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BERNICE
MILBURN MOORE
MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES
Dr.
Bernice Moore loved children and valued families. Her values live on
even through she died November 1, 1992. During her illustrious career,
she brought to The University of Tcxas' Hogg Foundation for Mental Health--and
the beneficiaries of its grants and public service--her qualities, of
sensitivity, wisdom, and concern for all people. These traits earned
for hcr the affection and admiration of colleagues and Texans everywhere.
Following
her youthful years in San Antonio and advannced degrees at The University
of Texas and The University of North Carolina, her career began as a
magazine editor, then as an advisor for industrial and youth groups.
Her understanding of family and community adjustment problems came after
her formal schooling.
She
gained practical experience while directing a research study of child
welfare and later serving as administrator of a community welfare program.
She became a consultant to the Texas Education Agency's Division of
Home and Family Life, a role in which she served for 20 years. During
this period she maintained an office at the Hogg Foundation where she
was considered One of the staff.
Dr.
Moore's work in community organization, and modern approaches to problems
of juvenile delinquency prevention led to her official appointment in
1964 to the position of Associate Director for Community Programs with
the Foundation. For seven years she was a leader of "Philanthropy
in the Southwest," funded by a Ford Foundation grant. This successful
program was an innovative effort to draw foundations of the region into
joint support of projects dealing with social problems affecting children,
youth, and their families.
Bernice
Moore was widely recognized, lecturing to thousands of persons in youth
and adult groups and conducting planning and training institutes in
communities throughout Texas and the nation. She served as consultant
to groupsand organizations whose work was related to the family, personality,
and mental health. Her byline headed myriad articles. She co-authored
a textbook on home and family and was co-director of the Texas Youth
Study. She participated actively in two decennial White House conferences
on children and served on a national Joint Commission on Children and
Youth.
The
memory of Dr. Bernice Milburn Moore may best be found in the spirit
of Texans whose lives have been better because of her work and her dynamic
influence. As a memorial to her contributions, the Hogg Foundation has
established the Bernice Milburn Moore Lecture Series. The presentation
in this pamphlet comes from the second convocation in that series.
FOREWORD
The family is the unit that shapes the choices each of us makes in our
lives. And yet the family looks much different today than it did when
Dr. Bernice Moore advocated for children and their families during the
middle decades of this century. Two-career families, increased competition
in the workplace, and the desire for a healthy and integrated family
life are as likely to lead to
divorce, violence, and neglect as they are to more positive life outcomes.
Following in the tradition of Dr. Moore, noted author, psychiatrist,
educator, and respected social critic Dr. Alvin Poussaint was an ideal
choice to deliver the second Bernice Milburn Moore Memorial Lecture.
His choice of topics for the occasion, "Single Parenting: Its Implications
for America
Society," focuses on one of the most significant changes in family
structure in the latter half of the twentieth century. His careful and
detailed consideration of this family configuration and the challenges
it holds for our country's children is a statement to which we must
give our most serious attention. Dr. Poussaint joined Tufts Medical
School faculty in 1967 as director of the psychiatric program in a low-income
housing project. He developed a strong interest in community psychiatry
and race relations, particularly in the psychological impact of racism
on the Black psyche. In 1969 he joined Harvard Medical School. He is
the author of VAy Blacks Kill Blacks (1972) and co-author, with Dr.
James Comer, of Raising Black Children (1992). A contributor to Teaching
Tolerance Toward an Open-Hearted Family (1996) by Sara Bullard, he has
written dozens of articles for both lay and professional publications.
Dr. Poussaint is Director of the Media Center for Children at the Judge
Baker Children's Center in Boston and has provided consultation to government
agencies, corporations, and the media. He serves as Clinical Professor
of Psychiatry and Faculty Associate Dean for Student Affairs at Harvard
Medical School, where he also sits on the Board of Harvard's AIDS Institute.
His efforts to promote good parenting include serving as National Co-Director
of the Lee Salk Center, with Professor Louis Lipsitt of Brown University.
