.
... Single mothers are often portrayed in popular culture as dependent (including welfare dependent), lazy or unworthy and undeserving, unlike single fathers who are often portrayed as 'exemplary citizens' (Sidel 2006, p. 23). 10 Ruth Sidel (2006, p. 21) points out that single mothers are frequently stigmatised on multiple grounds -for their race, ethnicity and class, 'as well as for raising children without a husband'. She suggests that single mothers are often associated with deviance, and are perceived as presenting a danger to their children, to family wellbeing, to the institution of the family and to wider society (Sidel 2006). In Weeds, the key example of single motherhood other than Nancy is Heylia James, an African-American matriarch and Nancy's drug supplier. ...
... The hierarchy of single motherhood -based in part on race, class and ethnicity (and other identity categories such as sexuality, ability and so on) -means that poor women receiving public assistance are often thought of as black, working-class and middle-class single mothers, and frequently assumed to be separated or divorced, while upper-class widows are usually thought of as white (Sidel 2006). Heylia is a single mother with adult children who is a matriarchal, entrepreneurial force with which to be reckoned. ...
... 9 Significantly, Adkins (2016) points out that those women workers who care for the children of others cannot make claims to intensive mothering. 10 Single fathers are most frequently perceived as exceeding the social expectations of their role, therefore earning honour and respect in the community (Sidel 2006). 11 Unlike Nancy Botwin, Heylia James' marital status is left unexplained. ...
... Single mothers 1 are often at the forefront of public debate and moral arguments about changes in or the decline of the traditional 'nuclear' family (Sidel, 2006;Wilson & Huntington, 2006;Woodward, Horwood, & Fergusson, 2001). These arguments tend to be split between liberal and conservative viewpoints. ...
... While the idea of good or bad and deserving or undeserving may not be publicly stated, the underlying premise remains. Thus it is seen as acceptable to assist 'fit and worthy' women, such as 'white widows' (Sidel, 2006, p. 1), but not those who are unfit or unworthy. Sidel (2006) relates that in her experience of growing up in a single-parent household her father was never criticised. ...
... Thus it is seen as acceptable to assist 'fit and worthy' women, such as 'white widows' (Sidel, 2006, p. 1), but not those who are unfit or unworthy. Sidel (2006) relates that in her experience of growing up in a single-parent household her father was never criticised. Rather, he was widely admired and praised. ...
... The stereotype of the single mother intersects class, race, gender, sexuality, ability, and age. It is a deeply racialized image that presents a false and simplistic picture of a single mother dependent upon social assistance (Bashevkin, 2002;Mitchell, 2003;Sidel, 2006). The discourse of the "welfare queen" pervades everyday dialogue, political commentary, and the ideologies prevalent in social service delivery, the education system, and the broader community (Jones-DeWeever, 2005;Roberts, 1999). ...
... 90) Oftentimes, the single mother is socially and politically conceptualized within an eitheror dichotomy in absolute terms. She is constructed as a heroine (Sidel, 2006), who has somehow managed to overcome all obstacles by just trying hard enough, which dismisses the very real economic, political, and social limitations placed upon single mother families. Or, she is constructed as a marginalized and vulnerable victim who is at the mercy of state policies and the processes of social exclusion (Brady, 2007;Caragata, 2009), with little acknowledgement of the resistance, strength, and agency of single mothers. ...
This paper seeks to disrupt the dominant narrative of victimhood associated with the single mother family status. There are many barriers and difficulties associated with this status such as economic insecurity and political and social stigma. However, there are also many rewards and possibilities that make this family status desirable and rich with possibilities. Single mother families challenge the dominant paradigm of heteronormativity found within the notion of traditional nuclear family households. Drawing on critical feminist and queer theoretical perspectives and qualitative research from my doctoral studies, I will discuss how participants created a new narrative for themselves and their children. In particular, I focus on single mothers engaged in critical pedagogy and curriculum and community activism to seek connections with others who also viewed their families from a strengths perspective. “Single mothers by choice” establishes itself in its own right as a formidable alternative to dominant notions of the “family”.
... The poverty of single mothers has long been a source of controversy and concern. Both the early Settlement Laws and Colonial Poor Laws of the seventeenth century distinguished between the "deserving" poor and "undeserving" husbandless mothers (Sidel 2006). Public debate has intensified as single mother families and their presence among the poor have risen in recent decades (McLanahan and Percheski 2008;Wu 2008). ...
