‘90s FAMILY : A Call for a Better, More Competent Breed of Parent : Children: A psychiatrist who blames abuse, crime and violence on bad child-rearing says he’s convinced that licensing guardians would improve the quality of life for everyone.

After working with neglected and abused children for 30 years, psychiatrist Jack C. Westman would like to see a system of licensing parents.

He knows the idea will seem so weird that it’s easily dismissed. But he’d like you to think about it.

Westman, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, has worked with troubled families so long that “I’ve seen a lot of people come and go,” he says. “And it’s really become clear to me that poverty is a disadvantage for families, racial discrimination is a disadvantage, unemployment is a disadvantage, but most people who live in poverty, most people who are exposed to discrimination and most people who are unemployed don’t neglect and abuse their children.

“I have found that the people who do are not able to handle responsibility for their own lives, much less the lives of children. So what I’m trying to do is help the public make that appreciation--it really is the quality of parenting that counts.”

Westman is author of “Licensing Parents” (Insight, 1994), which makes a case for a national parenting policy.

Child-rearing is considered a private matter, and there is no intervention unless a child is abused or neglected. By the time that occurs, the damage is often severe.

Westman defines incompetent child-rearing as the neglect or abuse of children: “We’re not talking about nuances.”

In order to do anything effective about violence, criminality and dependency, Westman says, we have to realize these problems are directly related to incompetent parents.

“If I am an incompetent parent, if I abuse and neglect my child, then I’m going to be producing either a dependent person or a criminal. And that person’s going to affect your life. So parenting, although it is a private matter--the parent-child bond is sacred--still, parenting is a social role and we all are accountable to each other on this.”

Westman admits that the intent behind his licensing idea is to get people thinking about the importance of competent parenting, and how to value and support it. The present system, he says, “by omission and commission actually encourages incompetent parenting.”

The concept of licensing parenthood would designate parenthood as a privilege rather than a right, he argues.

Rhetoric aside, Americans do not place a high value on children’s well-being--the fact that children lack human and civil rights is evidence, Westman says, and a primary right for them is competent care.

Neither do Americans much value parental work: Only paid work counts for status. “We have an individualistic orientation--’what’s good for me.’ There is very little in the way of support for doing things for the common good. This translates over to family life.”

It makes it difficult for competent parents to do their job, he adds. In the workplace, for example, there oftentimes are no accommodations for people who have the responsibilities of parenthood. If there are, co-workers who don’t have children may complain they are victims of discrimination.

Westman says he is genuinely optimistic about our ability to solve our mounting social problems. While we live in a great country, he says, we nonetheless have “all these children out there whose civil rights are being abused or violated--and that’s the civil right to competent parenting. These children are our future. So we have a great stake in ensuring these children will at least have a chance to become competent citizens, and right now there are millions who are condemned.”

Yet if the public and policy-makers were to see parenthood as an important social role--not just a personal pursuit--”that would be the foundation for change.”