Culture Change Activists: Kay Hymowitz/Howard Hendrick/Del Bill Zedler/Kathy Garcia-Lawson - 12/15/06

Fri Dec 15 16:53:40 EST 2006

- THE RING THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE
- HOWARD HENDRICK CALLS FOR CHANGE IN MEDICAID LAW
- COVENANT MARRIAGE LEGISLATION PROPOSED IN TEXAS
- FIGHTING NO FAULT DIVORCE IN FLORIDA
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- THE RING THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE
By CHARLOTTE HAYS
The Wall Street Journal
December 13, 2006

After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and introduced the public to the
horrific sight of those desperate people in the Superdome, Newsweek
headlined its coverage of the event "The  Other America." The phrase was an
allusion to the 1962 book by Michael Harrington that helped inspire the War
on Poverty and  perhaps also to John Edwards's "Two Americas," a book about
American haves and have-nots that received far too much fawning attention
during Mr. Edwards's vice-presidential run. Kay Hymowitz, a fellow at the
Manhattan Institute, freely admits that there are two Americas. But that is
where the resemblance to Mr. Edwards's and Mr. Harrington's analysis ends.

For Ms. Hymowitz, the two Americas do not divide between the poor who are
supposedly in need of government assistance and the rest of us. The division
is best defined in another way: between those who see marriage as an
indispensable condition of child-rearing and those who don't. If we are
becoming two Americas, it is one America in which parents are married and
another in which  they are not. The Marriage Gap, as Ms. Hymowitz calls it,
appears likely to have a more profound effect on the future of both Americas
than the gender gap so lamented by the feminists.

Despite the "unmarriage revolution" ushered in by the noxious 1960s, the
anti-civilization decade, marriage is again flourishing among well-educated
women. Today's educated mothers may work outside the home or not, but they
and their husbands are committed to what Ms. Hymowitz calls The Mission --
the project of shaping their children into adults (and citizens) who have
the requisite skills and self-discipline to prosper in a complex,
postindustrialist society.

The Mission, notes Ms. Hymowitz, requires not a village but two married
parents. And, no, cohabitation doesn't do the trick. Even cohabiters who
have the education levels of their married counterparts are less effective
as parents. "As the core cultural institution," Ms. Hymowitz writes,
"marriage orders life in ways that we only dimly understand. It carries with
it signals about how we should live, signals that are in line with both our
economy and our politics in the largest sense."

While there is more marriage among the better educated, with 92% of children
living with two parents coming from families that have an income of $75,000
or better, there is less marriage among inner-city parents. "Only about 20
percent of kids in families earning under $15,000 live with both parents,"
writes Ms. Hymowitz. Which raises a question: "Why would women working for a
pittance at supermarket cash registers decide to have children without
getting married while women writing briefs at Debevoise & Plimpton, who
could easily afford to go it alone, insist on finding husbands before they
start families?" 

The answer, in Ms. Hymowitz's view, is that many among the urban poor have
lost the "life script" for future-oriented child-rearing. Policy makers may
assume that the problem is a shortage of employed, marriageable men. But the
problem is more existential, a loss of a sense that marriage and children
are connected.  

The most fascinating (but grimmest) sections of "Marriage and Caste in
America" deal with  child-rearing skills in the unmarried America. Children
of single mothers on welfare, for instance, hear their mother use fewer
words. (According to one study cited in the book, the average words heard
per hour are 2,150 for a professor's children, 1,250 for working-class
children and 620 for  children in welfare families.) What is more, the talk
of the welfare parents in the study "was meaner and more distracted." It is
not that these parents don't love their children; it is that they do  not
have a "script" for being parents. Thus they find it particularly difficult
to rear children capable of thriving in a knowledge-based society.

