FATHERLESS CHILDREN

Fatherless children
Conservative News Service - December 26, 1999
Pundits Agree: 20th Century Ravaged Childhood
By Bruce Sullivan

While generally lauding the last century's technological and economic achievements that have helped spread free-market capitalism and democracy around the world, liberals and conservatives both admit that the 20th Century took a toll on children by making divorce a household word. "Strong families produce strong people," said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, (D-NY), Sunday on NBC's Meet The Press. He added that he sees the break up of the family, and its effect on children, as the greatest challenge facing the world at the start of the next millennium. Moynihan appeared on the television show with conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr., retired Air Force Gen. Colin L. Powell and liberal historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

"Today about one-third of all children are born to single parents, and over time about two-thirds will live in a single-parent household," said Moynihan. "It's a new condition of life I don't think we understand." Moynihan pointed to anthropological studies showing that never before in recorded history have so many children been raised without fathers. "There is a fundamental disjunction. Societies were never like that before," said Moynihan.

"The first rule of anthropology that has been learned all over the world, every male - every child - has a male parent. And that's true in all societies ever known and recorded, something not true [now]," Moynihan said. Moynihan indicated that the 20th Century's dramatic rise in the divorce rate and out of wedlock births may be one result of government welfare programs that "provide for the absence" of fathers.

"You can be dependent on government if you don't have to be dependent on parents. I think that, I don't know it. But I have a strong feeling whatever went wrong government won't solve it," stated Moynihan.

Joining Moynihan in deploring government's role in the deterioration of the 20th Century nuclear family was Buckley, who founded the National Review magazine and recently retired as host of the television talk show Firing Line. "I think government is standing in the way right now of an increase in good education," said Buckley.

By not allowing public funds to be used for students to attend private schools, and by disallowing any mention of God or religion in public schools, Buckley said that governments have deprived children of being exposed to certain virtues and ideals necessary for their education. "And the exclusion of this, I think, is maybe having dire consequences, and is certainly, theoretically, to be deplored. But, government is responsible for it," said Buckley. He added that if the trends of the 20th Century continue, by the end of the 21st Century the "married couple would be the anomaly."

Powell, who now works with children through organizations such as America's Promise and Alliance For Youth, said he agreed with Moynihan and Buckley that the family structure has changed dramatically in the last century. However, he added that he believes the paradigm of the two-parent household may have changed permanently. "I don't think we're going to be able to snap our fingers and go back to the model that we all dream about and would like to see," said Powell. He added that he supports the traditional two-parent household, but he recognizes that the many children who don't live in such units need outside help. "We have to come in with mentors. We have to come in with people who are willing to get into the lives of those youngsters if the parents aren't involved in those youngsters' lives," Powell said.

Goodwin said the biggest change for children in the 20th Century has been the loss of what she termed "a separate sphere" in which to grow up. "The challenge of restoring childhood to our children is the biggest challenge of the next century," said Goodwin. She added that when she grew up in the 1950's children were not exposed to so much divorce, violence or sexuality as they are now.

Goodwin said that because more women are in the work force they will face challenges in the next century as they try to combine their work lives with their family lives. "It's going to have to get balanced against commitments and bonds, and how to keep the family structure together," she added.