... Policymakers faced with the need to protect single mothers from economic insecurity, while curtailing their perceived dependence on welfare, have struggled with a so-called "new American dilemma" (Garfinkel and McLanahan 1986). Often stereotyped and blamed for their own disproportionate poverty (Sidel 2006), single mothers have been called "the most prominent lightning rod for political attacks," provided with assistance only reluctantly and with stipulations that are intended to counter what is perceived as problematic behavior (Handler and Hasenfeld 2007: 184). ...
We examine the influence of individual characteristics and targeted and universal social policy on single-mother poverty with a multilevel analysis across 18 affluent Western democracies. Although single mothers are disproportionately poor in all countries, there is even more cross-national variation in single-mother poverty than in poverty among the overall population. By far, the United States has the highest rate of poverty among single mothers among affluent democracies. The analyses show that single-mother poverty is a function of the household's employment, education, and age composition, and the presence of other adults in the household. Beyond individual characteristics, social policy exerts substantial influence on single-mother poverty. We find that two measures of universal social policy significantly reduce single-mother poverty. However, one measure of targeted social policy does not have significant effects, and another measure is significantly negative only when controlling for universal social policy. Moreover, the effects of universal social policy are larger. Additional analyses show that universal social policy does not have counterproductive consequences in terms of family structure or employment, while the results are less clear for targeted social policy. Although debates often focus on altering the behavior or characteristics of single mothers, welfare universalism could be an even more effective anti-poverty strategy.
... Second, the stigma casserole featured in Figure 1 offers "food for thought" for colleagues, family members, and friends of single mothers of children of young adults with mental illness. In the words of Sidel (2006): ...
In this paper, the author employs concrete research poetry as a visual representation of a metaphor analysis. Using autoethnographic methods, she explores the experiences of eight single mothers of children and young adults with mental illness. She conducts a metaphor analysis of semi-structured interview data and generates concrete poetic structures from metaphors that emerged from the data. In the process, she transforms data into art.
... 128). In spite of the challenges given by their situation, some lone mothers have a great deal of freedom to shape their lives and address their desires (Sidel, 2006;Edin and Kefalas, 2011;Klett-Davies, 2016). ...
Single mothers who wish to find new dating partners must contend with a lack of free time and the demands of parenting. As online dating has become a more socially acceptable way to access social, romantic, and sexual opportunities, many single mothers are now considering the use of dating apps to pursue their goals. In this article, we explored the vocabularies of motive of single mothers who used the dating app Tinder. For this purpose, we applied the foundational theory of situated action and vocabularies of motive advanced by Mills, which explains how individuals justify their questioned choices and actions in relation to their identities and social contexts. We based our analysis on seven semi-structured interviews with single mothers and seven published accounts of single mothers’ online dating experiences. We identified four vocabularies of motive: (1) freedom and liberation; (2) entertainment; (3) cultivation of eroticism, intimacy, and a desired identity; and (4) temporal justifications. Based on our results, we determined that Tinder appeals to single mothers because of its popularity, potential for experimentation, and swift temporality, which allows these women to quickly access opportunities and synchronize complicated schedules.
... More, scholarship also came out highlighting that the irresponsible black father was exaggerated and that when African American fathers are present in their children's lives, they are as if not more involved, than fathers from other racial backgrounds (Jones and Mosher 2013;Levs 2015). Other scholars have documented the extended networks and nontraditional family structures that have emerged in poor urban areas among African American families (Edin and Kefalas 2005;Sidel 2006;Stack 1997). All of the above is relevant for understanding the cultural and political context in which formerly incarcerated urban black men explain their understanding of fatherhood. ...
... Social class stigma, racial stereotypes like the 'welfare queen' (Kaplan, 1997), social anxieties about traditional family values and gender norms (Sidel, 2006), and notions of teen pregnancy as an 'epidemic' (Kelly, 2000;Pillow, 2006) construct mothering students as undeserving of an education. In fact, the reality that they are care-givers erases their status as care-deserving subjects (Castillo, 2014). ...
This article explores how a Chicana/Mexicana teen parenting educator along the U.S./Mexico border crafted her pedagogy from personalized care, conceptualized as borderland pedagogies of cariño (care). This approach is rooted through the teacher’s interactions with teen mothers who straddle contradictory identities like the boundary of mother/student. Classroom interactions were analyzed through narrative inquiry to understand the pedagogical orientation of the teacher—in effect generating theory from practice. One narrative is featured to show how cariño results in an overall transformation in classroom interaction that leads to student engagement and teacher fulfillment.