Born in East Harlem, Dr. Poussaint attended Columbia and received his
M.D. from Cornell in 1960. From 1965-67 he was Southern Field Director
of the Medical Committee for Human Rights in Jackson, Mississippi, providing
medical care to civilrights workers and aiding the desegregation of
health facilities throughout the South.
As a script consultant to one of the most popular and groundbreaking
television programs, The Cosby Show, Dr. Poussaint is an advocate and
influence for more responsible network programming. From stress to interpersonal
communication, from affirmative action to family dynamics, Dr. Poussaint
is one of the country's top authorities. He has worked with corporate
managers on the origins and management of stressrelated work issues
and on diversity in the workplace. He is an expert on race relations
in America and the dynamics of prejudice in our increasingly multicultural
society. In addition, he is a strong proponent of non-violent parenting
and parenting education.
Dr. Poussaint is a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and
a member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
In addition, he has received numerous awards and is the recipient of
many honorary degrees.
SINGLE
PARENTHOOD:
IMPLICATIONS FOR AMERICAN SOCIETY
Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D.
In the inaugural Moore Lecture, speaker Dr. Beatrix Hamburg painted
a compelling picture of four decades of accelerating socioeconomic change
accompanied by an unprecedented fragmentation of communities and nuclear
families.
I would like to explore what I think is the most striking aspect of
this fragmentation: the phenomenal increase in families headed by single
parents. I'll share my thoughts about the impact of this trend on America's
children, both because this is the Year of the Child at The University
of Texas at Austin campus, and because "family values" has
become, in this 1996 election year, a hot political issue with serious
implications for the welfare of our children.
On one side of the issue, Hillary Rodham Clinton's recent book It Takes
a Village talks about the almost impossible burden our society places
on the nuclear family. She argues that community responsibility in child
raising has been the cultural norm throughout much of human history.
On the opposing side, Bob Dole put a "conservative" spin on
the First Lady's "liberal" concept in his acceptance speech
at the Republican convention when he proclaimed, to cheers from his
audience, "It takes a family to raise a child."
California Governor Pete Wilson jumped on the bandwagon this fall with
proposed regulations that would bar adoption by unmarried Californians.
This is in a state where one-fourth of the children who are adopted
currently go to single-parent homes.'
"Family values" has become a rallying cry for political conservatives.
It elicits a response from many Americans who are struggling to keep
themselves, and their children, on an even keel in a media-saturated
culture-Americans who are struggling to come to terms with the reality
of diminishing economic expectations and the stresses of a rapidly changing
and increasingly diverse society. It is not surprising that the debate
is waged in a highly charged, moralistic atmosphere.
The erosion of family values is cited as the cause of the "decline
of the American family," and the scapegoat is the single parent.
The dramatic rise in the number of single parents over the past two
decades has become a symbol of social degeneration as people contrast
today's increasingly common single-parent family structure with idealized
images of the two-parent nuclear family from the days of Ozzie and Harriet,
Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, even The Cosby Show.
Most American families would never have been mistaken for the Nelsons
or the Huxtables; probably the real Nelsons were themselves not much
like Ozzie or Harriet. But until recently most American children did
live in two-parent families. As late as 1970, more than 85 percent of
children under age 18 lived with both parents. By 1993, the number had
dropped to 70.5 percent.'
What's behind this dramatic shift? Authorities cite a range of contributing
factors ranging from altered demographics to shifts in cultural norms:
Americans
are delaying the age at which they marry for the first time. Since 1975,
the median age has risen three years for men, to ag 2612-, and nearly
3.5 years for women, to age 242.
The number of women "at risk" for bearing children (that is,
women between the ages of 15 and 44) has increased dramatically-by 84
percent between 1940 and 1992.4
Divorce rates have risen; remarriage rates have declined. Some 25 percent
of children born out of wedlock are born to previously married women
who have not remarried. 5
The birthrate among married women declined nearly 45 percent between
1960 and 1993.
