In Defense of the Family

...But his study represents more than just a textbook for students of Polish litera- ture at American colleges and univer- sities...

...Do parents, be- cause they have children, carry certain unalterable responsibilities...

...Neither was it surprising that some parents, preoccupied with these false or impossible goals and unable to sort out because times have changed, but because the left-wing survivors have a sense of history...

...priorities, should begin to view their children's needs as burdensome, one more obstacle to personal fulfillment...

...Rim Kramer suggsts that parenthood is not only a noble, but an enobling, task...

...Do children, because they are children, have certain irreduci- ble fights and needs...

...With encouragement from the women's movement and various pop psycholo- gists, many parents (especially mothers) responded to this "burden" by redefin- ing their children's needs, rather than reexamining the source and significance of their own desires...

...For the American reader he provides his own poetic translations of poems ranging from the Middle Ages to the most contemporary times, including his own poetry which has won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980...

...Looking back I am not all that proud of my part...

...Withal it is important, interesting, rather complete, and nearly always accurate...

...Kramer's reassuring message is not only that parents should and must reclaim for themselves the primary responsibility of nurturing, guiding and teaching their children, but that they are more than up to REVIEWERS WALTER M. SULLIVAN is the author of Reconstructing Pubfic Philosophy (University of Colffomia ). FATHER GERARD REEDY, S.J., is chairman of the English department at Fordham Univer- sity...

...The decade of the Self has, by conse- quence rather than intent, left two una- voidable questions...

...What more can a man be, having achieved the highest honor bestowed every year upon men and women of letters...

...For Milosz's study is more than just a history of literature --it is a history of a proud nation determined to fight for its free- dom...

...Children Without Childhood doesn't promote political views...

...In naming Mr...

...he argues with and challenges what he does not like...

...The IUE even- tually won about half the old member- ship...

...Correspondence (Continued from page 418) Christian truth (his so-called "lust for certainty") is over-argued...

...Berends is brave enough to quote from Dialogues in Metapsychiatry ("The understanding of what is abolishes all that seems to be") on a page facing tips for child-proofing the home ("Socket caps are a must...

...Most of what is now being written takes their side, not only I Childhood's return CHILDREN WITHOUT CHILDHOOD Marie Wtnn Pantheon, $13.95, 224 pp...

...Spanning a millen-nium, it is a history determined, perhaps, by Poland, s geographical location be- tween Germany and Russia, two neighboring powers whose aggressive appetites spelled doom for Poland throughout centuries...

...Of course, choosing responsibility makes parents responsible (answerable, account-able) -- a fact which leads not to burdens or repression, but to greater freedom in Poetry across a turbulent history making their own decisions by their own standards...

...Milosz's poetic personality shines on the pages of his study...

...Third, Hinojosa's critique of Martin's assessment of church-world dialogue lacks the sociological realism that serves as the backdrop for Martin's Comments: (1) meaningful dialogue cannot take place when a community is deeply insec- ure in its own self-identity...

...The further result is the "far-reaching spiritual significance of even the meanest momentary details of our experience...

...Rita Kramer has written a wise, humane, and sensible book that offers parents' 'an array of ideas that may prove useful in gathering the courage to find and follow [their] own convictions...

...and he comments warmly about facts, works, and writers who come close to his heart...

...An American reader, who by this time is probably familiar with James Michener's hestselling novel Poland, will be able to place that novel in the broad context of Polish literary and culCommonweal: 446...

...rural history, to comprehend the impor- tance of"the Polish Pope," John Paul II, and to appreciate the significance of the "Solidarity" movement which has re- suited in a Nobel Peace Prize given to its leader, Lech Walesa in 1983...

...I0 August 1984:445 the task...

...rian, lecturer, and long-time peace and labor activist, is presently serving as pastor of St...

...After all, not only a poet but a scholar, too, is entitled to his own, sub- jective interpretations of a literary history as long as he renders its letter and spirit...

...Copies of the UE News and the Daily Worker are available and eloquent...

...A major fact of this book is that within the context of the author's aspirations the above is not simplistic or impossible ad- vice...

...Causes and results aside, Ms...

...policies, some of which were Machiavellian, are examined at justifiable length...

...But children, being tough customers with their own felt priorities, confronted parents, as always, with the bare, inescapable truth: This wasn't working--for anybOdy...

...As for the causes and results of this appalling situation (whereby might come solutions), the author just isn't sure...

...I was a free-wheeling part of the latter...

...It is never clear who exactly this book is for, or what exactly its intention is...

...The Auto Workers, the Machinists, and others raided it for years and kept on even after the CIO chartered its non-Communist IUE in 1949...

...My deepest regret is that we did not defend their civil fights in the final crunch, and let McCarthyites have their will of them...

...For Marie Winn evades the implica- tion of her own conclusion and turns in- stead to the language of special interests...

...So, having followed her own as-sumptions, the author reaches a sell evident conclusion--that mothers, when economic considerations allow, best serve their children by being around to guide them, teach them, know them...

