Sylvia Ann Hewlett, noted feminist scholar and child advocate, and Cornel West, Harvard philosopher and inspirational human rights leader, come together in a rare partnership to explore the most painful problem of our times. Why are hundreds of thousands of American children dangling and dangerous and millions more failing to thrive? At the heart of our children's agony is a frightening erosion of the parenting role. This is happening not because parents are less devoted than they used to be; the truth is that the whole world is stacked against them. Big business, government, and the wider culture are waging a silent war against parents, undermining the work that they do. Adults raising children have been hurt by managerial greed, pounded by tax and housing policy, and invaded and degraded by the entertainment industry.

In The War Against Parents, Hewlett and West present a blueprint for parent empowerment entitled a G.I. Bill for the Twenty-first Century. United behind a common agenda that spans the divides of race and class, America's 62 million parents can transform our political culture. This is both a visionary and intimate book. Hewlett and West share their childhoods -- strangely similar stories of growing up in blue-collar communities in Wales and California -- and with great candor tell of their struggles to be a good mother and a good father in this parent-hurting society of ours. But they also offer comfort and hope. By giving moral heft to the work parents do, Hewlett and West uncover powerful common ground. There is not a parent among us -- male,female, black, white -- who is not hungry for such healing.