The birthrate among unmarried women has risen significantly. In 1940,
approximately 89,500 children were born to unmarried women, a birthrate
of 0.7 percent. In 1993, close to 1.2 million children were born to
unmarried women, a birthrate of 4.5 percent.
Cohabitation is more socially acceptable than it once was. More than
25 percent of out-of-wedlock births occur to couples who live together
but aren't legally married. Although some do marry after the birth of
a child, Cohabitation statistically is a less stable relationship than
marriage.'
The stigma of unwed motherhood has diminished. The actual number of
out-of-wedlock pregnancies may not have increased as much as it appears
because the number of women who married in time to avoid giving birth
to an "illegitimate" child dropped significantly between the
start of the 1960s and the end of the 1980s. The decrease in these marriages
was greater among White women, where it declined from an estimated 61
to 34 percent, than among Black women (31 to 8 percent) or Hispanic
women (33 to 23 percent).9
There has been a gradual decline in abortion rates10 and a sharp decline
in the number of White infants released for adoption. 11
There is some evidence that a majority of younger Americans no longer
believe that being married is necessarily better than being single,
even though survey respondents have indicated that they anticipate getting
married themselves and believe that it is better for children to grow
up in a family with both parents." For young people who are poor,
however, the attitude toward marriage and childbearing often seems rooted
in a belief that it doesn't really matter whether or not they marry
or whether or not they have children at an early age or later in life,
because their lives will not improve in any case.
A smaller percentage of the population is getting married. Since 1970,
the proportion of Americans age 25-44 who have never married has doubled.
For those age 30-34, the proportion has tripledfrom 9 to 30 percent
for men and from 6 to 19 percent for women. Racial and ethnic differences
are significant. For Whites age 18 and over, the never-married rate
increased from 15.6 to 20.4 percent between 1970 and 1993. For Hispanics,
it increased from 18.6 to 27.9 percent. And for Blacks, the never-married
proportion has grown from 20.6 to 3 7.6 percent." A Census Bureau
report noted in 1992 that fewer than "three out of four Black women
will eventually marry, compared to nine out of ten White women."
14
Increasing social and economic independence among women is often cited
as a contributor to the single-parent family trend. But the evidence
is far from conclusive, the effects far from universal.
Some studies indicate that, as a group, women with higher education
and earnings levels do tend to marry later than other women; but they
also tend to enjoy higher rates of marriage and lower rates of out-of-wedlock
childbirth. 15 Other information suggests that for White women, higher
levels of education are related to lower rates of marriage, but that
for Black women, the opposite holds trueBlack women with more education
are more likely to get married. For Black women with lower levels of
education (and, by implication, lower income), particularly those who
live in urban centers, the reasons for not seeking marriage appear to
be related to the high rate of joblessness among less-educated Black
men, plus a perception that most marriages end in divorce. The reasoning
is that single mothers are likely to be just as well off economically-and
perhaps better off emotionally-than mothers who marry."
A majority of analysts believes that the decrease in the number of marriages
is connected to changes in the American economy. The shift from manufacturing
jobs in the late 1970s to lower-paying service sector jobs and the decline
of Americans' real earnings in the 1980s made it difficult for most
people to support a family on a single income. As a whole, men with
higher levels of education and earnings are more likely to be married
than less-educated men with low earnings. And there is some evidence
that the rate of nonmarital births is tied to the rate of male employment
in some communities, where a higher number of employed men has been
found to correspond to a lower number of children born out of wedlock.
Other studies have shown no correlation for older Black men, but there
is evidence that finding employment is directly linked to the eventual
marriage of younger Black single fathers (age 18-31) to the mothers
of their children."
Clearly, the increase in single-parent families is a trend with complex
causes; we can't point to a single definitive factor. It is important
to note, however, that there is one thing to be said with certainty:
it is not the availability of welfare benefits that has caused the increase
in unmarried mothers. Numerous studies undertaken in recent years to
examine this popular assumption have shown either no association, or
just a slight association that typically applies only to White women,
who make up nearly 50 percent of the welfare roles. (Minority women
suffer higher rates of poverty, and a higher proportion of their populations
receive AFDC, but only 38 percent of 1994 AFDC recipients were Black
and only 15 percent were Hispanic; 47 percent were White.)"