...Winn writes, "all things being equal, children would be better off with a cheer- ful, confident mother than with a de-pressed, anxious dmdge"--as if each were the only alternative to the other...

...Even at that, this book leaves its mark, In Defense of the Family, by Rita Krarner, does more than leave its mark...

...Anne's Church in Pittsburgh...

...Those Communists, shrewd in so many mat- ters, were naive to fancy that they could continue defiantly spouting the party line with impunity...

...and earnest and talented enough to make each idea meaningful to the other...

...For "No big deal" expresses Polly Berends's "allowed" attitude toward the byproducts of daily problems...

...The employers, of course, took ad- vantage of all this...

...And this is especially true for Milosz...

...JEP.ZY R. KRZYZANOWSKI is professor of Slavic and East European languages and lit- eratures at Ohio State University...

...As the decade ran its course, it became increasingly obvious that this reassessment was defensive in nature, a reaction...

...Most of us ACTU people had been influenced by Dorothy Day in the direc- tion of enthusiastic support of organized labor, but we lost Dorothy's serenity and positive attitude along the way...

...In the end the UE was almost wiped out...

...WHOLE CHILD/ WHOLE PARENT Polly Berrien Berends Harper & Row, $16.95, 360 pp...

...it scores a bullseye...

...The Communist cadres in the UE were demanding, and in internecine strife they gave no quarter...

...IN DEFENSE OF THE FAMILY Raising Children in America Today Rita l~mmer il~e Books, $15.~, 263 pp...

...If he does not like some authors, e.g., W.S...

...Sadly, it all comes down to dividing "burdens," guarding territory, and finding culprits...

...Martin's position ~E~BYW n~BLITEU~K Czeslaw~ Jerzy R. Krzyzcmowski A POET, a novelist, an essayist, and a Nobel Prize winner...

...Would that they had lain low and tried to ameliorate relations be- tween Moscow and Washington...

...All parents have to do (no small trick, but it gets easier with practice) is to decide what's important by following their intuition, instinct, and common sense, which have" worked since history began whenever affection was guided by individual life experience...

...These are questions parents might ask themselves before approaching any of these three new books on family life--books which are, directly or indirectly, either a reflec- tion of, or a response to, the decade of the Self...

...It underlines once more the Reader's Digest type of research that forms the basis for most of our assessments of the historical and theological significance of the charis- rrmtic renewal...

...Women," she warns, "cannot go backward...

...He writes about all that literature lucidly, with involvement and some-times even passion...

...That this particular book will doubtless be viewed in some circles as either radical or reactionary, says even more...

...Martin's concept of dialogue as evangel- ical strategy is more consistent with the thrust of Vatican II documents than that proposed by Hinojosa...

...2) dialogue is primarily a mode of communication (and persuasion) rather than a vehicle for radical ecclesial self-transformation...

...Only one very sure of her direction could write--as counsel to mothers forced to leave infants for the workplace--"If you have to go to work, you have to go to work...

...When we began, our anti-Communism was not fashionable, especially in liberal circles, but it became so...

...We were pro-labor and not merely anti-Communist, but I for one wish there had been far less emphasis on the negative...

...Some critics, par- ticularly in Poland, thus find his study opinionated and uneven but this is hardly the case...

...MONSIGNOR CHARLES OWEN RICE, histo...

...Fourthly, Hinojosa uses the term "fundamentalism" much too loosely...

...he places it in the historical and cultural context...

...Martin stands very firmly within the Catholic theologi- cal tradition in his appreciation of the significance of dogmatic truth for intel- lectual, moral, and spiritual develop- ment...

...True to her own advice, she has written a noble book which, like a good parent, provides the confidence of sure expectations and the safety of loving limits...

...She writes that one of the challenges of this task is to he "tolerant while mainraining your standards...

...The focus of tlte seventies was on a highly valued but unclearly defined idea of self-fulfillment and self-realization...

...A writer by turns exacting and mov- ing, funny and oblique, Ms...

...In the manner of most spiritually based books, Whole Child~Whole Parent is complete unto itself and meant to be embraced whole...

...An entirely different picture of childhood--for children and parents--is provided by Polly Berrien Berends in her newly revised Whole Child~Whole Par- ent...

...At this crucial point the book crum- bles...

...DANIEL CERE The utlmr replies San Antonio, Tex...

...The result is that what works ("pro- motes harmony") is true...

...Janet ~:ott Bcsriow D URING the | 970s and beyond parents have been faced with an ongoing public and personal reassessment of the purpose of parenthood and the meaning of childhood...

...The dice are loaded when Ms...

...Writing without academic jargon he has organized a mountain of research into a smooth narrative...

...we as Christians, however, should have risen above that...

...The image of Poland emerging from the pages of his book is faithful to that coun- try's turbulent history with her age of glory during the Renaissance period and her tragic downfall at the end of the eighteenth century, her heroic struggles for freedom spirited by the Romantic poets, and her stubborn resistance against the Nazis and the Communists ever since the beginning of World War II...

