By any account, the United States lags far behind other industrialized nations in providing positive support for child rearing. Politicians utter maudlin paeans to the sanctity of the American family while shredding income-support programs for poor mothers and children, while on the popular front, advocates of “childfree” living bemoan the “culture of parental privilege” (Elinor Burkett, The Baby Boon, 2000). Anne Alstott makes the case for state support of families by examining the well-being of caretakers rather than dependents. She argues that society imposes a “No Exit” obligation on caretakers, and it is the increased vulnerability of caretakers flowing from that obligation that provides the foundation for the analysis.

Alstott's theoretical focus on the loss of caretaker autonomy is novel and thought provoking. She begins by noting that what is of critical importance in rearing children is not that caretakers love them, but that caretakers provide continuous care—18 years at a minimum and longer for children with special needs. Continuity of care provides the emotional grounding that children need to grow into responsible adults, and societies both need and require caretakers to assume that obligation. That obligation entails, in essence, a No Exit requirement reflected in laws and conventions that reinforce parental authority to assure that caretakers assume their responsibilities and impose significant costs on those who abandon them.

The No Exit duty, Alstott asserts, significantly constrains the autonomy of caretakers and imposes costs that far exceed the ordinary costs that individuals in a free society ought to be expected to assume, even when the life choices that individuals make are voluntary. Indeed, because women currently continue to assume most of the caretaking responsibilities for children inside and outside of marriage, the costs of the No Exit obligation fall in a heavily gendered fashion, increasing women's economic vulnerability. The scope of the No Exit obligation is extraordinary, she argues, and it is unfair to impose the whole burden of that obligation on individual caretakers. Alstott's is not an argument that society should share in the costs of raising children because children ultimately benefit society as a whole by becoming consumers and wage earners whose earnings redound to the benefit of prior generations. The issue, rather, is one of a mutual obligation between caretakers and society: Caretakers have an obligation to provide continuous care imposed, in part, by the state; the state thus has an obligation to care for caretakers' lost opportunities. Alleviating the burden associated with providing such continuous care with a public subsidy designed to protect and preserve the present and future autonomy of parents, while at the same time insuring that children are raised in conditions that optimize their chances of growing into healthy adults, is a laudable public goal. Thus, a good and just society must underwrite that obligation.

To this end, Alstott proposes the establishment of two kinds of support programs. The first is a caretaker resource account, which would provide a grant of $5,000 per year to any caretaking parent who has a child or children under the age of 13. The grant can be used to pay for child care, education, or retirement savings in the current year or in any future year. The author limits the grants to these particular uses because they enhance parents' long-term earning capacities, either by allowing them to work while children need care or by educating themselves and thus moving ahead in the market, making up for opportunities lost while engaged in child care, and/or lessening some of the risks of assuming caretaking responsibilities by providing a retirement income. She considers a number of counterarguments, especially those that would view such a program as simply a windfall for well-off parents, but argues that because the purpose of the program is to defray the ordinary autonomy burden that parents assume, no means testing is appropriate. She does not, however, dismiss the argument that additional programs might be appropriate for caretakers whose needs are greater than normal.

This latter circumstance is addressed with her proposal for life-planning insurance, a publicly funded insurance program that would provide both income support and services to parents of severely disabled children in both acute and chronic situations. The argument here is that although parents may take a risk in having children, the burdens imposed by a child who has a very severe disability are often overwhelming and unduly restrict some caretakers' life options altogether. This is an important proposal that could provide a lifeline to parents who face the severe financial and emotional stress caused by a child whose needs place extreme demands on caretakers.

Alstott's proposals should strike a familiar chord for those acquainted with her earlier work as coauthor, with Bruce Ackerman, of The Stakeholder Society (1999), in which the authors proposed that every American should receive an $80,000 grant upon graduation from high school to give young individuals an immediate and tangible stake in society. This book is likely to encounter many of the same criticisms. Nonetheless, her argument is well supported and thoughtful. She is attentive throughout to the range of objections that are likely to arise, from the libertarian “you-made-a-choice-so-don't-expect-any-help” position to feminist concerns that such a program would continue to trap women in caretaking roles and that a better approach would be to transform the workplace into a more child-friendly environment. She notes, for example, that while workplace accommodation is a desirable goal, the costs to businesses are often so burdensome as to make them politically impractical, and in any event, those costs are ultimately shifted to workers, particularly women. That response is perhaps insufficient, as it takes for granted the liberal notion that the existing workplace structure is efficient so that other kinds of family-friendly reforms are considered unworkable, but her suggestions may be more politically palatable than current workplace reform strategies. Alstott also spends considerable time thinking through the problems of equity between parents, and she makes a convincing case for favoring primary caretakers over nonprimary caretakers in allocating the subsidy.

Overall, this is a challenging argument and the ideas are radical. It is not clear that the argument will convince die-hard members of the childfree movement or their less antichild but libertarian colleagues; her proposals are likely to generate significant opposition from across the political spectrum. Its focus on the vulnerability of caretakers, however, is compelling, and No Exit should open up a useful dialogue.