MWE: I think there are periods of transformation in a nation's
history. The Declaration of Independence was always our vision of who we
wanted to be, our ideal of freedom and justice, how we were going to be
different, and what the American experiment was going to be about. We
didn't live up to that; we had slavery, and women were not counted. But
we had spurts of movement towards those aspirations. The first big spurt
involved a period of total destruction-the Emancipation Proclamation, the
Civil War, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
The second big movement came in the 1960s with the Civil Rights
movement. But it didn't last long enough. The Vietnam War came, along
with profound break-downs of family and community, then the added
problems of drugs, AIDS, and violence. Now we've begun rebounding. We
turned the curve about 1985 when Congress stopped cutting very basic
programs and began putting back some.
There are a lot of Americans out there who know that we've
fundamentally gone off base, that something fundamental has come loose
and we have got to put it back together or we're going to die. Both
economically and socially, and as an idea and a vision. Things have
gotten so bad they've affected all of us. There is nobody who feels safe
from violence anymore. There is nobody's child who is not worried about
getting a job. Poor black and Latino kids see life as a choice between
jail and death. Middle class kids are asking, "Am I going to be able to
afford a house and a kid?" Our generation has been selfish and we've got
to make it right again.
PT: We largely believe that children are a private responsibility
of their parents and if their parents mess up we don't do anything to
help the kids. Where is our belief wrong, and how can we reconcile it
with what actually does need to be done?
MWE: The old notion that children are the private property of
parents dies very slowly. In reality, no parent raises a child alone. How
many of us nice middle-class folk could make it without our mortgage
reduction? That's a government subsidy of families, yet we resent putting
money directly into public housing. We take our deduction for dependent
care yet resent putting money directly into child care. Common sense and
necessity are beginning to erode old notions of the private invasion of
family life, because so many families are in trouble.
Many middle-class families are one husband away from welfare. The
people in New Hampshire who thought it could never happen to them are
standing in food-stamp lines - and are beginning to have a very different
view about their government's role in their lives. Mr. Iacocca has never
been defensive about government's role in subsidizing corporations.
Families cannot exist apart from caring communities and the government is
part of-though not the only-solution. If wages and good manufacturing
jobs decline and with them goes health care, do you let children
die?
Much of the change in family life is related to changes in the
economy. We now know that economics is a part of what makes a family
strong. We used to say, "My God, it's my own fault if I can't support my
kids." But what about that worker in New Hampshire whose shipbuilding job
got shipped to Taiwan? It shows the craziness of the notion that parents
ought to be able to do it alone without any help.
Secondly, we're beginning to recognize that we pay for it one way
or the other. If you don't foster a healthy family with prevention, you
pay through emergency care, which is the most expensive in the world. You
pay for low birth-weight babies and have them at the highest rates of any
country in the industrialized world. Do we want to spend a million
dollars to save a baby or $600 on good prenatal care?
There must be recognition that no parent does it alone. Some
parents can afford to pay for it and others can't, but everybody needs
it. "Every man for himself" doesn't work anymore.
PT: When you started the Children's Defense Fund, you said that
America ignores the needs of black children, poor children, and
handicapped children. Looking back, do you think you left out all the
others? Were you not then aware of what was happening to all of us, or
did some things actually change to involve everyone?
MWE: At the CDF, we've always asked two questions: How does policy,
or its absence, affect all children, and how does it affect the kids at
the bottom? I recognized in the beginning that children as a group tended
to be voiceless and uncared for, and certain kids have the shortest end
of that stick.
There have been certain developments that have cut across all races
and classes. The breakdown in family is not limited to poor kids; the
divorce rate cuts across all races, classes, and geographic areas. Drugs
and violence are sensitive matters in every community. A lack of positive
purpose and of a sense of service have left many kids idle and
adrift-prey to alcohol in the suburbs, cocaine and maybe crack in the
cities.
I worry about the kids who have too much. As a parent living in a
so-called good neighborhood with children who went to private high
school, I found myself spending much time in parent groups worrying about
alcohol, unsupervised parties, and parents not being parents. We've got
to send messages to our kids about what is important. I have been
absolutely astonished at the response to my book.
PT: It's a wonderful book.
Tags:
backlash,
child nutrition,
children,
children in poverty,
deep trouble,
endless resources,
expansions,
family,
family values,
food stamps,
friends in high places,
government interference,
grim evidence,
immunization,
investment priorities,
Marian Wright Edelman,
mr bush,
national investment,
poverty,
slow progress,
veto,
young kids
