CHRISTIANITY TODAY/March 17, 1989
America’s children have problems, but government and church leaders cannot always agree on solutions.
In a decided shift from conventional political practice, members of Congress have been devoting a majority of legislative attention this session to a constituency that does not lobby and will not vote: children. Members from both political parties have jumped aboard, introducing dozens of bills that address issues ranging from child care to surrogacy.
At the same time, a new report from the nation’s governors seems to indicate that politicians on both state and national levels are seeking to move political attention to children beyond the obligatory kissing of babies at election time.
Profamily activists are pleased about the prominence that children’s issues are being given on the national agenda, yet many are also concerned about potential changes in family policy. Underlying the political battles are sharp philosophical differences on the varied—and sometimes competing—roles of family, government, and church.
Valuable Resource
Underlying the political discussion about children’s issues is the emerging bipartisan consensus that children are a valuable resource and must be protected. During his campaign, President Bush released a position paper titled “Invest in Our Children.” A new report released by the National Governors’ Association Task Force on Children echoed this theme. “The economic and social well-being of the United States rests on our ability to assure that our children develop into healthy, well-educated, and productive citizens,” the report said. “To invest in their future is to invest in ours.”
To that end, the governors’ report calls on states to focus on several priorities, including prenatal care; immunization and screening during early childhood; accessible and affordable child care and preschool education; a more engaging middle-school system; primary health care and preventative health education; and constructive engagement in volunteer and recreational activities for teens.
At the same time, the governors urged that the federal children’s policy complement, not compete with, state policy. “The federal government can lead best by example, beginning by developing a coherent national strategy to support families and their children,” the report stated.
Yet forging such a coherent strategy on the national level is proving to be easier said than done. The 101st Congress was greeted by a flood of family and child-related bills. Among the topics covered were:
• Surrogate parenting; a bill would end commercialized surrogate-mother contracts where a woman is paid to bear a child.
• Child health and nutrition; reauthorization of the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) calls for expansions of up to $150 million above current services.
• Minimum wage; a bill proposes an increase from the present $3.35 per hour to $4.65 over three stages.
• Parental leave; several bills address ways in which workers could get time off at the birth or adoption of a child or the illness of a child or elderly parent.
• Child care; numerous approaches have been proposed to help working families obtain adequate and affordable child care.
America’s Children
• One in two has a mother in the labor force
• By the year 2000, 7 out of 10 preschoolers will have mothers in the labor force
• One in five lives with only one parent
• One in four fails to complete high school
• 1.5 million run away or are thrown out of their homes
• 12.4 million live below the poverty level
Differing Views
Most of the proposals before Congress reflect one of two very different approaches to children’s issues. The first urges the government to take a stronger and more active role in helping families solve problems. The second view wants government to take much more of a “hands-off” approach and act as a facilitator, helping families to help themselves.
Child care is one issue around which the differing philosophies present themselves. The Act for Better Child Care (ABC) is being pushed by those who believe the government ought to be firmly involved in setting up a quality national child-care system. ABC would authorize $2.5 billion a year to aid low-income working families with child-care expenses, and it would establish federal health and safety regulations for child-care facilities.
Conservative profamily groups say the bill puts too much government structure on a family issue. Many favor instead an approach like the Bush proposal, according to which low-income families would receive a tax credit to be used for child care. “We feel the ABC bill discriminates against parents who may want to care for their children at home, those who want to have relatives care for their children, or those who may want to have church-based care for their children,” said Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, a division of Focus on the Family. Bauer said a tax-credit approach would give families more flexibility and more options.
Who’s Behind the ABC?
As many profamily groups call for less government involvement in family life, the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) urges the opposite. Founded in 1973, the Washington-based lobby and educational organization focuses on disadvantaged children and families.
CDF has been the primary mover behind the Act for Better Child Care, which is now making its way through Congress. While conservative profamily groups have been assembling church opposition to the bill, CDF has been finding support in many denominations, particularly mainline churches. CHRISTIANITY TODAY spoke with Marian Wright Edelman, CDF executive director and author of the book Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change.
Recently, CDF has made a concerted effort to reach out to churches and religious groups as coalition partners. What has prompted this?
My father and grandfathers were Baptist preachers, and I have always been taught that the church should be the moral conscience of the society. Christianity for me is inextricably intertwined with service to the needy and the vulnerable and children. I take seriously the mandate to follow Christ rather than just preach about him.
The church has great potential to provide a unified witness on behalf of the poor and needy. If we cannot reach ordinary church people in middle America about the rightness of this cause, then we are not framing our message right. In addition to doing individual counseling to address problems such as single-parent families, teenage sexuality, and drug abuse, churches have an obligation to look at the context of community in which these problems are occurring.
Many religious communities and profamily groups agree, but would leave it there. They say these issues are church and family issues, not the business of the government.
Private charity and volunteerism are important, but they are no substitute for public justice. Church people have been forced by a flood of need to understand that it takes a partnership between government, the private sector, and charity. Children’s advocates have usually been outside the political process. Anyone outside the process is on the bottom of the political totem pole. We have begun to realize there is strength through coalitions.
Some argue that “throwing money at a problem” won’t make it go away. In this budget-conscious era, how can you convince people we need more money for the programs you advocate?
Preventive investment in our children and families is sound economic policy. America cannot afford to waste resources by failing to address problems that will cost billions of dollars later on. We’ve gotten way off balance in our investment priorities in the last decade. Billions of dollars have been cut from programs for poor children and are being invested in weapons of death. In the meantime, we’ve seen a growth in suffering. Now we are finally seeing a convergence between what is morally right for children and what is essential for a healthy economy.
Why has this taken place?
Demographics, for one thing. With more women entering the work force and the growth of single-parent households, we are discovering that prenatal care and early childhood investment are the best ways to prepare our young people for the future.
Why do groups that have the best interests of children and families in mind find such differing solutions?
Many of the groups need to look at how consistent they are in meeting the realities of families. It’s one thing to preach to families about what they ought to be; it’s another thing to try to help and to strengthen the families we have, and to deal with the growing misery of children. I think there is growing consensus about this.
Grappling For Solutions
Family issues have taken on a new urgency, with recent statistics revealing that the number of children living in single-parent homes has skyrocketed since 1980. According to a Census Bureau report released last month, 54 percent of black children are now living with only one parent, while 15.3 million children overall live in a single-parent situation. Several studies have shown that poverty rates are substantially higher for these households.
“We in the Senate must help families which find themselves caught among the forces of changing demographics in the work force, the new dynamics of our economy, and the evolving role of the family,” said Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), the Republican leader of the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Family. Coats has introduced his own child-care and parental-leave initiatives, which he believes will give families maximum flexibility.
Most observers agree the political atmosphere is ripe for passage of family-oriented legislation. But what that legislation will look like is still unclear, especially in the midst of serious budget constraints. Children and family advocates, religious groups, businesses, and other special-interest groups are already participating vigorously in the process, ensuring that no legislation will come forth without lively discussion.
Family advocates on all sides of the debates say the new interest and discussion on these issues is good news. “I think that most of the members of Congress have caught on to the fact that there’s no political future in appearing to be antifamily or neutral about children,” Bauer said, adding, however, his fears that much of what is being offered as profamily legislation “in the long term will hurt the family more than anything else.”
Coats acknowledges there is “some danger in opening the door to family policy,” but his spokesman, Curt Smith, said the senator is optimistic about the current trend. Smith said Coats believes the trend “offers an excellent opportunity for America to really grapple with its view of the family and some of the things that keep our less-fortunate families from enjoying all that we want them to.”
By Kim A. Lawton.
