understandings of what exactly constitutes the "crisis" or the symptoms
of "family breakdown." For some, the threat to the family is constituted
by the high divorce rate, by premarital sex and abortion, by teenage
pregnancy and women raising children on welfare, and by the increasing
acceptance and legitimization of same-sex relationships and of various
nontraditional families. For others, the crises confronting families have
to do with lack of state funding for abortion and affordable child care,
and with the inadequacy of public policy initiatives that would address
the conflicts faced by working women and single mothers, ensure the
protection of women and their children from violence within the home,
and work to combat the prejudices and hostility that continue to confront
single-parent, same-sex, or interracial families that deviate in various
ways from the imagined "normal family."

The political persistence of these debates and the degree of moral
interest and concern they elicit are not surprising. Issues pertaining to
families and children continue to engage many of us since most of us
live large portions of our lives within the institution of the family and
since a great many of us have, or plan to have, children. Children under
eighteen make up roughly a quarter of the U.S. population and are
directly affected by issues and policies pertaining to their well-being.
Parents directly impact, and are affected by, their children's well-being,
and individual child-rearing practices may be regulated by public poli-
cies intended to protect the social good. In addition, since children repre-
sent a society's future, each citizen has some interest in the upbringing of
children. Laws and public policy issues pertaining to children and to the
fabric of family relationships are hence relevant to all of us and are
likely to affect the shapes of our lives and choices.

Many contemporary issues pertaining to the having and raising of
children pose genuinely hard choices for policy makers, for those who
make and enforce the laws, and for those citizens who would like to
engage in informed and critical democratic debate on these issues. The
difficulty of the choices posed by these issues has to do with the fact that
they often involve significant conflicts between the competing rights of
adult parents, between the rights of parents and the interests of their
children, as well as between individual rights and the social good. The
essays in this volume all reflect on particular issues where these con-
flicts and tensions arise, clarifying the stakes and the potential
trade-offs, and offering measured and reflective suggestions as to how
these conflicts would best be resolved.

A number of common themes and concerns run through several of
these essays. Some of the essays engage directly or indirectly with the

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