subject: The Family Policies Of The United States [print this page] The last decade has been one of extremes with respect to family policy in the United States, ranging from efforts to dismantle welfare programs to modest efforts at reform. Controversy has focused on the ability of government intervention to reduce poverty and promote family well-being.
The Family Support Act was passed in 1988, linking family welfare payments to job training or work obligations and strengthening child support enforcement strategies, so that families would ultimately become economically independent.
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According to social commentator Richard Loud, a successful family policy will not be shaped primarily by committees and lobbyists in Washington, D. C., but by parents themselves, when they come to understand their need for each other and the interconnectedness of families, schools, and communities.
Family policies can be divided into those that help parents in their "breadwinning" roles and those that concentrate on their nurturing and care giving roles. Breadwinning family policy supports the family as a viable economic unit, either by maintaining a certain minimal family income or by providing for the care of children while parents work.
Nurturing and care giving family policy focuses on the internal life of the family by promoting positive family functioning and the development and well-being of individual family members.
Consider the plight of the homeless.
Some people maintain that homeless families only need housing. Others argue that homeless families need a broader economic package of affordable housing, decent jobs, child care, and health care. And yet others stress that homeless familys need more than economic assistance, that the factors that precipitated their plight and the harmful effects of being homeless call for additional support care giving package that includes services such as home management training, parental support groups, and parent education. In the last decade, public support for care giving and nurturing policies has increased, but less so than support for economic assistance.
The family policies of the United States are overwhelmingly treatment-oriented, with only those families and individuals already having problems being eligible; few preventive programs are available on any widespread basis.
For example, families in which the children are on the verge of being placed in foster care are eligible, and often required, to receive counseling; families in which problems are brewing but are not yet full-blown usually cannot qualify for public services. Most experts on family policy believe more attention should be given to preventing family problems.
I have had such an experience myself. Many years ago, I awoke in the dead of night in a cold sweat, with a certain knowledge that a close relative had suddenly died. I was so gripped with the haunting intensity of the experience that I was afraid to place a long-distance phone call (for fear that the relative would trip over the telephone cord or something and make the experience a self-fulfilling prediction). In fact, the relative is alive and well, and whatever psychological roots the experience may have, it was not a reflection of an imminent event in the real world.
