In her new book Power Politics, the novelist Arundhati Roy observes the way that the government of India with one hand causes distress and with the other directs people's anger about it elsewhere. Do harm; then scapegoat. She calls it a "pincer action."
Does it sound familiar? In the United States, we have been subjected latelyto an ever more deregulated capitalism; to reduced job security, lower benefits,and longer work hours; to a shift of the tax burden from the rich to the poor anda shift of government spending from butter to guns. In his current budgetproposal, President George W. Bush adds $48 billion to his $379-billion militarybudget while cutting funds for maternal-and-child-health block grants, earlylearning, class-size reduction, emergency medical services for children, newbornand infant hearing screening, hospital insurance for the uninsured, youthtraining, mental-health programs, substance-abuse prevention, andyouth-opportunity grants, among other programs. And that's just the cuts. He'salso proposing spending freezes for Head Start and Temporary Assistance for NeedyFamilies (TANF) that, given inflation, amount to cuts.
Together, the tougher economic climate and reduced social protections havecreated a scarier world. That's one prong of the pincer. And then Bush gives thenod to the Gary Bauers of the Republican right wing who say: "You see thatgay man? You see that single mother? They're a danger to America's children." That's the other prong. The right wing mislabels it "family values."
The pincer action befuddles our thinking about a very real set of problemsfacing the American family today. Implicitly, it unhitches actions in the publicrealm from their consequences in the private realm. At the same time, it throwsthe public spotlight on the official forms of family life and off its deeperemotional realities.
But if we rehitch those links among government action, society, and thefamily, we begin to see what it would mean to have a government that reallybelieves in family values. Consider even the issue of family form: If we wantmore Americans to get married, stay married, and have their children whilemarried, we need to reduce the growing class gap, end poverty, and expandopportunities for education. In their study of the 1998 Current PopulationSurvey, Michael Hout and Claude Fischer report that while two-thirds of Americanchildren live in two-parent families, only 43 percent of children in householdsheaded by a high-school dropout do. In households headed by a college graduate,84 percent of children live with two parents. Similarly, 3 percent of births towomen with college degrees take place out of wedlock, compared with 60 percent ofbirths to those who lack a high-school diploma. If you want traditional families,think social class.
And don't forget the problem of the "average man." As William Julius Wilsonhas pointed out with reference to African Americans, there aren't enough "averagemen" for single moms to marry. And this applies increasingly to whites as well.Laissez-faire economics and regressive taxation are making the rich richer -- andmore and more of the rest of the population poor. Increasing numbers of poor menare thus restructured out of a future, and they don't marry or pay child support.To the extent that the government reduces the class gap, eliminates poverty, andfully supports education as an important step in the welfare-to-work program -- andreally, only to that extent -- it is "walking the talk" on family values.
Once married, Americans have a hard time making their marriages last. Some ofthe children in traditional-looking, two-parent families have parents who'veremarried, and we don't know how well those remarriages are doing. If we wantmarriages to go on "happily ever after" or even come close to doing so, we woulddo well to recognize another source of great strain in most of them -- a stalledgender revolution. Over the last 40 years, women have changed greatly while therest of society -- the partners they live with, the workplaces they go to, thehours they put in, the child care they depend on -- has not changed as rapidly oras deeply. Women are now virtually half of the labor force, but we still don'thave universal paid parental leave, widely available flextime and flexplace, oreven part-time jobs with security and benefits, let alone child allowances andcareer sabbaticals. And, of course, we've never believed in real vacations.Indeed, as more women have gone to work, work hours have increased. Workplacespeedups subtract from the time we need for "family values."
Meanwhile, we increasingly leave the care of young and old to the free market.Yet according to a 2000 federal report on the nation's nursing homes, 91 percentwere understaffed, leaving elderly residents to suffer from bedsores,malnutrition, weight loss, dehydration, and pneumonia. For adequate care,according to the report, homes should have 1 nurse's aide for every 5 or 6residents. Today, ratios vary from 1:8 to 1:14. And even though 20 percent ofAmericans end their lives in nursing homes -- a figure predicted to rise to 40percent by 2020 -- Bush has no plans to set minimum staffing levels.
Since the 1930s, government has played a key role in keeping theAmerican economy functioning well. Even in the current massively deregulated era,we have Alan Greenspan hovering protectively over the marketplace. So it is curious that we have not pursued a parallel course to provide protection for theAmerican family, the great shock absorber of the boom-and-bust cycles ofcapitalism.
From nations such as Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, where there is stronggovernment support for parents, including single parents, we know that this kindof government intervention works. In Norway, 75 percent of children grow up inintact families with both their biological parents; they also grow up in anactivist state that guarantees 48 weeks of fully paid parental leave, a decentincome for single mothers, excellent child care, and flexible work hours. Thisisn't a coincidence. Family protections and family durability go together.
It's not that we don't have personal problems that call for nongovernmentalsolutions. We do. In a culture that pressures us to shop, buy, discard, shop,buy, discard, we've unconsciously come to consume intimacy, too. We've becomeless inclined to hang in there through the hard times at home. Tolstoy famouslysaid that happy families are all alike but every unhappy family is unhappy inits own way. Given the commercial spirit of intimate life, many Americanmarriages nowadays are unhappy in the same way.
Still, their well-being depends on several things that governments can ensurethem -- an absence of poverty, the time to nurture families, and well-paid careattendants for those, old and young, who need care. In George Bush, we haveinstead a practitioner of the pincer action, a deadbeat dad of family policy, theHerbert Hoover of family problems. Which leaves the coast clear for a Democraticcandidate in 2004 who sees that it's as important to protect America's familiesas it is to protect its businesses. You know, family values.
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