Absent Fathers at Root of Welfare

* You totally distorted my position on welfare reform. (“Welfare Law May Return Teens to Unstable Homes,” May 12.) I talked to your experts for 10 minutes and spent practically the whole time talking about something she never mentions in her story: the legal and financial responsibility of the fathers of children who are trapped in poverty and welfare dependency.

Like so many other news stories on welfare, your story talks only about the mothers. The fathers are the missing piece of the puzzle in the welfare system. We will never come near solving the problems of Aid to Families with Dependent Children unless we put the fathers in the picture. If we were honest about it, we would name this program Aid to Mothers with Dependent Children. The vast majority of recipients are fatherless families or, to be precise, families who have been abandoned by their fathers.

As I told your reporter, I believe that we should vigorously go after the fathers of these children. If these men won’t live up to the moral obligations of raising the children they father, they should, at the very least, be required to provide financial support to their children from the day they are born until they are 18 years old.

Finally, as I told your reporter , I believe we should enforce our criminal law. In many cases, the mother is a 15- or 16-year-old and the father is in his 20s. That is a crime. It’s called statutory rape. In a society so concerned about the sexual abuse of children, why do we allow adult men to seduce vulnerable teenage girls, get them pregnant and then abandon the mother and child? That is contemptible. It is morally wrong, and it is a crime.

The problem today isn’t teenage pregnancy. Many teenage women become pregnant and bear children, and don’t wind up mired in welfare dependency. Why? Because they are not only mothers but wives. They have husbands who take personal responsibilities for their families.

JIM MORRISSEY

Assemblyman, 69th District