AMERICA’S SHATTERED CHILD PLAGUE
AFDC Welfare Malpractice Results
by
Reimert Thorolf Ravenholt, MD MPH
President, Population Health Imperatives
Seattle, Washington98105,
Presented at PeninsulaCollege, Port Angeles, Washington, September 1993
Updated 1998
MOMENTOUS CHANGES IN AMERICAN WELFARE POLICIES, programs, and practices during this century -- and the dismal results thereof -- have been well-documented by Charles Murray (1986,1993). The paradoxical effects of many well-meaning but demonstrably naive "anti-poverty programs" in generating more profound poverty and a rapidly burgeoning, inescapably dependent underclass is now glaringly apparent.
The foremost example of an initially well-conceived antipoverty program eventuating in production of disastrous effects during ensuing decades was the program for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), begun during the New Deal to provide help for widows with small children. Through welfare malpractice, political misdirection, and compelling federal mandates, the AFDC program became so mangled and bloated that it became the surrogate husband for millions of unwed and abysmally improvident young mothers practicing the most irresponsible motherhood this country has known and generating this country's most intractable social problems.
As the catastrophic effects of AFDC malpractice emerged in American ghettos during the 1950s and 1960s, leading social scientists, Ray Moseley (1960) and Patrick Moynihan (1965, 1968) drew attention to the close linkage between ghetto poverty , shattered families, and disastrous social problems; and President Lyndon Johnson and other leaders during the 1960s fashioned politically popular corrective programs. Unfortunately, the prevailing concept then guiding social action was that poverty generated the disintegration of families, rather than the countervailing truth: it is inadequate parenting that ordinarily determinesmultigenerational poverty in America. Unfortunately, antipoverty programs were mainly designed to augment the financial resources of ghetto residents by increased AFDC cash payments. The effects were much like pouring kerosene on a smoldering fire -- resulting in explosive increase in welfarism, out-of-wedlock births, and children suffering from catastrophic parental neglect and abuse, especially among urban black populations.
But that the same pernicious effects of AFDC malpractice were likewise degrading social conditions among white populations in rural areas was succinctly stated by an experienced colleague, Dr Willard Boynton (1995):
From 1944 to 1956 I was a country doctor in Bethell, Maine, doing a complete general practice, including home and hospital deliveries, appendectomies and plenty of fractures and other trauma from logging camps and mills, physician for Gould Academy and Bethell Inn, well baby clinics, etc. As the only doctor within 25 miles doing a comprehensive practice, I got to know the people well and they trusted and depended upon me.
One day a lady I had delivered not long before came in with her pregnant teen-aged daughter. She was ashamed of her daughter and asked me to talk to the girl. After doing a pre-natal check-up, in my most convincing country doctor manner I pointed out the problems with teen-age pregnancy, especially when unmarried: its social unacceptability, that it could lead to physical and economic hardships, and family disruptions. Her reply shook me:
"Don't give me that crap Doc! I'm tired of being bossed by my mother. I like men but I don't want them around all the time. AFDC will give me a hundred-something a month and I can have my own place where I won't have to listen to my mother, and I can have a man when I want to without having to put up with him all the time. And if I get another kid -- like Geraldine over in Rumford -- I can get two hundred a month and be in the gravy!"
At that time many of my patients working hard in the mill all
week, had paychecks of 40 dollars or less.”
While welfare agencies increased budgets and workers to operate the ever-growing AFDC Empire -- costing American taxpayers upward of $50 billion annually -- communities struggled to cope with the swelling plague of child learning disabilities, school dropouts, unemployment, drug addiction and crime. The total cost to federal, state and local agencies in additional costs generated by these shattered youths -- by their often irremediable educational difficulties, drug addiction incarcerations, and murderous criminality -- cannot be exactly estimated, but no doubt totals hundreds of billions annually. The sequence of specific modifications of AFDC welfare practices during the 1960s which converted an appropriate New Deal program for helping widows with small children, into a New Society welfare monstrosity destroying the quality of life in America's larger cities and threatening the very survival of this nation, was documented by Murray (1984)(Figure 1). Thus, during recent decades in the United States, many millions of black and white households have been established by unmarried women, supported by welfare payments; and when scant years later their offspring (also unmarried) add their progeny to the welfare households, continuation of AFDC benefits for another generation was assured. Startling increases in births to unwed mothers consequently occurred (Figure 2). Considerable time elapsed before this foremost social problem began to receive the social and political attention it deserved. But during recent years, George Gilder 1984), Leon Dash (1989), William Raspberry(1993), and Tony Snow (1995) have published courageous accounts of the rapidly worsening nature of family life in America, with a large majority of black children born out of wedlock (68% in 1995)responsive to government welfare programs which lured girls into adolescent motherhood "with offers of free housing, medicine, legal assistance, and a combination of welfare payments and food stamps worth several hundred dollars a month". (Gilder,1984). During the next decade of egregious welfare malpractice, the AFDC welfare incomes unwed mothers received increased until it exceeded worker incomes (Table 1).
