LETTERS to the Editor
LETTERS to the Editor Reform or Revolution Iwas much impressed with your comment, "Reagan's Options and Ours," in the July issue. You have raised the fundamental issue of our times: What is wrong...
...When we talk about families, we are talking about social relations, emotional attachments, special connections, responsibilities, and a hard-to-explain set of close ties...
...that the people have lost control of the Government and have no leaders to give voice to their fears and hopes...
...To suggest that the embattled family is something new is to reinforce the New Right myth that we live in a time of moral degeneracy...
...Kathleen Baxter-Stern Eliana Gil Donna Lloyd Palmer San Francisco Child Abuse Council/Institutional Abuse Project San Francisco, California Editor's note: Betty Medsger's article on foster care was completed some months before its publication in The Progressive...
...Are there any volunteers to gently tell Crippen the unvarnished truth...
...And this problem is particularly magnified when one looks at the small number of quality foster homes willing to serve young persons with special needs...
...Representative John Rous-selot, a member of the House Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation, has pledged his support for the Child Welfare Act, and has vowed to fight against its inclusion in the block grant...
...The service provisions require: 11A plan to achieve permanency for every child...
...Those who enjoy parental molestation tend to become promiscuous adults...
...Too often, those parents want their RON HAUGE children removed from the home, permanently deferring parental responsibility to the state or local community...
...If Pixler had read my essay instead of using a fantasized version of it to launch a predictable and quite tedious rejoinder based on a particular feminist dogma, she would have noticed that I explicitly rejected the idea that there should be an official Government policy on families such as the Family Protection Bill, which I find, as she does, appalling...
...What are the alternatives...
...It would have, for the first time, given status incentive to work with these troubled families in order to prevent removal of the children in the first place, or to seek to reunify a family which had been separated...
...Sexual affection in childhood, no matter how pleasing at the moment, is a poor substitute for parental affection...
...Third, the Code requires administrative and, in some cases, judicial reviews of the progress in achieving those goals...
...11 goals for reduction of the proportion of children who remain in care longer than two years...
...I think most Americans realize that our Government is corrupt and inefficient...
...Poaching on the Public Preserve," by Carol Polsgrove and John Buell (July issue), is one example of a perceptively written article wjiich rightly champions a radical change in the system but offers no workable ideas about what the first step might be: "Hopes that we can solve these crises by legislative mandate ignore the realities of power in our society...
...Charles R. Cooper Assistant Administrator Foster Care Review Board Baltimore, Maryland Betty Medsger describes the inequities of the foster care system accurately, and she notes that...
...I aimed to get away from that—to construct, a living and vibrant account of familial reality in all its diversity...
...Jean Bethke Elshtain Amherst, Massachusetts Lost Children Betty Medsger's "Lost Children" (May issue) presented an excellent critical examination of the foster care system...
...Natural selection and, in our species, cultural restrictions make incest a very unattractive alternative to outbreeding...
...Gene Siege I Tempe, Arizona Betty Medsger's conclusion that public practices often contradict official pretenses about our reverence for the sanctity of the family is extremely important in understanding what happens to the children in our care...
...Crippen told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on May 26, "We continue to think that space ought to be used for the benefit of all mankind in a positive way...
...The role of politics is to determine whether this will be so...
...Are we to turn to massive artificial reproduction a la Huxley's Brave New World or Firestone's feminist text, The Dialectic ofSexl Given the fact that I can't omit children from my view of the world quite so readily as many others, I must reaffirm what is required in order for human bonds to be created and sustained...
...I also challenge Penny Pixler to find in my essay that mythical beast, "the official myth of the family (provider father, homemaking mother, 2.3 children who are sexless until they marry and create new families just like the ones they grew up in...
...The Progressive correctly opposes the fact that one-third of the shuttle's flights have been booked by the military, yet fails to mention the numerous and documented benefits that will be derived from the remaining flights...
...Further, though I would not argue with the statement that the family, has in many cases become an "embattled enclave," this is not something that began anywhere near the time of World War II...
...I thought this was precisely my argument...
...that the great multinational corporations have taken over our national resources and have become unregulated and uncontrolled monopolies...
...Natural parents who refuse to care for their children and the insufficient number of truly capable foster families add another sad chapter to the story of "Lost Children...
...is authorized by Congress to provide $226 million for the services to the natural families...
...I congratulate you on your timely comment, but you have not gone far enough...
...The rhetoric of "family protection" is historically tied to reactionary repression...
...But when prominent leaders advocate any behavior, even that which conflicts with genetic predispositions and morality, an increase in the behavior will occur among the less stable...
...that Washington, like ancient Rome, is a city for sale...
...Why is it that the official myth of the family (provider father, homemaking mother, 2.3 children who are sexless until they marry and create new families just like the ones they grew up in) is so carefully preserved when it is so out of touch with everyday reality...
