Parenting and politics: giving new shape to 'family values.'

Christian Century, July 29, 1998 by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen

"What we have really done over the last 30 years," West and Hewlett point out, "is socialize the costs of growing old and privatize child-rearing." They believe that it is time for a more evenhanded approach, and that parents and others concerned about children's welfare are ripe for organizing.

Despite its sensible centrist program and accessible style, the book has certain weaknesses. To begin with, the authors are equivocal about what they consider the morally (as opposed to statistically) normative family form. On the one hand, they affirm all the research that shows the greater benefits to children of intact, heterosexual parenting, and they take a particularly strong stand on the need to reconnect fathers to families for the sake of both men's and children's welfare. On the other hand, they occasionally expand their goal of rallying parents across "race, class and gender" to include "sexual orientation" as well.

When I asked them to clarify their position, West replied that heterosexual co-parenting was the statistical, but not necessarily the only, moral norm. While reaffirming that intact mother-father pairs were best for children, Hewlett said that she and West were not prepared to pass judgment on other family forms. I suspect that this equivocation reflects their desire to reempower beleaguered but dedicated parents regardless of household configuration. But eventually they will have to fish or cut bait on this issue, given the intensity of political efforts to legalize gay marriage and the efforts within many churches to ordain gays and accept gay marriages. Moreover, this "big tent" approach to uniting parents could backfire with black and evangelical Christians, for whom agreement with the NPA's larger pro-parenting agenda may not make up for this equivocation on homosexual parenting.

A second weakness is that despite West's identity as a progressive black Baptist, this volume has little to say about religion. Even the chapter looking at the Promise Keepers and the Nation of Islam tends to portray those movements as the escapist activities of people whose energies would be better spent on progressive political causes. This may be connected to Hewlett's admission that "feminists--and I include myself here--have a deep suspicion of religion, because throughout history it has been used to control and terrorize women." Well, the same could be said of the church's treatment of African-Americans, but it didn't stop blacks from separating the essential message of the gospel from its warped cultural accretions.

West and Hewlett also have almost nothing to say about the sorry state of public schooling in America, or the possibility of using tax vouchers to widen educational possibilities for inner-city children, especially given the track record of urban Catholic schools. Nor do they take a stand on the recently enacted (but hotly debated) charitable choice legislation, which would allow religious organizations to compete equally for welfare contracts and to provide services without having to sanitize them of all religious content.