America becomes a more 'adult-centered' nation
A new survey finds a decreased emphasis on children in marriage.
from the July 10, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
Harder for child advocates
With parents a smaller presence at the polls – just under 40 percent in the 2004 presidential election, some child advocates say it's getting harder to win empathy on issues.
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"It's not: Do people love children? It's: Are they thinking about them?" says Robert Fellmeth, director of the Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of California San Diego School of Law.
In California, older adults are not passing along opportunities to the next generation, Dr. Fellmeth argues. He decries the lack of universal health coverage for children, low funding for foster-child families, and skyrocketing university tuitions.
Fellmeth also sees children being jammed into extreme poverty by the growing trend of out-of-wedlock births – which now stand at 37 percent. The Pew report found growing acceptance among younger people for childbearing outside marriage.
"Conservatives in rural areas have basically formed a contract with urban liberals [in California] at the expense of my clients," says Fellmeth. Conservatives, he explains, have tacitly agreed to stop criticizing out-of-wedlock births in exchange for an agreement from liberals to scale back spending on child welfare services.
When child-free adults and their advocates look at the political and cultural landscape, however, they still see inequalities that favor married families and children despite the demographic shifts away from Ozzie and Harriet's day.
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