Hands That Rock the Cradle : All Americans must reach out to help the nation’s youngest poor children
America treats many of its youngest children shamefully. Trapped in unstimulating environments that stunt intellectual growth or in violent environments that harm emotional development, they have only a limited chance of maturing into healthy, responsible and productive adults. Blame the decline of our most vulnerable citizens on broken families, runaway poverty, inadequate health care and poor child care. But these need not be permanent conditions. They are reversible, and indeed must be reversed.
Such are the findings of a Carnegie Corp. report, “Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of Our Youngest Children.” The three-year study quantifies much of what America knew: More than 25% of babies are born to unmarried women; 25% of pregnant women get little or no prenatal care; babies account for one out of three victims of child abuse, and infants are the fastest-growing category of children entering foster care. These depressing statistics must challenge every American.
Government cannot raise children, but it can do something. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) would provide an additional $1 billion for five proven, successful programs without inflating federal deficits. Boxer’s amendment to the budget resolution--an amendment that recently passed the Senate by a huge margin--would provide $120 million for Head Start to make room for 24,000 additional poor children; $100 million for the important Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, which provides nutrition for poor pregnant women, their infants and their other children; $200 million to provide child care for approximately 44,000 youngsters; $200 million to help state-run programs ease infant mortality and reduce births of low-weight babies; $200 million to immunize 2 million children.
This new and needed help would be funded through cuts in travel budgets for federal employees. It belongs in the final budget.
Head Start currently accepts poor children starting at 3 and 4 years old. That may be too late. New research indicates that critical development of the brain takes place during the first three years. To address the shortcoming, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) would allocate an additional $1 billion to expand Head Start to begin at birth.
Business also should help by making good, affordable child care available to working parents; the majority of mothers with children over the age of 1 work.
Authors Lisbeth B. Schorr and Daniel Schorr a few years ago wrote an important book about breaking the cycle of disadvantage, “Within Our Reach.” The Carnegie report documents that America’s youngest poor children are indeed within our reach but steadily are slipping away.