In 1986, for example, when the real-dollar value of public assistance
was declining and the teenage pregnancy rate was rising, a report sponsored
by The Alan Guttmacher Institute noted that "all the countries
with lower rates of adolescent pregnancy offer more comprehensive and
universal social benefits to children and families than the United States."'19
The Guttmacher Institute has also reported that there are as yet no
conclusive data on the impact of the "family cap" adopted
by 14 states.20 A drop in out-of-wedlock births among welfare recipients
has been reported in states with and without the "family cap."
Most scholars attribute this downward trend to recent economic prosperity.
21
Furthermore, while the number of children in single,parent families
headed by women rose dramatically between 1980 and 1993-from 11.4 million
to 15.5 million, a 36 percent increase22 the number of children in households
receiving AFDC benefits increased only 28 percent (from 7.4 to 9.5 million).
23
In 1987, the General Accounting Office undertook a study that included
an intensive analysis more than 100 empirical studies and more than
1,000 caseloads in four states plus interviews with agency personnel
at federal, state, and local levels. The GAO report, which was presented
to Congress, found no evidence to support popular stereotypes about
welfare recipients." More recently, a Report to Congress on Out-of-Wedlock
Childbearing, prepared by a Department of Health and Human Services
Working Group and published in September 1995 during the debate on welfare
reform, stated,
Research does not support the widespread contention that teenagers,
unmarried women, or mothers already on welfare seek pregnancy in order
to obtain welfare benefits or greater benefits.25
Why should we be concerned about the growing number of single-parent
families? This trend is not unique to the United States; other developed
countries are experiencing the same phenomenon. In 1992, for example,
the U.S. birthrate for unmarried women, 30 percent, was comparable to
the rates for Canada, the United Kingdom, and France, which had rates
ranging from 29 to 33 percent. For Sweden and Denmark, countries with
a high social tolerance for nontraditional living arrangements, the
rates were close to 50 percent. (Not surprisingly, perhaps, Japan's
rate was only I percent. )26
We need to examine the single-parent trend because families are the
anchorage in which children are socialized, nurtured, and taught. Can
single-parent families do the job, or are they particularly susceptible
to pathology or social dysfunction? In seeking to answer these questions
it is important to understand who the single parents are. If we look
beyond the stereotypes, we may discover some of the underlying reasons
for the growing number of single-parent families and some of the answers
to our questions.
Teenage pregnancy attracts the most attention when people talk about
the rising trend in out-of-wedlock births, which are a significant factor
in the single-parent trend. But what are the facts?
•In 1993, 54 percent of out-of-wedlock births were to women in
their twenties, while 16 percent were to women age 30 and over. Only
30 percent of out-of-wedlock births were to adolescents, down from 50
percent in 1970.27
•The rate of out-of-wedlock childbirth appears to be highest among
women between the ages of 20-24.28
•Only 5 percent of AFDC mothers are teenagers; just 1 percent of
them are under 18.29
• The Alan Guttmacher Institute has reported that data on 1988
births collected by the National Center for Health Statistics indicate
that over three-fourths of unintended pregnancies occurred to women
age 20 and older.30
The pregnancy rate for sexually experienced teenagers declined 19 percent
between 1972 and 1990 (for contraceptive users, the rate of unintended
pregnancy is now higher for unmarried women in their early twenties
than it is for unmarried teenagers). And the birthrate for Black teenagers
has also declined over the past several years. But teen pregnancy and
childbirth rates remain unacceptably high. The United States has a higher
rate of teenage pregnancy than other industrialized countries, although
the reported level of teenage sexual activity is similar; and 85 percent
of teenage pregnancies are reported to be unintended.", ~ 2 Still,
the rise in teenage out-of-wedlock childbearing, whicli can be attributed
to an increase in the number of sexually active teens and a decrease
in teenage marriages, is part of a trend among all American women of
childbearing age.