A most glaring example of AFDC malpractice, is the case of Eulalia Rivera: a migrant from Puerto Rico to Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1968, who immediately went onto welfare and into a public housing project. There she had 17 children, who by 1994 had produced 74 grandchildren, and 15 greatgrandchildren (Sennott,1994, Diamont, 1994). By 1994, 14 of her 17 children, and most of her grandchildren and great grandchildren were on public welfare -– costing taxpayers roughly one million dollars annually. Devout Roman Catholics, the Rivera family was opposed to birth control.
Lack of constant loving parental care resulting in abusive child neglect and severe psychical and physical trauma frequently shatters a child's self esteem and capacity for loving human relationships to such an extent that no subsequent social band-aid program can overcome the harm done. As with Humpty Dumpty, "All the King's horses and all the King's men, couldn't put Humpty Dumpty togetheragain!" Naive efforts at equalizing child learning advantages in schools by busing children to achieve racial balance has created intolerable turmoil and diminished over-all scholastic performance while distracting attention from the root cause of the unsatisfactory school performance: the lack of adequate parenting in the homes.
Surely, conscientious parents of every color know the crucial importance of daily loving parenting in arming their children for school learning and life's struggles; otherwise, why would they devote their utmost energies and resources thereto? Not only has busing failed as an antidote to family life deprivation, but the juxtaposition of severely disadvantaged children with parentally-advantaged children produces intense anguish as the disadvantaged children are made directly aware of the huge advantages possessed by the well-parented children. When their anguish becomes unendurable such children drop out and often resort to addictive drugs. Busing has dispersed but not solved the shattered child tragedy.
How, then, can this troubled society find its way out of the mess it has created? For awhile optimism prevailed that the problem would be largely solved by provision of family planning services to the poor. And, indeed, except for the considerable success of such programs the shattered child plague would have reached intolerable levels much earlier. But inexorably, during three decades, much of the most irresponsible reproduction in the United States resulted from planned reproduction -– planned to qualify for welfare benefits.
Two fundamental precepts must guide reproduction in every sound society: first, every child should be a wanted and well-cared for child; second, no one should reproduce beyond their means (with spousal help) to care for their offspring. These moral principles must be thoroughly taught in homes and schools; replacing the mistaken belief that it is acceptable for unmarried women to burden the taxpayers with misbegotten offspring. With modern contraceptives backstopped by legally available abortions fully available to young women, there is no acceptable excuse for gross irresponsible exercise of reproductive powers. Young women must be taught self-reliance in the control of their fertility: and the moral precept that abortion of an unwanted pregnancy is better than continuation of one destined to result in an unwanted and poorly-cared for child. Religious leaders often point to abortion as an ultimate sin; while ignoring the fact that a large majority of abortions occurring in this world are done not by doctors, but by nature's God -- improving reproductive quality by termination of developmental abnormalities.
Sexual freedom must be guided by adequate reproductive responsibility. Because the bearing of children (inescapably) and the nurturing of children (ordinarily) devolves upon the woman, she must decide if, with whom, and when she will reproduce. Exercise of responsible control of fertility provides women a most powerful lever for improving their role in society; and no intelligent woman would relegate control of her fertility to an impatient, forgetful or contrary male. And because only she, not he, has ultimate control of her uterine function, he should only be held legally responsible for support of her offspring when he has contracted to do so. Since time immemorial marriage has signified the husband's acceptance of a fully supportive role of mother and offspring. The traditional role of marriage in family formation must be resurrected, and irresponsible childbearing outside of marriage condemned as the social parasitism it truly is.
Single women deliberately reproducing beyond their means practice a form of aggression against relatives and society: demanding the earnings of others to pay for their illegitimate private enterprises. By making AFDC payments readily available to single mothers, irresponsible welfare systems created a monstrous social problem and a burgeoning underclass rapidly degenerated the quality of life in America. At mid-century the proportion of black births out of wedlock (18.5%) exceeded that among whites (1.8%) so greatly (ten-fold) that illegitimate childbearing was often viewed as mainly a racial problem. But during recent decades the proportion of births to unmarried white women has zoomed so rapidly (Figure 3) that it is now clear that family degradation and resultant shattered child plague threatens the entire population. Births to unmarried women varies greatly by State: with Utah having the lowest ratio for races combined (14%) and Mississippi the highest (42%). Wisconsin in 1991 had the highest proportion of births to unmarried black women (83%). The trends were dire in all states, but, with welfare reform, have sharply improved during several years(Figure 4).
