Abstract

Empty-Nest Politics

The article discusses the books "The Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless," by Elinor Burkett and "Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It," by Joan Williams." Burkett casts the childless as the new oppressed minority. The child-worshiping majority has not only captured consumer and media culture but commandeered both political parties, federal legislation, tax policy and the workplace, so that the entire apparatus of collective life now "discriminates" against nonparents and treats them as "second-class citizens." One needs Williams's "Unbending Gender" not only to wash up but to understand how a political economy has been involved in which Burkett's sick moral inversion could be taken seriously by mainstream media.