Because unmarried minority women have higher birthrates than unmarried
White women, the tendency is to blame them for the rise in single-parent
families. Yet it is the increase in out-ofwedlock childbearing among
White women that has pushed the rates so high in recent years. In 1980,
for example, 48 percent of all out-of-wedlock births occurred to White
women; in 1993, the figure was 60 percent. 13 Nonetheless, the high
proportion of minority single-parent families demands particular attention.
People who raise children outside marriage belong to all racial, ethnic,
and socioeconomic categories; a "typical" profile of the unmarried
parent does not emerge. But single-parent families as a group do display
two characteristics that have crucial implications for their children's
lives.
The first characteristic is that the overwhelming majority of single-parent
family groups with children under 18-the Census Bureau figure for 1993
was 87.2 percent-are maintained by a single mother.34
The proportion of minority children living in single-parent households
headed by their mothers is significantly higher than the proportion
of White children. Between 1970 and 1993, for example, the proportion
of Black children living in families headed by the mother rose from
29 to 54 percent (an 86 percent increase), while the proportion of White
children living in families headed by the mother rose from 8 to 17 percent
(a 112 percent increase)."
The second characteristic, which is related to the first, is that families
headed by single mothers are more likely to be poor, by a significant
margin, than families headed by married parents. Census data for 1993
indicate that 14.5 percent of all White families with related children
under 18 lived below the federal poverty level; the rate for all Black
families was 39.3 percent. For married couples with children, the rates
were 8.2 percent for White and 13.9 percent for Black families. For
families headed by single fathers, the rates were 19.6 percent for White
and 31.5 percent for Black. And for families with related children under
18 maintained by single mothers, the rates of families living below
the federal poverty level were 39.6 percent for White and 57.7 percent
for Black .3 ' AfricanAmerican children in 1993 were almost three times
as likely as White children to be living in poverty, yet African Americans
make up just 12 percent of the U.S. population.
Even for single-parent families living above the poverty line, the income
gap between single mothers and married parents is significant. The Census
Bureau reports that in 1993 the median income of all family households
maintained by women with no husband present was only 3 7 percent of
the median income of married-couple family households for Whites, 28
percent for Blacks."
Poverty among women, and thus poverty for children, is related to marital
status and race. And I believe that this relationship accounts for the
stigma attached to single-parent families.
To
understand why the "family values" debate is so intensely
moralistic, it may be useful to take a brief look at America's historical
attitudes toward the poor and toward minorities.
A core belief of the American dream is that anyone who is willing to
work hard can achieve his-and, more recently, hergoals. People are measured
to a large extent by their earning power, and to be poor is to be nearly
worthless in our society. How has this value developed? Elizabethan-based
poor laws in Colonial America, when resources were limited and survival
was difficult, were based on the concept of "belonging." People
were responsible for taking care of their families and the permanent
members of their largely static communities; needy strangers were supposed
to go back where they came from so their own people could take care
of them. As the population grew increasingly mobile over the centuries,
new laws distinguished between two classes of poor people: the so-called
worthy poor, who were thought to be needy through no fault of their
own, and the able-bodied paupers, who were believed to be poor because
of their own laziness or vice. By the mid-19th century, "pauperism"
had become equated with immorality, and it didn't take long for (Cpauper"
to become a synonym for "poor." It's evident that thinking
of the poor as morally deficient is not new in America.
Even after the Depression, when so many people suddenly became poor,
asking for public assistance was seen as a sign of failure, while social
insurance programs like Social Security were seen as an entitlement,
something people had earned. It could be rationalized that people who
had been prevented, by discrimination, from earning money toward Social
Security were somehow "unworthy."
