COMPREHENSIVE CHILD DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS FEDERALIZE U.S. CHILDREN

By Congressman John R. Rarick, (La.)

October 5, 1971

Source: National Defense Committee, N.S.D.A.R.
1176 D Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20006

September 30 was a dark day for America. The Federal government has now
been authorized to take over our children.

Passage of the Brademas child development programs as an amendment to

the OEO bill, by a vote of 186 to 183 lays the foundation for the
Federal government to replace the home and for bureaucratic "experts" to
replace the parents.

One of the salient selling features was the repeated assertion that the
Day Care Centers were necessary to help working mothers and to provide
facilities for youth care to encourage unemployed mothers to seek
gainful employment. Yet the bill as passed by the House excludes mothers
earning over $4,320 a year. This makes a mockery of the propaganda that
the bill is intended to help or encourage mothers to work. On the
contrary, it would discourage employment and discriminate against the
working mother making over $4,320. Nor can we assume that the child
development programs are mere federally funded baby sitting or "new"
education or, for that matter, confined to youth.

PRESIDENT NIXON WANTS YOUR CHILDREN EARLY

President Nixon, addressing Congress in 1969, recommended that the
government become involved in developing children during "the first five
years of life." The anticipated age range can be expected to be from
infancy to kindergarten. What significant educational training can there
be for babies in arms except to condition them to be away from their
mothers and look to the State for security and guidance?

FAMILY RESOURCE CENTERS

We are being told that something must be done for the millions of our
children who have no parents, are from broken homes, and are from homes
where they are mistreated or the parents are insensitive to the child's
demands. This reveals the real intent. The child development programs
are not to help working mothers but rather to establish federal
custodial centers. The suggestion that society could curtail the
increase in crime by caring for those described as criminals and
dissidents in society is repulsive and unsupported by statistics, logic
or truth.

GOVERNMENT CAUSES THE PROBLEM, OFFERS THE SOLUTION

Likewise, repeated inferences that parents don't know how to control
their children or lack the understanding and interest to discipline them
is hypocrisy. For years the progressive experimenters of the new
educational system have encouraged smart aleckness as free speech and
dissent. Children have been taught that their parents are old fashioned
- out of step with and ignorant of the needs of changing times. In fact,
the Congress has supplied the parents' and taxpayers' funds to finance
this teaching of disobedience, disrespect and rebellion. It is revolting
that the same organizations and movements which have encouraged
rebellion against parental control and respect of the home now offer
this conflict as an argument that parents are now incompetent to rear
their own children.

READ OUR LIPS - IT'S ONLY VOLUNTARY

Supporters of the child development programs urge that the service is
voluntary not mandatory, and that there will be nothing further to make
the law apply to other than disadvantaged children - that it is an end
in itself. The American people have heard these arguments and assurances
before. Public education was not originally compulsory. Congress is on
record as prohibiting the use of busing to achieve racial balance -
children are bused anyway. Furthermore, the bill indicates that it is
but a beginning - the foot in the door - until the people can be
conditioned to accept more. The language of the bill makes this most
clear:

Section 522 (b) (5) - "It is the purpose of this Act to....
establish the legislative framework for the future expansion of such
programs to provide universally available child development services."

Anyone who assumes these programs as being voluntary is either
misinformed or ignorant of the facts. The American people know better.
They have learned otherwise the hard way on too many occasions.

PARENTS "PARTNERSHIP" WITH BIG BROTHER AND LOSE CHILDREN

History records many examples of attempts by governments to gain control
over the minds and bodies of its young people. Hitler with his
regimentation and dreams of a new world order never achieved what these
programs provide - "the formation of a partnership of parents,
community, State and local governments to provide every child with a
fair and full opportunity to reach his full potential by establishing
and expanding comprehensive child development programs and services."

The child development programs authorize "comprehensive physical and
mental health, social, and cognitive development services necessary for
children participating in the program." Congress has instructed the
Federal Government to establish programs to take children away from
their parents, place them in custody of the State and rear them
according to State-ordained programs and activities. There is no
prohibition or restriction on any sort of instruction so long as it
affects the child and is approved by the authorities.
PROGRAMS REMINISCENT OF NAZI YOUTH MOVEMENT

Child development proposals go further than providing for
government-controlled nursery schools, Headstart programs, or
kindergartens. They provide for programs to keep the child away from
parents. The Secretary of HEW is instructed to program a 24-hour day by
providing for specially designed health, social, and educational
programs. Just when the parent is allowed time with the child apparently
depends on the comprehensive program or the person administering it.

This power grab over our youth is reminiscent of the Nazi youth
movement; in fact, it goes far beyond Hitler's wildest dreams or the
most outlandish of the Communist plans.

ENTER CHILD PROTECTIVE AGENCIES

The law provides for in-home services and training in fundamentals of
child development for parents, older family members acting as parents,
youth, and prospective parents. The law is clear that where it is
impracticable to replace the parent with the State, then the bureaucracy
would train those functioning in the capacity of parent as a paid agent
of the State.

Child development proposals should remind us of Communist teachings on
destruction of the family unit. Leon Trotsky, writing in "The Revolution
Betrayed," 1936, commented, that "you cannot 'abolish the family, you
have to replace it.'"

"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the nations!"