While campaigning and upon election, President Clinton stated his desire for welfare program reform. But it soon became evident that “while wanting to make a better welfare omelet, he wanted to do so without breaking any political eggs.” It could not be done; and so it was fortunate that the Republican Congress demanded meaningful welfare reform, with emphasis upon self-reliance whenever possible. And it is to President Clinton's credit that he signed the 1996 welfare (Workfare) reform bill into law.
The welfare reform movement of recent years, resulting in fundamental changes in welfare practices in many States, most notably Wisconsin, leading to enactment of the landmark federal welfare law of 1996, has had amazingly rapid impact upon the numbers of families receiving support payments (Figure 4). The numbers of unwed mothers receiving welfare payments crested in about 1991 (Figure 5), and as realization grows among young women that they will not readily receive large cash grants if they bear children out of wedlock, and will be required to work, births to unmarried women will surely fall additionally. But to enable mothers to work, major improvements must be made in child care services nation-wide – analogous to the public childcare services available in France and Scandinavian countries during many years. Also, substantial improvements must be made in availability of quality foster care and live-in child care centers -- where neglected and abused children can be fully cared for until their families are able and willing to provide quality care. Thus, this society can adequately protect its most vulnerable children, black and white, enabling them to escape the welfare trap.
Surely, there is now ample evidence that we have been on a losing track: generating a burgeoning subculture of uneducable, dependent, angry and destructive, shattered youth. Although the entire nation suffers from the shattered child plague, relatives and neighbors suffer most: propinquity makes them the usual victims of violence, and relational markers place upon them an onus many do not deserve. AFDC malpractice created a social crisis in America more serious than epidemic tuberculosis a century ago -- the solution of which required isolation of hundreds of thousands of tubercular mothers and others from their families during many years. (Drolet,1932),
(Grigg,1958), (Ravenholt,1987).
Greatly increased emphasis upon all able-bodied persons working for income rather than simply receiving AFDC grant assistance, is forcing long-overdue recognition of the great unmet need for more adequate day-care facilities and services for young children in the United States -- such as have been ordinarily available in European countries during many decades: where small children of working mothers are well cared for during entire working days. I recall the excellent care our pre-school child received during eight hours daily at the Ecole Maternal in Vaucresson, France, 1961-63, replete with noon lunch and nap, and excellent training. Really adequate day care is such a tremendous boon for much-stressed working young mothers that it is puzzling it was so largely omitted from feminist action priorities during decades.
Although the shattered child plague afflicts every race in America to some extent, it is most glaringly evident among impoverished, largely black, households and communities where unwed, teenage, AFDC-supported reproduction has flourished during multiple generations -- with little adoptive relief -- and where it is now aggravated by drug addiction and AIDS. In 1991, when 12% of the U.S. population was black, 6,419 (53%) of 12,014 babies born to pubescents under age 15 were black; and of the 357,483 babies born to mothers 15-19, 139,325 (39%) were black.(13) Federal-State welfare programs currently provide foster care or care in child care centers for roughly three hundred thousand children; but a strong case can be made that several times that number of children should be cared for by well-selected, mature foster parents or in child care centers. Certainly, the current practice of unwed women holding their much-abused offspring hostage for AFDC support must be ended.
An International View of Births to Unwed Mothers
While many societies with loose family structure have existed during this millenium, it is apparent that leading developed countries during recent centuries have been comprised mainly of families wherein the mother and the father devoted themselves cooperatively to the rearing of their young. Births to unmarried women in these countries were ordinarily considered undesirable, unacceptable, and illegitimate. But during recent decades, responding to sexual and feminist revolutions, many developed societies have increasingly condoned childbearing by unwed mothers, and governmental welfare systems have assumed a much larger surrogate role in support of such households. Consequently, births to unwed mothers have zoomed in the United States, Sweden and Denmark; and, more recently, in Norway and the United Kingdom; all countries which until recently suppressed out-of-wedlock childbearing (Figure 3).
In many Latin American countries, a large proportion of births to unmarried women has been the reproductive pattern during centuries, and this continues (Figure 3). But in some countries, out of wedlock childbearing remains in check, e.g. Japan, Republic of Korea, Republic of China, Taiwan, Greece and Israel. And it must be increasingly apparent that not only children of individual married couples, but all children in countries where wedlock births are the norm, are greatly benefited by this practice. The annual UN Demographic Yearbook presents little out-of-wedlock birth data for African countries, reflective of the usual practice of polygamy there and the inadequate registration of vital events.