Aid to Dependent Children, as it was originally called, was established
in the 1935 legislation that created Social Security. It was intended
to be a small program providing help to deserving, destitute widows
with children. By the 1960s, it was providing help to increasing numbers
of divorced, never-married, and minority women, as well. Poor women
came to replace indolent drunks as the new unworthy poor when they became,
in the public imagination, non-White, and, because of increasing numbers
of children born out of wedlock, sexually loose. Worst of all, when
the welfare rights movement of the 60s added hundreds of thousands of
women and children to the AFDC rolls, recipients came to be seen as
demanding and ungrateful.
Welfare has become increasingly resented by the American public, envisioned
as a huge drain on the national budget, even though public aid represented
only 3.5 percent of the 1992 gross domestic product, while social insurance
was 10.4 percent. This popular resentment is reflected in the declining
real value of AFDC benefits over the past two decades. Between 1970
and 1993, inflation- adjusted AFDC expenditures increased less than
50 percent, and the average inflation- adjusted monthly benefit actually
decreased from $676 per family to $377 .31,39The fact that so many people
appear to believe that a woman would deliberately bear a child in order
to receive a payment that doesn't even come close to covering the cost
of supporting a child indicates, to me, how deeply the prejudice against
poor and minority women is embedded in our culture.
American public policy regarding society's obligation to help the poor
is based on a belief-that any able-bodied person who really wants a
job can get one-that is far from true today. And it has never been true
for minorities, particularly African Americans. The manufacturing jobs
that supported waves of European immigrants began disappearing as Northern
cities became home to increasing numbers of Black families. Public schools
segregated their children instead of assimilating them, and segregated
housing isolated African Americans long after it loosened up for White
immigrants. Affirmative action seems to have provided the least help
to the most disadvantaged. Yet studies have repeatedly indicated that
even poor African Americans largely subscribe to the cherished American
dream despite their personal experience, and many blame themselves for
their failure to find good jobs, or any jobs.
Minority children living in single-parent families face even challenges
than White children in similar families. A greater proportion lives
in poverty, and unemployment has reached catastrophic levels among young
Black men. Over half of all African Americans (56.5 percent) live in
the central city, for example, versus 22.7 percent of non-Hispanic White
Americans.10 These children live with higher rates of crime, deteriorating
public schools, a short supply of decent and affordable housing, a lack
of working parents as role models, and family structures that offer
little cultural support for marriage. We need to pay attention to finding
ways of helping the children of all minority groups successfully meet
the added obstacles they encounter. The Census Bureau projects that
by the year 2050, the non-Hispanic White proportion of
children under 18 will decline from 1993's 68 percent to about 42 percent,
while the Black proportion will rise from 16 to 20 percent; 38 percent
of children under 18 will belong to other minorities.41
In addition to being at increased risk for living in poverty, a substantial
proportion of single mothers, particularly those with children born
out of wedlock, faces additional problems. The Census Bureau's 1988
National Survey of Families and Households indicated that, compared
to married women with children, mothers of children born out of wedlock
tend to suffer from social and economic deficits even before they become
single parents. Almost one-third of the single mothers surveyed came
from family backgrounds that included periods on public assistance;
more than half came from single-parent families themselves and had their
first child when they were still in their teens. (In contrast, single
fathers tended to be older and better off economically when they first
became fathers.) And The Alan Guttmacher Institute has reported that
83 percent of teenagers who give birth come from poor or low-income
families.41
What are the consequences for the children of single mothers? Studies
have indicated that unmarried mothers, especially those below the poverty
level, are less likely to get prenatal care and more likely to have
low-birth weight babies. Their young children tend to score lower on
achievement tests than children from two-parent families, and as they
grow older, these children have a higher reported incidence of behavior
problems and chronic health and psychiatric disorders. For adolescents,
the risks associated with being raised by a single mother include becoming
a highschool dropout, becoming a teenage mother, being unemployed,
14and going to jail. Lower earnings and higher public assistance rates
are associated with young adults raised by single mothers; adolescent
males are particularly at risk.
Studies typically have not looked beyond the broad category of "single
mother," however. They haven't investigated whether the results
are different for families headed by mothers with different socioeconomic
backgrounds. Many of the problems noted in children raised in single-parent
families are thought to result from factors such as frequent moves,
conflict between parents, and, in particular, inadequate parenting.
