More and more the District government has been assuming the traditional roles and responsibilities of parents, said Ward 6 D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells. That comment, made during a recent public hearing on legislation that would require the city to implement federal welfare guidelines that cap assistance at five years, has replayed in my mind during the past couple of weeks. There was much ballyhoo over the fact that the legislative proposal was introduced by Ward 7’s Yvette Alexander and Ward 8’s Marion Barry — both of whom have significant numbers of welfare recipients as constituents. But little attention was given to Wells’ stunning insight.
Hi analysis was correct, of course. But it didn’t go far enough: Truthfully, the District government, through its various public policies, has undermined and systematically eroded the family structure.
Consider these facts: Three-year-old children are placed for the entire day in the care of the public schools. If they attend after-school programs, they don’t get home until late evening. Many receive all their meals — breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks — in some nondescript cafeteria. There are other examples of child snatching by the government.
“The general feeling is the parent doesn’t know best,” Wells told me. “We’ve decided children are better off with [the government] than with their parents.”
A child welfare professional and chairman of the council’s Committee on Human Services, Wells knows some people lack good parenting skills; others shouldn’t have been parents in the first place. But he said the government takeover of parental responsibilities occurred without any debate.
“We need to have that discussion, especially for families to understand what we expect from them,” Wells continued. “We expect them to work and we don’t expect them to raise their children.”
Why can’t they do both — work and rear their children? My mother did. Lots of people I know do.
Once upon a time, the government respected family. In fact, in this city during the 1990s and through Mayor Anthony A. Williams’ first term, there was an emphasis on preserving and strengthening families — regardless of any parental handicaps. Somewhere along the way that strategy lost currency. The government became surrogate parent.
But studies have shown that children separated from their real parents too early experience deep psychological problems. The separation can be long-term and permanent or it can be episodic. The results appear to be the same.
The government-as-surrogate-parent is an expensive proposition. It accounts for the large and ever-increasing costs of entitlements. The debate Wells has argued should occur in the District could begin as elected officials look to the projected 2012 budget shortfall of nearly $400 million.
The discussion can’t simply focus on dollars and cents, however. The new mayor and council might also explore the role government should play in protecting children. They may also consider how to achieve that goal without supplanting the responsibilities of parents and weakening the most critical element of a healthy society: a strong family structure.
Jonetta Rose Barras’s column appears on Monday and Wednesday. She can be reached at [email protected].
