Our government is forced to become involved in struggling families and their adult offspring at the cost of 23% of state and 45% of county expenditures that flow largely from our federal income taxes. One-third of our children and youth are failing in some aspect of their lives. The United States is at the top of the list of developed nations in child abuse and neglect and the bottom in educational achievement. Five children die every day from abuse. Three million referrals are made to child protective services every year. At some point in their lives, half of all children born in the United States will have lived in one-parent homes mostly without fathers. More than half of them will live in poverty for a time and will continue the cycle of family disadvantage. Parents who raise a productive citizen contribute $1.4 million to our economy. Parents who abuse and/or neglect a child who becomes a criminal or welfare dependent cost our economy $2.8 million. Without concerted action, every American taxpayer will continue to pay for these consequences. The framework for action is in Parent Power: The Key to America's Prosperity. For humanitarian and financial reasons, and for our nation's prosperity, we must remove government from family lives by preventing the formation of, and reducing the number of, struggling families in the United States. We can do this by ensuring that every newborn baby has an opportunity to succeed in life by limiting the custody of newborn babies to persons who are not under the custody of others themselves. This can be done through a Parenthood Pledge that expands the birth certificate to become a parenthood certificate for the parent(s) of that child. When a girl or woman under the custody of others becomes pregnant, a Parenthood Planning Team would be activated to ensure that a qualified person(s) co-signs the Parenthood Pledge and has custody of the baby at birth. If there is no willing qualified person(s), a plan would be made for adoption at birth. Only by fulfilling the right of all newborn babies to have competent parents will the United States ensure its prosperity. In the same way that Silent Spring and Revolutionary Wealth came at watershed moments in America's evolution, Parent Power will generate a paradigm shift in how we value fatherhood, motherhood and our young citizens. This book reveals the uncomfortable truth about the role of incompetent parents in the state of our economy.
About the Author: Jack Westman, M.D., M.S., develops public policies that aim to give every child the chance to become a productive citizen. During decades as a psychiatrist and professor, he has maintained a focus on strengthening families. Currently he is a volunteer lobbyist with Wisconsin state government and is bringing the Parenthood Pledge to life with Wisconsin Cares, Inc., an interdisciplinary organization dedicated to promoting family strengthening public policies. He has been the president of the American Association of Psychiatric Services for Children, the Multidisciplinary Academy of Clinical Education., and the Wisconsin Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He is the author of eleven books, including An Idiot's Guide to Child and Adolescent Psychology, Breaking the Adolescent Parent Cycle: Valuing Fatherhood and Motherhood, Parenthood in America: Undervalued, Underpaid, and Under Siege, Licensing Parents and Handbook of Learning Disabilities. He has made numerous radio and TV appearances, including ABC's World News Tonight, CBS's In Focus, Bloomberg Business Network, Geraldo and Canadian TV Network, and he has appeared on national and international talk radio shows including NPR's Talk of the Nation and BBC Domestic.