One cause that is consistently identified is lack of sufficient income.
What supports are available to these children and their parents? Unless
they're lucky enough to have a strong network of extended family or
friends, the answer is, not many. The options are few for single parents
without a college education, enough money to afford good day care (if
they can find it), and a support system to compensate for the absence
of, most commonly, a father. Bob Dole says it takes a family to raise
a child. Hillary Rodham Clinton says it takes a village to raise a child.
I say it takes a small fortune to raise a child. And I think we're all
correct.
Single-parent families need support. We need to think in terms of creating
a new kind of village of community resources. We need to expand our
concept of what constitutes a family. At Judge Baker's Media Center
our motto is, "raising a child is everybody's business." Conservatives
and liberals alike believe this to differing degrees, although it's
not an easy concept to sell in a country whose cultural cornerstone
is rugged individualism.
It's not likely that American cultural beliefs surrounding poverty and
"family values" are going to change significantly in the foreseeable
future. Nor is it likely that American public policy is going to mature
to the point where politicians will work to develop solutions that actually
address the root causes of complex social and economic problems. But
there are things we can do, as individuals and professionals concerned
with families and children, to foster the successful development of
the increasing numbers of American children who are growing up in single-parent
families.
We must approach the issue on two levels: first, by developing programs
on a local level that address the particular needs of single parents,
especially single mothers, and their children; and second, by helping
single parents build political power.
We should begin to structure day-to-day support systems for single parents.
There is evidence, for instance, that when poor and low-income single
mothers live in a household where there is another adult who can provide
informal support with child care, these mothers have an improved chance
of joining the labor market. We need more volunteers to help provide
this support to single mothers who don't have the resource of another
adult in their households, not only to enable them to work but also
to help them parent their children, particularly their adolescents.
We need to help community centers develop more programs for troubled
children to compensate for the reductions in mental health services
that are occurring under managed care and other fiscal cutbacks. We
need to press for additional community policing and educational programs
to reduce crime, violence, and substance abuse.
When Congress began the latest welfare reform process, members were
told by the Center on Social Welfare Policy and Law that the "full"
monthly AFDC benefit didn't even cover HUD's lowest fair-market cost
of "decent, safe, and sanitary" housing in most states. In
some cities, welfare benefits for a family of three covered less than
two-thirds of the rent for a modest twobedroom apartment." If a
parent denied assistance under welfare reform is fortunate enough to
find a job, it's likely to be at a minimum-wage level. A full-time job
at the current federal minimum wage of $4.75 an hour (more than likely
with no health insurance) represents $9,500 a year before taxes; yet
the official federal poverty level-as of 1995-was $10,259 for a two-person
household, $15,570 for a family of four. And the Census Bureau predicts
that the four fastest-growing occupations between now and 2005 will
be home health aides, human services workers, personal and home care
aides, and computer engineers and scientists. These occupations hold
little promise for most welfare recipients who will need to support
a family. The United States already has the highest child poverty rate
of 18 industrialized countries.44 Will we now need to prepare for an
increase in homelessness, an increase in the number of children put
into foster care, and an increase in cases of domestic violence and
child abuse as a result of welfare reform without economic reform?
There are examples of successful programs across the country which demonstrate
that children from disadvantaged backgrounds can achieve at high levels,
both in school and as contributors to their community. There are examples
of successful programs demonstrating that adults from disadvantaged
backgrounds can develop the skills they need to become competent parents.
Although their structures vary, these programs share two key characteristics:
the programs directed at children closely involve their parents; and
all of them are highly labor intensive, requiring a number of dedicated
professionals and volunteers.
I believe it is imperative for single parents to put aside the distinctions
of "worthy" (working) and "unworthy" (receiving
public assistance) that have helped to keep them divided and without
political power. The only way single parents will be able to influence
public policy significantly is by joining forces and developing a single
voice that's loud enough to be heard in Washington.