...Why does the official myth ignore these everyday realities, and what is the price for doing so...
...We would urge all who believe that reform of the foster care system is essential and urgent to write Representative Rousselot and express their concern and support...
...She writes, "Child Welfare Services...
...I'd like to offer a challenge to future authors for The Progressive: Who among you has enough imagination and foresight to consistently formulate really workable solutions to the inequities about which you so fluently and passionately write...
...One disheartening aspect of child care that was not sufficiently addressed, however, involves those natural parents (albeit a minority in number) who refuse to take their children back home...
...The General Assembly of Virginia recognized the problem and offered the hope of some remedy by its passage of the Revised Juvenile Code that went into effect in 1976...
...In fact, before the Twentieth Century, most people didn't even live long enough to have the types of families Elshtain describes...
...Penny Pixler Chicago, Illinois Jean Bethke Elshtain's article, though no doubt well intended, was slightly off base...
...To advocate it as psychologically beneficial to the child is unethical...
...But all we have is a Tip O'Neill and his dying swans...
...It strikes me that the ball is in Pixler's court to answer her own questions—"What are the alternatives...
...f programs for pre-placement prevention and post-placement reunification...
...At a time when we are haunted by the specter of a "Family Protection Bill" that would prohibit Federally supported schools from buying or preparing educational materials that "tend to denigrate, diminish, or deny the role differences between the sexes as it has been historically understood in the United States," we need to look carefully at what it is we want to protect...
...With few exceptions, child participants appear to be damaged by the experience...
...This legislation is slated for repeal under the Reagan Administration's budget plan...
...It is time for all patriotic Americans to combine to form a Progressive Socialist Party that will free us from the monopolies that control our destiny and make a joke of our claim to be a free enterprise system...
...There is no evidence to support the supposition that the "extended family" was common in this country at any time...
...I lived in the sort of family— one "composed of in-tergenerational groupings"— that Schwarz claims never existed...
...those who find incest distressing are rarely able to rid themselves of its effects...
...Second, the Revised Code requires the administering agency to record the custody goals for each child in its care and to establish deadlines for achieving these goals...
...Larry Miles El Centro, California...
...The time has come for reform or revolution...
...Indeed, there have been such moves toward reform beginning five years ago, and culminating in the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980...
...I state in my piece: "I don't want Government defining what families are and then gearing its policies accordingly...
...The times call for a Tom Paine or a Wayne Morse...
...Four years of data show that the Virginia Revised Juvenile Code has been effective in ameliorating some of the more pressing foster care problems, so well described in Medsger's article, for Virginia children finding themselves in need of care and protection by designated public bodies...
...Conjugal rape did not start with feminist criticism of it, nor wife-beating with the publication of Martin's Battered Wives, nor incest with the publication of Armstrong's Kiss Daddy Goodnight...
...Who said anything about an "official nuclear family...
...Unfortunately, the Reagan Administration is seeking to consolidate this new program, along with eight other social services, into a block grant to the states, with an overall reduction of all social services funds by 25 per cent...
...We need a Second Constitutional Convention to modernize our Government and nationalize the national resource and armament industries...
...For the same reasons, one shouldn't advocate the elimination of a productive and beneficial space program because insane militarists seek to dominate it...
...Human incest is probably very rare in intact normal families...
...I aim to do so, in my own words, without repeating "earlier terms of female oppression and exploitation...
...And the goal of progressives shouldn't be to destroy this truck for what it carries, but to advocate policies that determine what it transports...
...This transportation vehicle is capable of greatly increasing scientific knowledge, technological and industrial innovation, and yes, "lifting our spirits...
...For those children who had no hope of being returned to the natural parents, adoption subsidies would be provided...
...Joseph Donald Craven Naples, Florida Ican always count on The Progressive to increase my sense of outrage at inequity and to present me with information I am unlikely to obtain elsewhere, but one thing consistently bothers me: Where are the specific suggestions for constructive action...
...I grew up in the sort of community— the one we have pretty much lost—that I wrote about...
...one might expect a massive move toward reform...
...frequent reviews to update the plan and determine the need for continued placement...
...Columbia, like the MX missile system, will have the negative result of pushing us all one step closer to the "final days...
...This notion of the family was always an abstract artifact of various sociological models...
...Senator William Proxmire is right when he calls the shuttle a "truck...
...You have raised the fundamental issue of our times: What is wrong with the country, and what can be done about it...
...What we need is not quiet reason, but militant and united action...
...James J. Fulmer Shrewsbury, Massachusetts Hard Times Iwas disappointed in Jean Bethke Elshtain's "Hard Times for the American Family" (May issue...
...First, it created a "Permanent Foster Care" category by its rather revolutionary acknowledgment that not all children can be returned to their natural parents or placed for adoption...
...One doesn't advocate the destruction of airplanes to control dropping of bombs...
...The emotional and psychological impact is nothing short of devastating for the children...