... However, there exists a dearth of research on single parenthood and its implications for professional counseling. Although often contradictory, some available research points to notable effects on the parents including changes in their psychological health (Meier, Musick, Flood, & Dunifor, 2016), financial strain (Bauman, 2000), and social stigma (Sidel, 2006). Given the considerable rates of single-parent households, it is imperative that researchers seek to understand the experience and effects of single parenthood. ...
Single parenthood is on the rise, but little research addresses the implications for professional counselors who work with single-parent clients. The present study sought to examine single parenthood from the parental perspective and, from that analysis, draw relevant counseling implications. Using qualitative content analysis, the researchers surveyed single parents about their experience of single parenthood, including role expectations, challenges and benefits, and what they believe counselors should know.
... Second, the stigma casserole featured in Figure 1 offers "food for thought" for colleagues, family members, and friends of single mothers of children of young adults with mental illness. In the words of Sidel (2006): ...
In this paper, the author employs concrete research poetry as a visual representation of a metaphor analysis. Using autoethnographic methods, she explores the experiences of eight single mothers of children and young adults with mental illness. She conducts a metaphor analysis of semi-structured interview data and generates concrete poetic structures from metaphors that emerged from the data. In the process, she transforms data into art.
... In addition to emotional support, they also receive concrete support and assistance, such as saving on expenses, child-minding in the mother's absence, assistance with the children's education, the purchase of gifts, clothing, and toys for the children, or financial support (see also Bott, 1957;Newman, 2000as cited in Nelson, 2006Roschelle, 1997;Sidel, 2006). ...
The present article addresses the support and supervisional relations of Palestinian Israeli single mothers vis-à-vis their families and communities. It links the theoretical discussion on intersectional analysis with power relations and gender. In this article I focus on the importance of employing analytical models that take into consideration the internal variance within this social category of ‘Palestinian Israeli single mothers' which emerge due to the contradictory social trends typifying Palestinian society in Israel today – models that examine the implications of the complexity of women's lives in discrete locations, the changes society is undergoing, together with processes of discrimination and the strengthening of conservative trends. The article is based on data gathered during in-depth, semi-structured interviews that were conducted and analyzed with a commitment to the principles of feminist research.
... Most importantly, a woman has to cope with becoming a single mother. For the sake of their children and their own mental health, single mothers need to play both the expressive and the instrumental roles within the family (Sidel 2006). Many are ostracized and leave their husbands' home penniless and without alimony. ...
Over the last three decades, Palestinian society in Israel has undergone numerous changes, reflected in the rising numbers of families headed by single mothers. This article is based on a study conducted between 2007 and 2011 among 24 divorced, separated, and widowed Palestinian single mothers in Israel. I analyze this emerging family configuration, focusing on these women’s experiences as mothers and on how they accord new meaning to motherhood. My analysis will deal with the diverse ways these women ‘do motherhood’ and negotiate with different familial players. It will extend beyond the discourse on motherhood to shed light on the current changes in power and gender relations taking place in Palestinian-Israeli society.
... Typical attention by the social sciences on the economic conditions for the reproduction of families is focused on the lived experiences of those who are poor, near poor or low-income (Collins and Mayer, 2010;Wilson, 1996), especially single-mother families in the welfare system (Edin and Lein, 1997;Hays, 2003;Sidel, 2006) orthe challenges to, and downward mobility of, middle-class families within changing labor and consumer markets (Newman, 2006;Pattillo-McCoy, 1999). Where the literature tends to isolate certain family groups within specific social and economic institutions (Blank and Barr, 2009;Porter, 2012b), minimal attention has been given to the economic conditions of a broader, more inclusive concept of the family. ...
The United States "Great Recession" beginning in December 2007 was sustained by mounting economic, financial and social problems of the middle-and working-classes, while exposing contradictions between family economic wellbeing and capital accumulation. To investigate this historically-contingent contradiction, this paper develops a macro-historical concept of the family as a social institution utilizing social structure of accumulation theory. Through an institutional analysis of the political, social, and economic conditions of existence for families in the post-WWII United States, the family as an institution, once supported through a safety net of public support for the reproduction of labor power, becomes leveraged to support consumer demand through private expenditures. This relationship with the political economy leads to a historically-contingent understanding of how the economic deterioration of families is linked to unprecedented levels of consumption, and a culture hedged on consumer debt.
