BOOK REVIEW: THE WAR AGAINST PARENTS ADDRESSES A BAD SITUATION

In The War Against Parents, economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Harvard Professor Cornel West put together a great many things we already knew and connect the dots. Addressing some things we seldom like to think about at the same time, they create a rather scary picture of a nation destroying itself by declaring war upon the most basic of its building blocks, the family.

In the course of their very interesting discussion, these two skilled writers constantly remind the reader of three things: that they are a native American black man from California and a Welsh immigrant woman, that this is an unlikely combination, and that this unique blend has facilitated great insight. That said, and re-said, the authors do display great insight into the foolish self-destruction of American society by an unholy combination of assaults on parents by government, the media, big business and of course the law. Detailing the severe roadblocks that these institutions throw in the way of most normal parents trying to raise decent children who will become capable, independent and worthwhile adults, the authors describe a great many confrontations in which family lawyers find themselves, on one side or the other, on the front lines.

The most familiar of these for the largest number of family lawyers involves law and government policy favoring divorce and single parenthood, supported by welfare and alimony and child support, as the preferred situation for raising children. The next most familiar is probably the vast expansion of the parental-rights-termination industry which, by accident or design, feeds an ever-growing demand for adoptable children. The invasion and micromanagement of family life by social workers and of course the nightmarish experience of parents prosecuted upon, and families destroyed by, charges of "abuse," and particularly sexual abuse, are covered in rich detail. Any lawyer arguing that parents who have allegedly failed their children have plenty of excuses will find ample data and inspiration here.

The authors are particularly good at demonstrating how TV and the other media fuel the fantasies of weak-minded persons in a culture in which all issues become therapy issues, and then entertainment, so as to let persons who are so disposed find "abuse" everywhere. They are also particularly good at following the thread of spoiled children's flight from all responsibility into a truly rotten adulthood within the therapy culture, wherein a very weird value system lets all sins and failures be blamed upon one's parents. They describe how this fully blossoms into the kind of "toxic parenting" obsession that therapists seeking fame, and the trashiest sorts of media, so viciously encourage. How television went from depicting fathers as bungling morons to depicting all parents as monsters is carefully detailed.

Because they are avowed old-left liberals, both authors (A) display great regret and reluctance before admitting that some of the new concepts of equality and non-discrimination (for single mothers, homosexuals, cohabiting couples, etc.) in all spheres of life undermine the family and parents, and (B) tend to think that government isn't doing enough for the family and the most important remedy is for government to do more. They look back fondly to the society of the 1940s and 1950s of their own childhoods as a baseline, and there they find the law, government policy, business and the media all doing much to encourage nuclear families in their parenting. The California author's father was a highly motivated black war veteran who benefited enormously by the GI Bill and the various government policies that subsidized home ownership for young families. He raised his family according to strict and lofty ideals handed down from the 19th, 18th and all previous centuries, which were strongly encouraged by the culture of his time, and he became the kind of model good citizen that today's smug adults would describe as a hopeless dork.

Both authors lovingly detail how the little bits of TV they were allowed to watch endorsed and glorified this kind of innocent family life. The Welsh author describes how the government policies of postwar Britain's Labour Government and the trade unions supported hardworking families with subsidies which allowed her and her many siblings to climb out of their urban poverty. While the authors are uncomfortable with the concept of discrimination, they finally conclude that there is nothing wrong with pro-family discrimination of this kind.

West and Hewlett explain how business policies, often dictated by the real or perceived impact of federal regulations, but also deriving from a hopelessly amoral market strategy in a world of cutthroat global competition, at best force both parents to work in order to survive and at worst throw family providers on the scrap heap. Anti-parent and anti-family discrimination by employers, often with no conceivable business excuse, is detailed over and over again by the authors' examples.

Because they credit their fathers with enormously important roles in their nurture, survival and success, Hewlett and West devote an entire Part III of their four-part book to the problem of fatherlessness. They do not believe in dropout and deadbeat dads, but rather show how the vast majority of such fathers have been driven out of the homes they made by a vicious combination of media derision, feminist theory and government policy, all directed at convincing mothers that their children are better raised in a fatherless home. The authors cite all the statistics to the effect that lack of a male parent in the home is the most reliable statistical predictor of failure at school, involvement with crime and drugs, early pregnancy, and -- since the overwhelming majority of child abuse by males is committed by stepfathers and mothers' boy friends -- exposure to physical and sexual abuse.

It is no revelation, of course, that all the institutions and conventions of society which operated to make men proud of being fathers have been intentionally trashed, including marriage, legitimacy, the dignity of parental work as breadwinner, etc., but the authors run through all of this. They talk quite openly about the prevalence of illegitimacy in the black community and its powerful status as a fad in the white middle-class community. They squarely face the fact that large numbers of unattached young males roaming the streets in gangs because they are totally unwelcome in homes poses a danger to society and to themselves. They consider that black men have been especially viciously targeted, and they take a long look at Promise Keepers and the Nation of Islam as possible escape routes from redundancy and degradation for heterosexual men.

The authors acknowledge that our society now offers men - particularly black men - few of the rewards of family life that it used to: no permanent relationship, no respect, and little likelihood of staying long enough to see one's children grow up, much less influence that growth. They see it substituting nothing but degradation and the increased risk of being thrown out and turned into a mere provider of child support checks, to be pursued relentlessly by government bureaucrats as society's favorite villain, the Deadbeat Dad.

In sum, the authors see nothing wrong with children continuing to be raised by two married parents who gave them birth, and they see nothing wrong with a society encouraging that, as societies have done from time immemorial until recent decades. Like most well educated and well meaning people, the authors are not abundantly blessed with concrete ideas as to how this is to be achieved.

When it comes to solutions, the authors, perhaps predictably, try to ascertain what parents need by asking what parents want, and turning to pollsters to get the specifics. Knowing their publicity efforts would get nowhere without it, they predictably promulgate a Parents' Bill of Rights.

Predictably too, in the final part of their book, called "Reweaving The Web of Care," they look mainly to government and government-regulated big business to throw money at various facets of the problem as highlighted by an "Index of Parent Well Being." In fact, the entire first three programs making up their Parents' Bill of Rights amount to economic security rights. They do call forthrightly for a "pro-family legal structure" including stronger marriage, but the only other elements are "support for fathers," and "adoption assistance." The fifth program, also, is almost entirely government patronage and subsidy, and the sixth and final element, "honor and dignity," has only three parts: the Index of Parent Well Being, a National Parents' Day, and "parent privileges." Almost all of this would be helpful to parents, God knows, even if all it did were to dispel the image of a government avowedly and unabashedly hostile to families. One has to wonder, however, how much would actually be different about the world that these felt-need programs would create. The authors nevertheless frequently betray in this book strong feelings that it would actually be necessary to change public attitudes and the media that create and cultivate them if the war against parents is going to see even a cease-fire and temporary truce, much less anything like even a minor parental victory.

The War Against Parents, published by Houghton Mifflin, 302 pp., $24.00.