The terrible title and blaming Dr Spock for our cultural woes almost put me off the article. Below the fold he starts to make some interesting points. By age 4, higher income children have been talked to nearly 4 times as much as poor children. The encouragement/discouragement ratio is 2 to 1 whereas for poor children it is 1 to 2. He talks about the soccer mom phenomenon where every minute of a child's day is scheduled with some activity. He thinks that with the move to white collar work, there is too much emphasis on status and social climbing.
I agree with the over scheduling criticism. Kids now have too many formal activities and too much homework. I also wonder if two income families and early day care adversely affect the kids.
The language difference might not be as significant as Alex thinks. Steven Pinker criticizes studies of the kind that Hart and Risley did, where they measured language used with children and assumed that affected development. He says that causation is not established, and points to twin adoption studies that indicate that the causal factor affecting IQ is genetic.
I agree with the over scheduling criticism. Kids now have too many formal activities and too much homework. I also wonder if two income families and early day care adversely affect the kids.