... Typical attention by the social sciences on the economic conditions of families is on the lived experiences of poor, near poor, or low-income families (Collins and Mayer 2010;Wilson 1996), especially singlemother families in the welfare system (Hays 2003;Sidel 2006;Turner, Danziger, and Seefeldt 2006) and the downward mobility of middle-class families within changing labor markets (Newman 2006;Pattillo-McCoy 1999;Warren and Tyagi 2003). Where the literature includes certain family groups within specific social institutions, minimal attention has been given to the economic conditions of the family combining the poor, near-poor, and working and middle classes. ...
The “Great Recession” in the United States exposed contradictions between the economic well‐being of families and capital that developed in the decades prior to this latest downturn. Using social structure of accumulation theory, a qualitative institutional analysis, and quantitative time‐series models, this article investigates historically contingent relations between the nature of public assistance, family economic deterioration, and capital accumulation. To sustain the circuit of capital, I argue that the family propped up economic growth first through public cash assistance and then through private expenditures, the latter of which lead to the economic deterioration of families dependent on unprecedented levels of debt.
The study was about an Assessment of the Challenges facing Single Mothers on their Spiritual Growth in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The objective was to establish the biblical and theological foundations for single mothers on their spiritual growth in the Seventh Dy Adventist Church. The Marxist Theory of Feminism was used. The study was conducted in Kisii County which is in Western Kenya. The target population in the study included 5 Churches within the Nyanchwa Station, South Kenya Conference. The researcher employed a census sampling method from the 5 churches with a sample population of 105 participants. The main instruments of data collection for the study were questionnaires, focused group discussions, and oral interviews. The study established the biblical and theological foundations for single mothers by referencing single mothers in the Bible. The study recommended that all aspects of inclusivity, acceptance and being welcome need to be accorded to all Christians, regardless of their marital status; The Church in Africa could borrow a leaf from the Church in the West in practicing the doctrine and social teaching of the church, about accepting members as they come; and Pastoral Councils and Christians in leadership need to be on the front line in practicing inclusiveness and acceptance of every Christian.
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This article focuses on the composition practices of three single moms across academic ranks and single mom identities in order to expand our understanding in Composition and Rhetoric of how composing processes are influenced by lived experience and material circumstances. Drawing on composition process research, I argue for the need to give greater attention to the individual composing practices of those with marginalized identities in order to strengthen our work in Comp/Rhet as teachers, mentors, and colleagues. Written in a style that combines testimonios and analysis, this article pushes and expands our understanding of what counts as composition practice, why composition practice does not happen, and how composition practices in and out of the classroom can be valuable resources.
The editors survey the theoretical frameworks of feminism and disability studies, locating the points of overlap crucial to a study of disability and mothering. Organized in five sections, the book engages questions about reproductive technologies; diagnoses and cultural scripts; the ability to rewrite narratives of mothering and disability; political activism; and the tensions formed by the overlapping identities of race, class, nation, and disability. The essays speak to a broad audience from undergraduate and graduate students in women's studies and disability studies, to therapeutic and health care professionals, to anyone grappling with issues such as genetic testing and counseling, raising a child with disability, or being disabled and contemplating starting a family.
Conflict between the demands of paid work and motherhood has been studied primarily from the experience of middle-class and professional mothers in dual-earner families. Recently, with the reform of welfare, a number of studies have focused on the problems of poor mothers in meeting the demands of paid employment and caring for children. This article explores the moral discourse of judgments about paid work and motherhood and how this differs for low-income and married middle-class women. It reviews research that considers why poor single mothers are seen as irresponsible when they leave work due to family demands when professional and middle-class married mothers are seen as acting selflessly. It examines how gendered schema differentially influences the work and family choices of married middle-class and professional mothers compared to poor and low-income mothers.
Divorce, separation, and widowhood produce great psychological stress for Palestinian women in Israel. Very often family support is a set of demands seeking to regulate and reshape their conduct. This article is based on a study conducted between 2007 and 2011 with twenty-four divorced, separated, and widowed Palestinian single mothers in Israel. In contrast to claims in most existing scholarship, all of the women turned to nonfamilial sources of support to deal with family and community regulation, restrictions, and stigmatization and to acquire resources. Level of surveillance and regulation was most highly associated with socioeconomic class. The poorer the women, the fewer their choices and the less freedom they had to determine their lives and their children’s lives. The women interviewed disproportionately reported turning to outsiders, such as psychologists, spiritualists, and feminist activists, for “expressive” support.
