I am considering various philosophical objections to early childhood programs. This topic is explored in chapter 11 of Investing in Kids. Yesterday, I considered the issue of excessive governmental control over parental choice. Today, I consider whether early childhood programs are unfair to parents who are already successfully using all their resources to help their children succeed in life.
Consider the philosophical argument made by well-known conservative author Dinesh D’Souza:
“I have a five-year-old daughter. Since she was born—actually, since she was conceived—my wife and I have gone to great lengths in the Great Yuppie Parenting Race … Why are we doing these things? We are, of course, trying to develop her abilities so that she can get the most out of life. The practical effect of our actions, however, is that we are working to give our daughter an edge—that is, a better chance to succeed than everybody else’s children … “
“Now, to enforce equal opportunity, the government could do one of two things: it could try to pull my daughter down, or it could work to raise other people’s children up. The first is clearly destructive and immoral, but the second is also unfair. The government is obliged to treat all citizens equally. Why should it work to undo the benefits that my wife and I have labored so hard to provide? Why should it offer more to children whose parents have not taken the trouble?”
I think Mr. D’Souza more bluntly expresses what is behind some people’s objections to government support for early childhood programs.
What response can be made to this objection? First, one might ask about what is fair from the perspective of the child. Is it fair that some children may be handicapped from the start of life? These handicaps may be not simply due to “parents…not [taking] the trouble”. The parents may be dead, or may face such severe poverty problems that it is difficult to fully meet their children’s needs.
Second, helping children from disadvantaged families need not impose costs on the Yuppie parents. Mr. D’Souza seems to be implicitly using a model in which the number of good jobs in America is fixed. But this is untrue.
If the quantity and quality of the American labor supply improves, more and better jobs will be created. Mr. D’Souza should have more faith in the ability of the private economy to respond to expanded labor supply. The empirical evidence supports this belief that employers will respond to an improvement in labor supply. As a result, if the children of the disadvantaged are provided with better supports during early childhood, the entire economy will expand, and Mr. D’Souza and other Yuppie parents will not lose out.
In fact, the Yuppie parents and their children may gain from help for the children of the disadvantaged. High-quality early childhood programs can reduce crime and welfare costs, and increase tax revenue, thus providing both fiscal benefits and quality-of-life benefits for the upper class.