Confronted with the unhappy facts of exclusion, we sometimes reassure ourselves by telling stories: the poor boys who made it, theblacks who became a "credit to their race," the women elected to high office, the handicapped who made "useful contributions" to our society.... Just as we believe in the self-sufficient family, we also believe that any child with enough grit and ability can escape poverty and make a rewarding life. But these stories and beliefs clearly reflect the exceptions.

In the past the intrinsic pleasures of parenthood for most American families were increased by the extrinsic economic return thatchildren brought. Today, parents have children despite their economic cost. This is a major, indeed a revolutionary, change.

The psychological pain--and the ethical shame--of American poverty are made greater by the fact that this country possesses the wealth and the energy to raise all children to a minimally decent standard of living.

Schools, the institutions traditionally called upon to correct social inequality, are unsuited to the task; without economic opportunity to follow educational opportunity, the myth of equality can never become real. Far more than a hollow promise of future opportunity for their children, parents need jobs, income, and services. And children whose backgrounds have stunted their sense of the future need to be taught by example that they are good for more than they dared dream.

It is misleading to discuss recent changes in family life without emphasizing the fact that for generations some Americans have had to raise children under particularly appalling pressures. Although much of what is worrying American parents is shared by them all, the most grievous problems are those that especially afflict a large minority--the poor, the nonwhite and, in various ways, the parents of handicapped children.

Despite the long-term reduction in familial roles and functions, we believe that parents are still the world's greatest experts about the needs of their own children. Virtually any private or public program that supports parents, effectively supports children. This principle of supporting family vitality seems to us preferable to any policy that would have the state provide children directly with what it thinks they need.

Within forty years of their arrival in the Plymouth colony, the first white settlers were afraid their children had lost the dedication and religious conviction of the founding generation. Ever since, Americans have looked to the next generation not only with love and solicitude but with a good measure of anxiety, worrying whether they themselves were good parents, fearful that their children would not turn out well.