According to Ms. Hymowitz --and this is the scariest part of the book --
most social analysts ignore the root of the problem and therefore end up
prescribing "solutions" that actually "smooth the way" for single
parenthood. "To listen to some policymakers," she writes, "one might think
that wanting to become a lawyer or anchorwoman -- and possessing the
requisite orderliness, discipline, foresight, and bourgeois willingness to
delay gratification -- are natural instincts rather than traits developed
over time through adults' prodding and example."

Optimism is always more appealing than pessimism, and Ms. Hymowitz tries to
be hopeful, proclaiming a renewed stature for marriage -- in the culture at
large -- as the key institution in child-rearing. She may be right about
middle-class parents, but it is not clear whether the message has yet
reached unmarried America. If policy makers heed the arguments and analysis
in  "Marriage and Caste in America," then Ms. Hymowitz's optimism will at
least be partly justified.

For myself, I feel certain that the next time one of my friends can't meet
me for lunch because she  is ferrying her offspring to yet another
life-enhancing lesson, I won't be annoyed. I'll know that  she is nobly
engaged in The Mission, important not just to the edification and
college-admission forms of her offspring but also to the health of the
republic. It is a Mission, too, that she can best perform with a man who is
her husband.  Ms. Hays is senior editor at the Independent Women's Forum.

MARRIAGE AND CASTE IN AMERICA  By Kay S. Hymowitz (Ivan R. Dee, 192 pages,
$22.50) 

ORDER for only $13.24 on amazon by clicking:
http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Caste-America-Separate-Post-Marital/dp/156663
7090/sr=1-1/qid=1164125880?ie=UTF8&s=books&tag2=smartmarriages

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- HOWARD HENDRICK CALLS FOR CHANGE IN MEDICAID LAW
> Many young parents not prepared
> By Howard Hendrick
> 
> The death of a child early Monday in the Oklahoma County shelter is
> heartbreaking to all involved. In more than 25 years of operations by the
> shelter's director, this is the first death of a child in the shelter.
>   
> Thousands of children have received excellent care at the shelter, and the
> services today are better than ever. Space and staff have been added, two
> nurses are employed at the shelter, and ready access to a pediatrician exists.
> At this point, we have no reason to believe that the death was other than by
> natural causes. The 3-month-old was seen breathing normally less than two
> hours before he was observed not breathing.
>   
> Nevertheless, the demographics of this child are increasingly typical of the
> children entering foster care. They are increasingly younger (under age 3),
> from multiple-birth families and often with only one parent in the home.
>   
> This pattern should not be surprising to anyone. THE NATIONAL TRENDS IN
> OUT-OF-WEDLOCK BIRTHS (MORE THAN 35 PERCENT OF ALL BIRTHS) ARE EXTRAORDINARY.
> These couples are increasingly less prepared to be parents than prior
> generations. Many of the couples saw their parents divorce and have themselves
> been reared in single-parent households. Nothing on the horizon indicates that
> this trend is going to abate any time soon. More than half of all births in
> Oklahoma are funded with Medicaid, and nearly half of all births nationally
> are funded with Medicaid.
>   
> It is my belief that federal Medicaid laws should be amended to permit states
> to require, as a condition of Medicaid paying for the birth, that moms and
> dads, whether married or not, be required (except in cases of domestic
> violence) to attend pre-birth, healthy family education classes. Most young
> parents love their children greatly. But a healthy family relationship is not
> an experience most of them have ever had.
>   
> Fortunately, Oklahoma is one of five sites nationally where such a curriculum
> is being tested voluntarily. We hope to learn from this study if more healthy
> two-parent families can be formed by such an effort. Wouldn't it be nice if
> someday children were reared in such healthy families that no shelter would be
> necessary? 
>   
> Hendrick is director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
>   
> http://www.newsok.com/article/2983229/

################################

- COVENANT MARRIAGE LEGISLATION PROPOSED IN TEXAS

New Type of Marriage Would Make Divorce Harder
12/13/2006 
WOAI.com

Marriage may change in Texas. That's because a state representative has
proposed a law that would allow "covenant marriages." Texas State Rep. Bill
Zedler’s bill would allow existing marriages to be converted into covenant
marriages.

