COMMENTARY: Fighting a holy war for parenting

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is the publisher of RNS and the mother of two sons.) UNDATED _ It’s not all in your head. Being a parent today really is hard. Finding time for your kids truly is difficult. Making your family a top priority isn’t easy, no matter what your economic […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is the publisher of RNS and the mother of two sons.)

UNDATED _ It’s not all in your head.


Being a parent today really is hard. Finding time for your kids truly is difficult. Making your family a top priority isn’t easy, no matter what your economic strata, marital status or geographic situation.

But it’s not all your fault. And you’re not alone. Nearly every parent in America struggles with stress caused entirely by the consequences of their choice to have a child.

Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett and activist-educator Cornel West have decided to do something about this dire situation. Together, they have formed the National Parenting Association, written a book called”The War Against Parents”(Houghton Mifflin), and issued a Parents’ Bill of Rights.

Their goal is to form a movement rivaling the American Association of Retired People, organizing the nation’s 62 million parents of children under 18 into an economic, political and social force to be reckoned with.

In”The War Against Parents”they make their case in defense of parents. According to them, a combination of over-the-top capitalism, greedy government and mass media manipulation have conspired against parenting.

To them, this is a holy war. “Make no mistake about it: the work of moms and dads is of utmost importance to our nation,”they contend.”At a fundamental level of analysis, the parent-child bond is the strongest and most primeval of all human attachments. When it weakens and frays, devastating consequences ripple through our nation, because this elemental bond is the source of connectedness in society.” How have we gotten ourselves into such a mess? Hewlett and West believe some of it was a deliberate campaign, much of it was simply a slipping of values and a great deal was the lack of organization that allows parents to believe their own families’ issues are unique and need to be solved individually.

The government, they believe, has made parenting difficult by devaluing a stay-at-home parent and instituting tax policies that work against families.

For instance, they point out that if you raise horses in America, you are allowed to deduct the cost of food, stabling, training, vets, transportation, insurance and other related expenses. If you hire someone _ even a spouse _ to care for the horses, you may deduct the salary you pay that person from your tax bill.

As every parent knows, there are no deductions for a child’s food, lodging, schooling, transportation or insurance. And furthermore, a parent who stays at home to provide care is basically considered to have no economic value.


This is just one example of a tax policy working against parents. And the authors maintain it is the kind of policy that has been systematically adopted since the 1950s by both conservatives and liberals who had nothing to fear from a group with no lobby.

The way the media portrays parents also raises the ire of Hewlett and West. They see the daytime talk shows destroying families by glorifying fringe problems and setting up parents as inadequate and unfit role models. Sitcoms and other shows have a tendency to make parents look ridiculous. And movies rarely show parents as heroes or even respectable characters.

And despite the wonderful state of the economy, the authors show how the economic system values those whose first commitment is to it rather than their families, and who wind up living unbalanced lives in which work has a higher priority than children. The latter, in the current system, must be fit into job schedules, rather than work being tailored around them.

Interestingly,”The War Against Parents”devotes an entire chapter to discussing the Nation of Islam and Promise Keepers, crediting both groups with helping fathers and beating back the anti-family forces. It is an example of the authors’ attempt to rise above politicizing and to remain neutral on all agendas but their support of families.

In fact, their Parents’ Bill of Rights has a combination of what might be called liberal and conservative agendas, with a policy to strengthen marriages, support social services that help families and protect children from alcohol, drugs and R-rated movies.

It remains to be seen how groups like Focus on the Family, Children’s Defense Fund, and other family-related groups will respond to the National Parenting Association. The focus is broad enough to offend someone in every camp.


And yet, Hewlett and West are definitely on to something. Every parent knows there has to be a better way to nurture a family. By raising our voices together, we may have a chance to change things for the sake of our children.

DEA END BOURKE

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