This article addresses the support and supervisional relations of Israeli Palestinian women who are single mothers vis-à-vis their families and communities. This article links the theoretical discussion of gift economy with the discussion of power relations and gender. Whereas previous studies have emphasized aggressive means of supervising women, the focus on gifts allows for an examination of single mothers and kinship relationships in the context of dependency, power and obligation. As single mothers, many women enjoy several types of concrete support and assistance. This study shows that in return, they are required to “repay” in various “currencies,” which are manifested in several obedience patterns. This is a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with Palestinian single mothers in Israel.
This article highlights a concurrent development: the parties' references to family within poverty planks increased dramatically just as partisan attention to poverty ebbed. Through analysis of party platforms from 1900 to 2012, it suggests that the current diminished salience of poverty is but the latest phase in an ongoing relationship between poverty and family in American party politics. Late-century antipoverty policy development is the result of an ideational reconfiguration of poverty engendered by a coincident ascendance and transformation of family, as a political ideal.
Winner of the Ellis Hawley Prize for Best Article Published by a Junior Scholar in the Journal of Policy History in 2015
In the last three decades, Palestinian society within Israel has been undergoing changes in different spheres, with trends of change and preservation evolving simultaneously. Changes in the familial sphere include a rise in the divorce rate and, accordingly, in the number of single-parent families. Despite the increase in the number of single-parent family units headed by women, this pattern has barely gained legitimacy. As single mothers, divorced Palestinian women are subjected to considerable criticism and supervision on the part of their families. In this article I examine the reasons why Israeli-Palestinian women seek divorce, arguing that they reflect co-existing trends. While some reasons can be defined as traditional, others illustrate a process of change related to the adoption of values and images deriving from the Western romantic love ethos. The article is based on data gathered in semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted and analyzed with a commitment to the principles of feminist research.
This article surveys scholarship on motherhood and mothering published over the past decade. Academic scholars and writer-activists have written about mothers and mothering in a diversity of genres and a with broad range of disciplinary and theoretical approaches. Work on motherhood is wide-ranging and fragmented, but taken as a whole, this work simultaneously insists on the particularity and specificity of motherhood while at the same time rejecting any notion of a fixed or essential aspect of maternal experience, desire, or subjectivity. The article argues that academic feminism has marginalized and neglected both mothers as mothers and the study of motherhood more generally. This essay endeavors to bring this literature to the attention of academic feminists and to argue for the necessity of including motherhood in a broader feminist movement.
This study explored resiliency factors in middle- and upper-income single mothers, a subset of single parents representing 73% of single mothers in the United States. The study used demographic information and the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD–RISC) to examine if income, education level, or type of marital status is related to resiliency factors among single mothers. An analysis of variance was conducted to compare group differences among income levels, education levels, and types of marital status with resiliency scores. Results revealed that the middle- and upper-income single mothers were generally resilient. A descriptive analysis of descending means revealed five resiliency factors on the CD–RISC that were most strongly rated, four of which relate to personal competence and tenacity. Implications for clinical practice and recommendations for future research to expand the body of research on single mothers were included in this study.
This article describes the impact of both neo-liberal and conservative discourse upon poverty policy and welfare reform. In it, I summarize the discursive construction of welfare queens and deadbeat dads and the influence upon welfare reform while incorporating globalization in the discursive critique. This paper also describes the resistance to the discourse evidenced by those most affected by the poverty or welfare reform discourse. I suggest ways of critically examining our own discourse as well as the welfare reform discourse and our participation in it or resistance to it. The conclusion questions assumptions about dependency, welfare receipt and justice.
This article on low-income “one-parent mothers” in Israel is based on 32 in-depth interviews and supportive data from a longitudinal study. Findings problematize scholarly treatments of “single mothers” as a universal category, showing it to be culturally specific and polysemic. It is argued that low-income one-parent mothers embody a central tension in the Israeli male-breadwinner/female-caretaker gender contract, as its initial class bias is exacerbated by the dissolution of marriage. By simultaneously adopting and reformulating the hegemonic schema that frames their femininity as deficient, they expose the dual character of the contract as resistant to change and dynamic.
