Healthy start: an interview with Marian Wright Edelman

Christian Century, July 15, 1998

I wish they would do their homework. I wish they would read my book The Measure of Our Success. In these matters I believe in family above all. I believe in parents. I believe that most parents will do the best job they can. At CDF we always say that the most important thing we can do is support parenting and parents. But most of our public policies and private-sector policies make it harder rather than easier for parents to do their job. I favor parental choice. I was opposed to changes in the welfare system that would demand that mothers go out to work.

The conservatives need to be more consistent. They insist that every poor mother go out to work, but they want every middle-class mother to stay at home and take care of her children. Conservatives have to think about the logic of their position. What do conservatives say about working parents whose companies do not provide basic health care? On such issues they are silent. Parenting would be a lot easier for people who have to work if they didn't have to worry about whether their kids were immunized, or whether they could get hospital care.

If conservatives wanted to see parents work and not be dependant on welfare, they would try to figure out how we can make it easier to do so. Think about clinic hours. We blame parents for not getting their kids immunized, but how many clinics are open after five o'clock or on weekends? In terms of our private-sector policies, how many conservatives try to make it easier for parents to balance work and family? Why do they oppose parental leave when children are born or are sick? I certainly am for paid parental leave so people can stay at home at crucial times in their families' lives.

I've never been for government raising anybody. I think that the Catholic bishops have stated it very well: no government can love or take care of a child, but governmental policies and private-sector policies affect the ability of parents to do their parenting. We should not have a double standard: this country should be willing to do for poor parents what it is willing to do for those who happen to be more fortunate. I don't understand how you can say you are for parenting and not also be for increasing jobs and wages and for making sure there is safe, high-quality child care.

I've always been for family first. The Religious Right didn't invent that language. And the whole notion of government-run child care is a myth. We have never taken a dime of government money at the Children's Defense Fund. We don't believe in government control. We call for families to take charge of their responsibilities, but then we try to help them assume those responsibilities.

A variety of community institutions can help make parenting easier rather than harder. In this regard, I feel very strongly about the role of faith-based congregations. I grew up in a church that was at the center of my life and that was like an extended family network. At the CDF we talk about a seamless web of support between parents, religious congregations, schools and other institutions--with employers and the government doing their fair share. All of it should come together. We always have to ask: Is what we are doing making it easier or harder for parents to do what they need to do to give their kids a healthy and a moral start in life?