...That these are under increasing pressure seems to be beyond doubt, and it seems likely that this, in turn, has something to do with the breakdowns in civility noted by Schwarz...
...Taylor E. Dark III Berkeley, California The Progressive's comment concerning the planned use of the space shuttle as a super-military vehicle has, I am sorry to say, an all too familiar ring of truth...
...As Medsger pointed out, one of the more serious problems faced by the children is the need to try to adjust to a seemingly endless string of foster homes...
...The forces causing changes in the American family are the same forces that are changing the American political, social, and economic landscape...
...Incest is, for most animals including humans, one of the least preferred forms of sexual outlet...
...There is substantial evidence to indicate that fundamental changes in the structure of the American family began near the start of the Nineteenth Century...
...The "Permanent" category requires that the administering agency make long-term plans to assure that placement arrangements are continuous...
...This will leave foster care reform efforts undercut, as states will be under no obligation to spend any money on this program...
...Perhaps his definition of "extended family," or even of "family," is so narrow that scarcely any family then or now could fit the bill...
...The article did little more than handwring over the proclaimed demise of the official nuclear family...
...But it has been funded at only $50 million...
...The spacecraft itself is innocuous—the danger lies only in what it transports...
...One need only take a cursory look at the New Right to see that minority rights, the rights of the poor, gay rights, and women's rights are indivisible struggles...
...Are children to run around contrading for the best deal in households...
...The author's research and interviews must be nearly a year old if she is not aware of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, funded at $160 million, which amends both parts of Federal aid to the states—foster care board payments (AFDC-FC) and services to children and natural families...
...Mice, prairie dogs, ducks, quails, monkeys, chimps, and baboons prefer and seek out as sexual partners those with whom they had no prolonged intimate association during their prepu-bescence...
...Robert G. Kassebaum Bowling Green, Virginia As a subscriber to The Progressive and a contributor to the Fund for Investigative Journalism, I was dissap-pointed to find glaring omissions in Betty Medsger's article on foster care...
...Ray H. Bixler Louisville, Kentucky Space Shuttle The Progressive's comment on the launch of the space shuttle Columbia ("Our Endangered Species," June issue) was accurate in its analysis of the military implications of this new space vehicle, but displayed a surprising shortsightedness for a "progressive" publication...
...But I rarely read an article in the Left's press (or any press for that matter) which discusses the family's role as a protector of the status quo...
...I doubt, however, that the lobby will have a substantial effect...
...Further, all areas of social services will be competing for these funds...
...The AFDC-FC program has added funds for subsidized adoptions, a program whose absence the LETTERS to the Editor author bemoans...
...Federal funds would be drastically reduced to states that do not institute the above measures...
...Sadly, astronaut Robert Crippen is being "used" by his superiors to tour the United States with co-astronaut Young and to state that the United States is not planning to carry weapons into space on its shuttles...
...Incest The "incest lobby" attacked by Marcia Yudkin in "Breaking the Incest Taboo" (May issue) is a worthy target of those able to draw a distinction between "children's rights" and the right of children to an optimal environment...
...Until the Left begins to recognize that the forces which oppress women and minorities are the same forces which are alienating us from one another and destroying our sense of community, until we recognize that these ills are rooted in the very nature of our socioeconomic system, we will not have the tools to fight effectively, and we will be divided on the issues...
...All technology, beginning with the wheel, can be used for negative and militaristic purposes...
...Michael Schwarz Amherst, Massachusetts The author replies: I'm not sure which article Penny Pixler read, but it certainly wasn't mine...
...Without question, all agencies involved in foster care must be held accountable for their actions and policies...
...To advocate incest because it is a child's right is illiberal nonsense...
...Failure to update it for the Child Welfare Act of 1980 was the fault of the editors, not the author...
...Crippen gives the appearance of being too wholesome to knowingly lie to the American people...
...Michael Schwarz argues that "the forces causing changes in the American family are the same forces that are changing the American political, social, and economic landscape," namely, "the very nature of our socioeconomic system...
...Who pays it...
...The basic purpose of the legislation was to ensure children's rights to a permanent and stable home...
...This Federal legislation would have reversed Federal funding policies, shifting funds from foster care maintenance payments into preventive and reunification services and adoption subsidies...
...It is no coincidence that with the recent increase in discourse on "family protection," there has been a 300 per cent increase in anti-gay violence, a substantial increase in rape, and a growing propensity for racial violence...
...How did the official myth of the intact, intimate family come into being...
...If we are to make any real headway toward using water and other resources in ways that will sustain a good life for us all, we will have to remake our basic economic system and the imbalance of power it supports...
...The Revised Code instituted a number of safeguards for the protection of the children...
...As of this writing there has been bipartisan support for saving the progressive provisions of the act by removing these programs from the block grant for social services...
Vol. 45 • August 1981 • No. 8
