High Tide in Tucson

This essay compares different societies’ attitudes toward children. It focuses primarily on the United States, Kingsolver’s home country, and the Canary Islands, where she lived for a year when her daughter Camille was very young. In the United States, children are often treated as inconvenient objects. Often people there treat Camille like a nuisance even if she is doing nothing wrong. In the Canary Islands, on the other hand, people constantly approach Kingsolver to tell her how cute her daughter is, and waiters in restaurants give Camille special treats.

Kingsolver blames much of this on the political and social history of the United States, where child-rearing is inherently tied to the needs of capitalism. When child labor laws prevented children from adult work, they came to be seen as a burden. Low-income families with children are viewed as irresponsible, and programs that benefit children are regularly dismantled. Some have even suggested that people should obtain a license before having a child, a prospect that Kingsolver finds ridiculous. She struggled the first time she took her driving test, a relatively straightforward concept, and cannot imagine a passable test that would prove that someone was ready to be a parent.