The idea is to make divorces harder to get. Covenant marriages recognize
marriage as a social and moral relationship, instead of just a legal one.

Zelder tells 1200 WOAI News participants in covenant marriages would not be
able to utilize 'no fault' divorces currently the law in Texas and other
states. To divorce, one of the spouses would have to break one of the
"covenants" – which include conviction of a felony, going to prison for a
year, being abusive, or cheating.

((Note: Louisiana (1997), Arizona (1998) and Arkansas (2001) have each
passed marriage covenant legislation.
http://www.divorcereform.org/cov.html))

#################################

- FIGHTING NO FAULT DIVORCE IN FLORIDA

For immediate release. December 13, 2006
Contact:  Judy Parejko
Email:  jparejko at juno.com
Phone:  715-308-5754

Clinical psychologist risking fines and jail from
civil disobedience to protect Florida child

A Florida woman was fined by a judge for her civil disobedience in a family
court lawsuit.  Judge Jeffrey Colbath ordered Dr. Kathy Garcia-Lawson, a
well-respected clinical psychologist, to pay a "family" lawyer $15,000
within 24 hours as a penalty in a Palm Beach County case.  The reason for
the big fine?  Dr. Lawson refused to produce "settlement" paperwork the
lawyer said was needed to finalize a divorce.  As a mental-health
professional with a Ph.D. and three Master's degrees, Dr. Lawson wonders why
she is being punished for shielding her child from harm.

In 2005 Mrs. Lawson's husband filed for a "No-Fault" divorce - the only kind
there is in Florida - and she soon learned that Florida's "forced divorce"
system guarantees a divorce in every case, even when there is a child
involved.  Social science studies have conclusively shown that an intact
marriage is the best "child protection agency," and that divorce is
incredibly harmful to children of all ages.  After hundreds of hours of
research, Dr. Lawson thinks that in divorce cases with minor children,
Florida should offer help to the struggling couple before terminating the
marriage, because divorce is so destructive to children.

Mr. Lawson did agree for a period of 15 months to halt the process.  Now he
has decided to move forward, and Dr. Lawson is standing up against the
forced divorce system to protect their twelve-year-old daughter.  Florida
lawmakers have outlawed her right to defend her marriage and intact family,
so there is only one way for her to defend her child - civil disobedience.
Instead of paying the $15,000 fine, she hand-delivered a four-page letter to
the Court, in which she told what was in her heart.

Dr. Lawson just wants to see the process in her case do what Florida public
policy says - uphold the State's "compelling interest in marriage."  To her,
that means that Florida family court judges‚ first duty is to help each
family, not callously dis-member it.  And to minimize the devastating
effects of divorce on children, Florida couples with children should move
toward divorce only as a last resort, after other remedies have been
diligently tried.  The approach is called "therapeutic jurisprudence." It is
not a new concept, but the local court does not embrace it.  Where courts
have used the therapeutic jurisprudence model, there has been an astonishing
conciliation rate.  So Dr. Lawson believes before a Florida court decrees a
quick divorce involving a minor child, the best interest of the child
requires the court to use therapeutic jurisprudence.

In the very first court hearing, Judge Colbath announced he would make the
process as "quick and painless as possible."  Mr. Lawson's attorney, in
fact, told Mrs. Lawson over the phone early in the case: "I can get him
divorced in two weeks!"  That was 20 months ago.  Using "standard operating
procedures," her husband's attorneys have generated a six-inch stack of
documents on "important financial matters" as well as huge legal fees, but
nothing has been done to help the Lawson Family.

Now that Dr. Lawson has decided to use civil disobedience to oppose a rush
to judgment without any effort to help the Lawson Family or protect their
child, it will be interesting to see how the system responds.

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