The single-parent family is, increasingly, a new reality. It is less
a moral issue than a social phenomenon related to changing cultural
norms and socioeconomic forces. Stigmatizing single mothers-who are
the overwhelming majority of single parentsand stigmatizing their children
only make the problem worse. Politicians need to be reminded that attention
should be focused on how to help the children, not on how to punish
their parents.
Finally, we must recognize that poverty is isolating. Being unemployed
is isolating. And being a single parent is isolating. People who have
to cope with just one of these circumstances are marginalized and cut
off from their community and from mainstream society. There are no easy
answers to this complex situation. But if we consider that there can
be more than one valid definition of "family," we can work
together to create a new community, and we can work together to meet
the challenges of our new diversity.
REFERENCES
1. "Adoption Proposal Causes an Uproar," The New York Times,
27 September 1996.
2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Marital Status and Living Arrangements:
March 1993, Series P20, No. 478, Washington, DC, January 1995.
3. Ibid.
4. Hollander, D., "Nonmarital Childbearing in the United States:
A Government Report," Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 28, No.
1, The Alan Guttmacher Institute, New York and Washington, DC, January/February
1996.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Abortion in the United States,"
Facts in Brief, September 1995.
11. Ibid.
12. Department of Health and Human Services, Report to Congress on
Out-c,f-Wedlock Childbearing, Hyattsville, MD, September 1995.
13. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Marital Status, op. cit.
14. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the
1990s, Series P23, No. 180, 1992.
15. Department of Health and Human Services, Report to Congress, op.
cit.
16. Wilson, W.J., When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban
Poor, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
17. Ibid.
18. Donovan, P, The Politics of Blame: Family Planning, Abortion and
the
Poor, The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1995.
19. Jones, E.F. et al., "Adolescent Pregnancy in Industrialized
Countries,
A Study Sponsored by The Alan Guttmacher Institute, New Haven
and Londc)n: Yale University Press, 1986.
20. Donovan, P., "The 'Family Cap': A Popular But Unproven Method
of
Welfare Reform," Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 27, No. 4,
The
Al~m Guttmacher Institute, July/August, 1995.
19
21. "Quality of Life is Up for Many Blacks, Data Say," The
New York
Times, 18 November 1996.
22. U. S. Bureau of the Census, Marital Status, op. cit.
23. U.S. Social Security Administration, Social Security Bulletin Annual
Statistical Supplement, Washington, DC, 1995.
24. Wilson, op. cit.
25. Department of Health and Human Services, Report to Congress, op.
cit.
26. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fertility of Arnerican Women: June 1994,
Series
P20, No. 482, September 1995.
27. Hollander, op. cit.
28. Ibid.
29. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Teenage Pregnancy and the Welfare
Reform Debate," Issues in Brief, February 1995.
30. Kost, K. and J.D. Forrest, "Intention Status of U.S. Births
in 1988:
Differences by Mothers' Socioeconomic and Demographic
Characteristics," Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 27, No. 1,
The
Alan Guttmacher Institute, January/February 1995.
31. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Teenage Reproductive Health
in
the United States," Facts in Brief, 31 August 1994.
32. Children's Defense Fund, The State of America's Children Yearbook
1996, Washington, DC, 1996.
33. Hollander, op. cit.
34. U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Black Population in the United States:
March 1994 and 1993, Series P20, No. 480, January 1995.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. U.S. Social Security Administration, Social Security Bulletin Annual
Statistical Supplement, Washington, DC, 1995.
39. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Teenage Pregnancy and The
Welfare Reform Debate," Issues in Brief, February 1995.
40. U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Black Population, op. cit.
41. Ibid.
42. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Teenage Reproductive Health,"
op. cit.
43. Children's Defense Fund, op. cit.
44. Ibid.
BERNICE
MILBURN MOORE
MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES
1993 Beatrix A. Hamburg, M.D
Children and Families in a Changing World:
Challenges and Opportunities
1996 Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D.
Single Parenthood:
Implications for American Society
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