Childhood's Future is the most comprehensive, in-depth, and pragmatic resource written on the crisis of family life in contemporary America. After three years of travel around the United States interviewing more than 3000 children, parents, teachers, and other professionals, the author, an award-winning journalist and columnist for the San Diego Union, came up with a blueprint for reshaping childhood's future. Children yearn for contact with their parents, and their mothers and fathers would like to reciprocate, yet many obstacles are stacked against them. Three of the most basic are lack of family time, the tension between work and home, and the negative impact of popular culture upon the consciousness of children.
Louv offers examples of parents around the country who are struggling to create a new web which will keep kids from falling through the holes due to emotional neglect, cynicism, and unhappiness. Among the many inspired ideas for giving family new meaning and value are suggestions on how to create more time for sharing in the home, reforms in the schools which will bring parents together in mutual support, the creation of family-friendly workplaces, and new designs in urban areas which will be pro-child. Louv salutes experimental programs in libraries, churches, and community centers which bring the generations together. While many have charted the decline of the family and the helplessness of so many deprived children, Richard Louv's book is the first to present a sane and salutary program which will bring a fresh hope to young and old alike.