Now what?
Yet another study of child care: $1 million spent to assess the horrendous condition of child care throughout our nation.
Is this really the best use of valuable dollars for a cause that far too often falls short of funds or appropriate attention?
We've been told what quality child care is supposed to look like. Once again we've been told what is lacking. Now what?
Unfortunately the entire community is far too uninformed about child care. The mass media rise to the occasion to exploit every negative situation that rears its ugly head. We have all been privy to the scare tactics and hidden cameras. But is this as far as the coverage should go?
Parents need to be told that the search process is hard and can be disillusioning, but they have the right and the obligation to their children to be informed consumers.
Most of the readily available information and checklists address the issues of health and safety. Don't children deserve a healthy and safe environment as a bare minimum?
This ensures adequate child care, not quality child care. Parents should have a choice of quality placements that meet their unique family needs and exist across a continuum of high quality.
Dollars and attention need to be given to truly educate the entire public on the complexities of this important social issue.
Players from the entire community -- business leaders, parents, educators and the child care professionals themselves -- need to open a dialogue to truly get at the serious issues that lie beneath the progress that is so badly needed to address improvements in our child care system.
It is not enough for those assessing the situation to continue offering more pain and fear and no solutions. We must all strive for understanding and a commitment to change.
'Tracey L. Myers-Preston
Baltimore
The writer represents Our Children's Care.
Should we debate legalizing drugs?
Although up to 90 percent of Americans oppose drug legalization in any form, there is a small but vocal and well-financed group that has been espousing the liberalization of drugs for years.
The Drug Policy Foundation and its predecessor, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, is leading a crusade to legalize drugs.
Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, a member of the board since 1988, has been a pawn of the group; he speaks for them, uses their language and their ideas.
They have publicly stated their goal of legalizing drugs throughout the country, giving everyone an opportunity to have the drug of their choice.
It is sad that the mayor fails to recognize the dangers he is putting our children and vulnerable adults into by advocating drug use.
There is absolutely no way that drug legalization would prevent crime and violence on our streets. Drugs are too cheap, and most addicts will not make themselves known to receive prescribed drugs.
Besides, those who have developed turfs will continue to sell their poison to school children, finding new customers among the very young.
To eliminate drugs requires the cooperation of everyone concerned. Just one advocate sending the wrong message, such as Mayor Schmoke is doing, destroys all other efforts.
Marshall M. Meyer
Baltimore
I favor a debate on continuing the present ill-considered war on drugs. As a former grand jury member in Harford county, I can tell you we have lost the war.
The pragmatic approach is to consider legalization of marijuana and cocaine.
However, the politicians are afraid to jump on the side of common sense because the public has been brainwashed to fear drugs more than bankruptcy.
The police, courts and prison system would lose half their funding if drugs were legal, so they are united against it. Drug dealers are against legalization because of the huge profits involved in trafficking.
We can't afford either monetarily or in the lost lives of inner city youth to continue the present course. Let's debate a better solution.
J. I. Butler, Jr.
Joppa
Daddyphobia
As fathers of several very special children, for whom we fight every day just for the right to hold their hands, wipe away tears and to simply say "I love you," we have experienced a distinct daddyphobia that has been accentuated by the media.
The recent Other Voices, "Pain of a Deadbeat Dad is Mostly Self-Pity" (Jan. 11) and "The Pain Caused by a Deadbeat Dad" (Jan. 26), did an injustice to the fathers who are committed to their children.
The articles constantly referred to deadbeats as fathers: One would believe men don't pay any child support and that the burden of caring and supporting our children rests solely upon women.
While some are deadbeats, over 70 percent of noncustodial fathers do pay child support (Census Bureau report 1994). These fathers are committed to their children.
Fathers United for Equal Rights of Maryland defines child support in much different terms than a mere formula applied by the child-support guidelines.
Child support is the obligation and right to support our children morally, physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially.
Nonpayment of child support is much more rampant among noncustodial mothers than noncustodial fathers. There are federal, state and local agencies to help mothers collect back child support, yet these same agencies ridicule and discriminate against the custodial father.
I may be branded woman basher, hate-monger and a rabble rouser for what I have said, but I will not stop speaking for our
children.
I paid my child support, bought clothes, purchased shoes and paid for school extras for seven years before I gained custody.
I was labeled a deadbeat and many other names, but no one spoke of my child's needs to see me, to speak to me, to hold my hand, to be nurtured and have his tears wiped away. This too is child support
Does the reality hurt so much that it needs to be buried in gender rhetoric?
Dr. Louis Sullivan, the former U.S. secretary of health and human services, said he considered the rise in fatherless families "one of the most pressing issues facing our nation."
Articles bashing fathers only add to the divisiveness and strengthen those who wish to continue destroying the greatest national asset we have -- the American family.
Leonard Evans
Randallstown
The writer is Baltimore president, Fathers United for Equal Rights
of Maryland.
Why should parents pay for child support?
The state of Maryland says it should be able to collect fees for tracking down unpaid child support if a family can afford it.
But those who could afford to pay would never avail themselves of the state's services. They are better off hiring private attorneys.
The administrator of the Child Support Enforcement Administration, Brian Shea, claims that middle-class and upper-class people are taking advantage of the system to get cheap legal assistance in collecting child support payments.
He fails to realize that parents who come to CSEA for help may have been part of a middle- or upper-class family. Studies show that after divorce, the absent parent's income often increases, while the custodial parent's income decreases substantially.
The numbers speak for themselves. Officially, Maryland's children are owed $771,331,036 in child support arrears; in fact, millions more dollars in arrears are permanently lost due to CSEA's controversial, 10-year-old case closing project.
Why are collection fees proposed? Is it to discourage needy families from using federal and state services?
Any charges to custodial parents are deductions from household income and plunge the children deeper into poverty.
We should not try to balance the budget on the backs of innocent children.
If the state needs fees for enforcing child support, it should collect from the guilty parties.
laine M. Fromm
Finksburg
The writer is president of the Organization for the Enforcement of Child Support, Inc.