EMPHASIS ON VALUES REFLECTS CHANGES IN AMERICA'S FAMILIES

Where have you gone, Donna Reed? And where are you taking us, Murphy Brown?

In her book "The Erotic Silence of the American Wife," Dalma Heyn lays a host of familial problems at the pedicured feet of Donna Reed, television's most beautiful, wise, warm and wonderful housewife in the 1950s. The Perfect Wife. Even married a doctor.

The trouble, in Heyn's view, is that a real-life Perfect Wife sublimates her sense of self so completely to her role that one day she no longer knows who she is. And neither does her husband. The deepest feelings go underground. Eventually, things come apart.

Meanwhile, much of this year's election rhetoric centers on a much newer and popular TV mom, Murphy Brown, who had a baby out of wedlock and remains happily unmarried. Two words family values have become prominent in the 1992 campaign. In today's political climate, Donna Reed might have a thing or two to say about the issue. The presidential and vice presidential candidates do, and so do their wives.

The reality, of course, is that the Donna Reed family seems to be going the way of black and white TV. The number of households in which the husband works and the wife stays home with the children has shrunk dramatically since the 1950s.

Now, 27 percent of the children being born in America have only one parent in the home. In Cape Girardeau County, single-parent households headed by men numbered 83 in 1980, and 305 in 1990, while the number of single-parent households headed by women rose from 692 to 1,351 over the same period.

Those waving the family values banner in this election are promoting an idealized version of the American family, says Peter J. Bergerson, chairman of the political science department at Southeast Missouri State University.

"But most Americans, regardless of the reality, still long for the idealized version of it," he said.

"... Even single parents, most of them wish they were married and living in a suburban situation ... That's what (President Bush and Vice President Quayle) are appealing to."

This call to traditionality is especially welcomed by those who think the American family is under attack on many fronts: from the entertainment media, perceived to be selling salaciousness; from the public schools, seen as a contributor to the erosion of parental authority through sex education and "value-free" teachings; from government, criticized for encroaching powers and programs and lack of a pro-family agenda; from crime, particularly crimes against children; and from the acceptance of "alternative lifestyles" viewed as aberrant or irresponsible.

Julia Kridelbaugh, a Cape Girardeau homemaker who is a member of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, is glad to hear the words family values brought to the fore. However, she knows they can have a mixed meaning in today's world.

"To me they mean traditional family values, values passed down from generation to generation," she said.

"It doesn't mean antiquated. It means that the family unit means something."

That unit consists of a mother and father providing stability and responsibility within the framework of marriage.

"Everybody has their own definition," she concedes.

Kridelbaugh says she has a lot of empathy for single mothers. She has five children, and her husband is home only 1 days each week.

She isn't critical of single parents, but she is of those who don't live up to their commitments, especially where children are concerned.

"We have deadbeats," she said. "People are brought up where it seems responsibility is the last word in their vocabulary."

Others think they've become the targets of the family values campaign: single moms and dads, along with gays who feel put on the defensive.

"This should not be a campaign issue," says Sheila Davis, the single mother of a 2-year-old daughter. The Cape Girardeau government worker adds, "The single parents, it's almost like they're being singled out when they're really the ones who have to work the hardest."

Another single parent, the father of a 6-year-old son, doesn't care much what politicians think about his situation.

"Single-parent families are a reality," says Bill Bolton, a 42-year-old Cape Girardeau man training to be a substance abuse counselor. "Children are better off in a single-parent family that is stable with a lot of love and consistency than a two-parent family that was chaotic."

The president of the Gay and Lesbian Student Association at Southeast Missouri State University puts a question to those who would define family values. "Is it loving your family?" Joe Dunlap asks. "If so, do you deny your relatives who just happen to be gay?"

Politically speaking, Bergerson says family values is a new label for a venerable campaign strategy: focusing on social issues.

But the high profile these issues are being given is crucial to another campaign tactic, he says, one that acknowledges that if George Bush talks about foreign policy successes he leaves himself open to charges of neglecting the economy.

"There's a limited number of issues the president can address," Bergerson says.

Even Democrats appreciate the maneuvering behind the family values debate.

"It's a shrewd political strategy," says Rick Althaus, an associate professor of political science at the university and recently elected chairman of the Democratic Central Committee.

"(Family values) is one of those things the hearer defines for himself. No one would consider himself or herself to be opposed to family values."

It also taps into a nostalgia for days when life was simple and governing was easy, he said.

Both Althaus and Bergerson predict the economy, not family values, will be the decisive issue of the campaign. Indeed, the latest Time/CNN poll found family values to be the most important issue for only 5 percent of likely voters.

So which do we need, more or less of Donna Reed? And do politicians have any business passing themselves off as moral leaders? How do religious leaders feel about politicians staking claim to their moral high ground? And how do single parents and people living so-called "alternative lifestyles" like their lives becoming a campaign issue? These are some of the questions subsequent installments of this series will attempt to answer.