[K]knowledge, learning, information and skilled intelligence are the new raw materials of international commerce. …[T]he implications of this are that if only to keep and improve on the slim competitive edge we still retain in world markets, we must dedicate ourselves to the reform of our education system for the benefit of all…learning is the indispensable investment required for success in the “information age” we are entering. (United States National Commission on Education, 1983, p. 7)

As the introduction to the report stated:

[I]f an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have interpreted it as an act of war….[W]e have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. …[W]e have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament. (United States National Commission on Education, 1983, p. 5)

Just as parents were found wanting in the 1950s for their failure to bolster a “reading culture,” this report concluded that, “we are raising a new generation of Americans that is scientifically and technologically illiterate” (p. 10). In advice that seemed to endorse Flesch’s (1955) call for direct parental surveillance of their children’s teachers and schools, A Nation at Risk called upon parents to take more responsibility for the quality of education their children received. The ideal child for the “information age” was defined for parents, with silences surrounding the implications of this for the work of mothers:

You know that you cannot confidently launch your children into today’s world unless they are of strong character and well-educated in the use of language, science and mathematics. They must possess a deep respect for intelligence, achievement and learning, and the skills needed to use them; for setting goals; and for disciplined work. That respect must be accompanied by an intolerance for the shoddy and second-rate masquerading as “good enough.” (p. 23)

While parents have always been reminded of their important educative role, their place as the “first and most important teacher in the home” (Trelease, 1982, p. 31) became government policy. There were also specific tasks and responsibilities attached to this role, many of which seem to have been taken from pages of Larrick’s (1975) and Trelease’s (1982) advice: