Government Social Service Programs Bash Mothers
Legislation passed in the 1990’s institutionalized demeaning motherhood. Especially, women whose primary work involved caring for their own children. In broken relationships, legislation made mothers “gatekeepers” and “power grabbers.” The everyday tasks of childcare performed by mom became vengeful slights against dads. Legislation made mothers love and care insignificant to the child’s well-being.
A hydra of Welfare Reform initiatives sealed the deal. Over 25 years of Marriage and Fatherhood Initiative programs and grants structured social services to devalue mother’s caregiving. The maternal instinct, the natural, child/mother bond begun in the womb and fostered during infancy, is disparaged. Social service research and programs undercut the virtue of mom.
Welfare Reform privatized social services. In 1996, President Clinton signed this major revision, spearheaded by Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, The Heritage Foundation, and endorsed by the republican party. Packaged within the “Contract With America,” religious ideologues insisted children should be raised in a nuclear, male-headed family. Single motherhood became the bane of policy makers. While the contract’s fiscal aims failed, funding of its social goals flourished.
Other ideologues instrumental to welfare reform included Dobson’s Family Research Council and the Institute for American Values (IAV). Working behind the scenes, IAV members influenced administrative policy and program protocols. IAV founder David Blankenhorn, authored “Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem” to promote Christian family values and blame single motherhood for society’s ills — poverty, crime, addiction, and out-of-wedlock births.
Blankenhorn’s comrade-at-arms Wade Horn, founded the National Fatherhood Institute (NFI). As President Bush’s Director of the Administration of Children and Families, Horn would embed the fatherhood manifesto into government social service programs.
- NFI commands public and private sources to operate a multi-million-dollar, multi-year media campaign extolling father’s superiority.
- NFI facilitates the establishment and growth of community fatherhood services by assisting programs who apply for government grants.
- NFI authors and markets fatherhood program materials, under the trademark Father Source. Brochures, “Father Facts,” and class material incorporate movement-generated research.
- NFI’s moniker is “fatherhood.org”
Fatherhood.gov is the moniker of NFI’s government-funded counterpart, the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse. President Obama generously supported, funded and expanded fatherhood.
Private endowments aided and abetted Welfare Reform’s social service transformation. With funds of $3.6 billion, the Annie E. Casey Foundation is a key operator. The bequest of now deceased United Parcel Service founder, flows throughout the entire Child Welfare system. Casey’s money bent social service operations to comply with the ideological will of Casey board members and executives. Influence is hidden through a range of subsidiary non-profits.
- Casey Family Programs and Family Resource Centers support, fund and operate Child Welfare services at the state and local level.
- The Kids Count Data Center publishes statistics and advocates for social service priorities.
- Child Trends, funded by Casey grants, publishes government child welfare data.
- Casey dictates social service policy by funding studies, commissions, collaboration and protocol authorship amongst the varied interests, including child support and domestic violence. Casey minimizes women’s contribution and concerns while it elevate father’s role.
Casey’s dictatorship of research, government policy and programs within child welfare’s realm should raise alarm due to its heavy alliance with fatherhood and father’s rights proponents. In addition to funding NFI, associations include:
- Ralph Smith, founded NCOFF (the National Center on Father’s and Family). Housed within the University of Pennsylvania, NCOFF managed and distributed fatherhood research that omitted the deleterious attributes some dads possess. From NCOFF, Smith became Director of Development and Planning and Executive Vice President for Annie E. Casey Foundation. Instead of following its original path, funding direct services such as after-school camps and literacy enrichment, Casey’s endowment shifted to fund social service intrusions in the lives of the disenfranchised.
- Ron Haskins uses a wide-range of positions to entrench his views supporting low-wages and marriage as a cure for poverty.
— facilitated the writing and passage of Welfare Reform as staff of the House Ways and Means Committee;
— Senior Advisor for Welfare Policy under President G.W. Bush;
— Brookings Institute, Economic “Expert”, past Co-Director of Center on Children and Families;
— Senior Consultant and Board Member, Annie E. Casey.
- In this Casey podcast, Haskins delineates his extremist positions, at mid-point bragging that the feminists agreed to concede marriage in order to keep minimum wage.
Two additional groups influenced and benefited from welfare reform.
1. CRC (Children’s Rights Council) aligned with father’s rights and men’s rights, higher-income males determined to “win” custody and support litigation. CRC members included professionals in government, law, mental health, and education. The Department of Education houses a decade of CRC newsletters which chronicle Welfare Reform passage.
- https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED379055.pdf
- https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED386289.pdf
- https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED429679.pdf
- https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED433149.pdf
- https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED444708.pdf
2. AFCC, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts is a trade association comprised of judges, court employees, legal and mental health operatives. AFCC allied with CRC to systemically entrench father’s rights developed litigation and mediation methods within family court and social service programs. Specifically, the Office of Child Support’s Access/Visitation legislation acted as conduit to embed AFCC practices into support and custody determinations.
Conclusion
This article introduces the people and organizations that built current social service policy and programs. The foundation must be understood before the structure can be exposed. Further articles will expound on different areas of the wall that purposely keeps oppression in place.