...Believing that problems are "meaningful, and that each problem we confront is presenting to us the very next lesson we need," the author's goal is a state of spiritual con- sciousness (oneness with God) in which the single concept of true and false is allowed to replace the ideas of right and wrong, cause and effect, free will, and self-authorship...

...The UE archives are open and in academic hands, (but so are mine...

...By any objective academic standards Martin cannot be classified in the tradi- tion of fundamentalism...

...JANET SCOTT BARLOW has written for Par- eats Magazine, Matriag~ and Family Living, and the Cincinnati Post...

...They were merciless and injected nastiness and bitterness into the struggle...

...Schatz is fair, but, even as he tries to be neutral between the UE and its foes, he cannot suppress admiration for a great union and the dedicated, often fanatic, men and women who led it...

...Of all the many books, Schatz's is the most urbane and scholarly...

...Milosz does not restrict its scope to a dry enumeration of facts, dates, and authors...

...To this end, she invites readers of her book to "use what you can [and] discard the rest," Chief among her ideas is that control of children belongs to the family "where character can best be structured in relation to loving and at the same time restraining parents...

...it clings to them as substitutes for real solutions...

...Applying the above questions to Made Winn's Children Without Childhood seems vital because the book is so bleak in its assumptions and so foggy in its purpose...

...No big deal...

...The book's main assumption, however, is obvious: Children today grow up early, unprotected from the in- fluences of sex, drugs, pornography, and Commonweal: 444 "sorrowful knowledge of the adult world...

...Since everything that people do can be either the cause or the result of everything that happens to them, the buck, in this case, stops nowhere...

...Cere is totally on target...

...Communism hadn't a chance of taking over America or even its labor move- ment, but we did not know that, and we were infected by the demon theory and the notion of Communist invincibility...

...Nevertheless, some readers will choose to lift a nugget here and there, using it according to their needs and applying it according to their values...

...That purge was inevitable...

...In one thing Mr...

...Reymont, another Polish Nobel Prize winner in 1924, he covers them in a short, two- ages-long space, but to personalities who attract his imagfnatinn, like an eighteenth century adventurer, Potocki, he gives twice as much space...

...The question (if it ever really existed) of what is truly best for children is altered by political considerations to read, What is the least painful compromise for women...

...His regret at its downfall is genuine and he grieves over the humbler victims of the purge of the 1950's...

...all else is false...

...In a time when desires got mistaken for rights and responsibility got confused with repression, it was not surprising that self-fulfillment and self-realization were isolated as goals (or rights) unto them- selves, rather than the natural (earned) consequence of a larger purpose...

...Winn cites two factors which together form "the crucial determinant" in how to- r children grow up: divorce and working mothers...

...It appears to be a book about the problems of children, but it pays more attention to the idea of children as prob- lems...

...But in the interim, chil- dren must endure a different, less pro- tected sort of childhood...

...Marie Winn's inability to define and address her stated problem in any mean- ingful way--to decide what is most important--becomes fully evident when she writes that the "blame, if any is to be assigned, must go to men for not stepping into the breach and taking on a greater share of child care burdens...

...Such is the nature of this loving book that a reader might question Polly Berends's philosophical concepts or specific defini- tions without ever questioning her integ- rity or conviction...

...He comments with compassion or irony on Poland's history...

...That a book should be given such a title says something about our times...

...This is feminist talk, and it reveals the one offensive female stereotype feminists have chosen to exploit rather than refute: full-time mother as drudge...

...It is ironic that the Communists who lost on the field of battle bid fair to win the battle of the books...

...The Communists in the UE had many enemies but among the most formidable and long standing were the Socialists and the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists (ACTU...

...Although it does not present the ACTU in a favorable light, it does not denounce it...

...Having been (sometimes willingly) bullied by experts, coerced by schools, and seduced by various "movements," parents have had their confidence eroded, their values questioned, and their goals for their children obscured...

...No other study thus far, published either in the West or in Poland, covers the span of a thousand years as completely and comprehensively as Milosz's work...

...But their morale was high, they were good at what they did, and when they realized their ultimate vulnerability, it was too late...

...With a new epilogue covering the 1960s and 1970s, it is there- fore the most up-to-date study on the subject, and chances are it will maintain its leading position for many years to come...

...Marie Winn makes clear in her Intro- duction that she herself cannot decide whether parental attitudes reflect socie- ty's values or ~letermine them, an indeci- sion that proves telling...

...Well, Milosz is also a scholar whose history of Polish literature has been recently reissued in a new edi- tion, some fifteen years after it was origi- nally published...

...Since divorce, in her view, has roots in "political disillusion- ment and the ever increasing nuclear threat" (making it "an acceptable social phenomenon, like.., moving to the sub- urbs"), it would seem to be, like so much in this book, a problem beyond the re- sponsibility or control of mere individu- als...

...Finally, Hinojosa's association of the charismatic renewal with Montanism is a very poorly chosen slur...