HIGHLAND PARK — The Oct. 29 front-page story about our "close-to-perfect" economy paints a rosy picture that ignores the social cost of our apparent prosperity. As a pediatrician caring for children in private practice, I am in a position to observe the impact on young children of both parents or a single parent working at full-time jobs during the most critical years of infancy and childhood. It is during these years that the "personhood" of a developing child is shaped. If parents are not available, then the shaping is done by another person, sometimes a stranger, who simply cannot substitute for a loving, caring parent. Full-time work leaves many parents exhausted and unable to give quality time to their children. The cumulative effect of years of limited, meaningful interaction by parents in the lives of their children, is one of the root causes for social alienation during the teenage years.