The increase in family income inequality since the early 1970s is one of the most cited economic changes during this three-decade period. As family income inequality increases, those families below the median are further from the social norm than before; similarly, those at the top of the distribution see a larger gap between themselves and the rest of the population. Such growing disparities are not inconsistent with increases over time in the absolute level of income and well-being for both high- And low-income families. Indeed, since the early 1970s, the real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of both rich and poor have increased. At the bottom of the distribution, income growth has been slow, while at the top very large increases in income have been recorded. Clearly, the increases in real income across the entire distribution suggest improved levels of family economic well-being over time, and hence an improved environment for the nurturing and development of children. This "income effect" suggests that we should find improved levels of attainments for America's children in a number of social indicators over time. However, many fear that the growth in income disparities among families has had a variety of adverse consequences for both families and communities. The processes by which changes in overall income inequality may affect both the level of children's attainments and the inequality in children's attainments are complex and ill understood. Let us consider a few of them. Because family well-being directly affects children, increasing income gaps among families are likely to directly increase disparities among children in their progress and attainments. However, growth in income disparities may also affect the overall level of children's attainments. Growing income gaps are likely to affect the perceptions and aspirations of children and their families at both the top and bottom of the distribution. Children living in families at the bottom of the distribution are likely to have parents who are discouraged and disheartened. Moreover, these same families are likely to experience increased tensions that may erode self-confidence, marital stability, and mental health as their attainments appear to fall increasingly short of the American mainstream. The communities in which such families live are also likely to erode relative to mainstream communities, and this will have its own negative effect on the level of children's attainments. The growth in disparities in income may also create greater motivation among those in the top deciles of the income distribution to find ways to improve their children's opportunities to succeed and reap higher incomes. Thus, to the extent that parents respond by spending more time with their children and/or conveying the importance of success in school and success in extracurricular activities, the growth in inequality may lead to an overall increase in the level of children's attainments. It is clear that growing economic distance between people can reduce common interests and increase social separation. As the status of families at the bottom of the distribution drifts further from the mainstream, they are likely to experience an increased sense of alienation as those with many resources see them as more distant and as undeserving. Such growing economic distance between families may also influence citizens' views about the potential role and functions of government (for example, the size and structure of the education system), and this may also influence children's well-being and progress. The growth in income inequality may also have indirect effects on a variety of other social changes that affect the overall level of children's attainments and inequality among them. For example, increased family income inequality may contribute to changed levels of a variety of other social variables, such as community health status, life expectancy, crime rates, and participation in civic activities. Although the linkage between growing inequality and health has been examined in several research studies, the findings are controversial; there is little knowledge regarding the other potential linkages. The increase in family income inequality may also contribute to changes in inequality among families in a variety of other dimensions, such as inequality in housing quality, child care quality, neighborhood services, school expenditures, teacher quality, and leisure time. These linkages between increases in family income inequality and increases in disparities in other important social dimensions have not been systematically explored and are poorly understood. Clearly, then, the economic developments over the past few decades leave us with a difficult puzzle. The increase in economic well-being for both rich and poor American families leads us to expect that children's overall attainments have also increased. Simultaneously, the growth in family income inequality may impede the performance of children overall, through some of the linkages identified here, while other linkages suggest reasons for more optimism regarding children's attainments. The critical question, then, is: As real income has increased and income inequality has also increased, what has happened to the overall levels of children's attainments? A second critical question concerns disparities among children in attainments: Do the children of families at the top of the income distribution show more progress in attainments than children at the bottom? Has the rich-poor gap in children's attainment increased? In our review, we adopt an "investment in children" framework in which the family and the community are seen as production units that employ real inputs in order to encourage the attainments of children. In the first section, we briefly discuss this framework, posing the following questions: • What is likely to be the independent effect of the increase in inequality of family income and family investments in children on the level of children's attainments? Can this effect be identified if, at the same time, the level of family income has increased? • What is likely to be the independent effect of the increase in inequality of family income and family investments in children on inequality among children in terms of their attainments? Can this effect be identified when simultaneous changes in other important factors influence children's well-being? Hypothesizing about the first set of questions is the more difficult task, and we discuss three possible linkages between changes in the inequality of investments and changes in the average level of children's attainments. With respect to the second set of questions, our hypothesis is that as inequality of inputs into children's attainments increases, the disparities among them in terms of attainments will also increase. The next section presents a historical perspective on the changes in the level and inequality of family income. We find that family income grew slowly during the 1970s and 1980s but displayed robust growth during the 1990s. The level of income inequality among families increased persistently over these three decades, with the greatest increases occurring during the decade of the 1980s. The third section discusses trends in both the level and inequality of inputs to children's attainments and the level and inequality in the attainments themselves. The inputs into children's attainments on which we focus are those that a sizable research literature has identified as most closely related to children's attainments. The following section presents our review of the voluminous recent research that has attempted to establish the existence and strength of the linkages between family and community inputs and children's attainments.