Alissa Quart

"Families today are squeezed on every side--from high childcare costs and harsh employment policies to workplaces without paid family leave or even dependable and regular working hours"--Book jacket. Attaining the standard of living our parents managed has become impossible. Quart examines the lives of many middle-class Americans who can now barely afford to raise children, and shows how our country has failed its families. She offers real solutions...

Examines the American obsession with self-reliance and how it has led to inequality, self-blame, and shifted the responsibility for survival onto the backs of ordinary people. "The promise that you can "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is central to the story of the American Dream. It's the belief that if you work hard and rely on your own resources, you will eventually succeed. However time and again we have seen how this foundational myth,...