EDITORIAL

Ten Years More Is Too Long to Wait

In 1970 the Pa ren t s and Chi ldren Forum of the White House Conference stated:

America's children and their families are in trouble, trouble so deep and pervasive as to threaten the future of our nation. The source of the trouble is nothing less than a national neglect of c h i l d r e n . . . Our national rhetoric notwithstanding, the actual patterns of life in America today are such that children and families come last . . . . The failure to reorder our priorities, the insistence on business as usual and the continued reliance on rhetoric '.as a substitute for fundamental reforms can only have one result: the far more rapid and pervasive growth of alienation, apathy, drugs, delinquency and violence among the young and not so young, in all segments of our national life. Surely this is a road to national destruction. This is not the road for America. Our society still has the capacity and the value commitment necessary to reverse the trend.

As par t of the remedy, it was recommended t h a t

• . . a diverse national network of comprehensive developmental child care services be established to accommodate approximately 5.6 million children by 1980 through consolidated Federal efforts via legislation and funding, as well as through coordinated planning and operating involving state, local, and private efforts.

(Proceedings of the 1970 White House Conference on Children)

We are now on the eve of the 1979 White House Conference on the Curent State of the Amer ican F a m i l y a n d the 1980 White House Conference on Chi ldren a n d Youth. W h a t happened dur ing the in te rven ing years?

A number of recent books tells us t h a t t h ings cer ta in ly have not got ten better for Amer ican chi ldren a n d famil ies since 1970 (Lash /S iga l , 1976; Na t iona l A c a d e m y of Sciences, 1976; Fleming,

ChildCare Quarterly 7(3), Fall 1978 0045-6632/78/1500-0197500.95 © 1978 by Human Sciences Press

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198 Child Care Quarterly

1976; Keniston, 1977). These mid-decade reports present consis tent and convincing evidence tha t the destruct ion of the Amer ican family is increas ing at an ever greater rate. The effects are more pervasive in society. Trends in the da ta for urban, poor, minor i ty groups in the late 1960's are now increas ingly apparen t for white, middle class and suburban groups.

• In 1976, more t h a n one-half (52%) of marr ied women wi th children aged 6-17 and almost two-fifths (37%) of those with children under 6 were either working or looking for work.

• In 1975, more t h a n one in every six children under 18 was living in a single paren t family.

• In 1975, the number of divorces or annu lmen t s in the Uni ted States exceeded one million; and these family breakdowns involved more t h a n 1.2 mill ion children.

• In 1973, the cost of vandal i sm, thefts, and arson to schools in this country was est imated to be over a ha l f a billion dollars.

• A signif icant number of women do not receive adequate prenata l care, result ing in h igh rates of in fan t morta l i ty and morbidi ty and untold numbers of children with developmental dysfunctions.

• One third of America 's chi ldren--20 mill ion of t hem- -do not receive adequate hea l th care, including access to pr imary care, complete immunizat ions , and p rompt and early t r ea tment of disease.

(Readers who are interested in the documenta t ion of the t rends m a y refer to the sources listed.)

So, it seems, the gloomy predictions of the 1970 White House Conference were accurate. But, w h a t act ions have been taken since the t970 conference?

In December, 1971 President Nixon vetoed The Comprehens ive Child Development Act with its day care provisions.

In 1974 and 1975 n ine volumes of tes t imony were gathered concerning The Child and Fami ly Services Act of 1975. Yet the bill was never reported out of committee.

To date, no signif icant legislation has been passed to address the needs expressed in the 1970 White House Conference.

Are the 1979 and 1980 White House Conferences going to be a repeat of the 1970 conference? Will we enter the 1980's with more dire warn ings and louder clarion calls for action only to f ind tha t the 1980's slip away as rapidly as did the 1970's with little to show in the form of real action? Will we aga in be satisfied wi th the rhetoric?

I hope not.

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The call for action needs to be accompanied by a plan for insuring that action takes place. Idealism is no substitute for the realism required to get legislation through congress. A feeling of concern does not translate need into policy. A compiling of warning statistics does not produce a new or expanded program. A commitment of time and effort is required.

Child care professionals working with children and families cannot be expected to serve a continually growing clientele effectively under present conditions. A reactive and crisis oriented health and social service system cannot hope to stem the tide of family disruption with simple first aid measures and triage procedures.

The United States has needed, and continues to need a firm child and family service policy backed by an adequately funded service delivery program directed toward optimization and prevention as well as remediation and rehabilitation. It is time we had a forward-looking policy and the commitment of resources necessary to actively promote optimal functioning of children and families, to prevent problems before they occur, and to intervene during the early stages of dysfunction. Anything less will find us failing to cope in the 1980's as we have failed in the 1970's and losing ground all the while.

To get beyond the rhetoric and to bring about the action required a united and politically astute child care profession will have to make its voice (and vote) heard at all levels of government. We will have to stop being satisfied with words and to demand deeds from our elected and appointed officials. We will have to make it loud and clear that conferences alone will neither assuage our concerns or solve the real problems with which we must deal on a day-to-day basis. We must not and can not, wait ten more years.

D.L.P.

R e f e r e n c e s

Fleming, V. America's children, 1976. Washington, D.C.: The National Council of Organizations for Children and Youth, 1976.

Keniston, K. All our children: The American family under pressure. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, 1977.

Lash, T. & Sigal, H. State of the child: New York City. New York: Foundation for Child Development, 1976.

National Academy of Sciences. Toward a national policy for children and families. Washington, D.C., 1976.

Proceedings of the 1970 White House Conference on Children. Washington, D.C.: Developmental Child Care Forum, 1970.