As "welfare reform" takes hold, there are signs that removing recipients from the rolls may have unexpected consequences for the children of some families. Add in a new law designed to speed adoption, writes PNS commentator Nell Bernstein, and we may be looking at a major, if unnoticed, shift in our view of the value of the family. Bernstein is the editor of YO! (Youth Outlook), a magazine by and about young people published by the Pacific News Service.

In 1994 Newt Gingrich sparked a short-lived tempest by suggesting that welfare payments be stopped and the money used to ship children off to orphanages.

Newt's vision never even made it to the drawing board. But as the two-year limits imposed by "welfare reform" begin to kick in, there is a real possibility that some families who lose welfare benefits may also lose their children.

A recent study by the Children's Defense Fund reveals that the number of children living in single mother families in extreme poverty went up 27% in the first year after welfare reform became law. "Extreme poverty" is defined as income less than half the federal poverty line -- or less than $6,401 a year for a family of three.

Reports from the states show significant numbers of former welfare recipients have been unable to buy food, pay rent or utility bills. At the same time, the number of children in foster care is rising, even in a period of overall economic prosperity--to 520,000 at last count, 20,000 more than a year before.

It is too early to say definitively how these pieces fit together, but child advocates are beginning to talk of preparing for thousands more children who may pour into the foster care system as welfare reform continues.

If even one percent of the children previously receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) wind up in foster care, that will represent an additional 100,000 children. A study in San Diego County indicates that foster care placements doubled after the new welfare law took effect there. Interviews with families made homeless after losing their benefits found that 18% said their children went into foster care.

Mothers who relied on a welfare check to feed their children may turn to social services departments in desperation. "We are hearing stories that concern us," says Ann Sullivan, Adoption Program Director at the Child Welfare League--"a mother with one or two children is releasing the third for adoption." Other former welfare recipients could lose custody of their children involuntarily, because they are unable to feed, clothe or house them. Neglect, not abuse, is the most common reason children are taken from their families--and extreme poverty can manifest itself in many of the same symptoms as neglect.

Another new federal law, the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA), makes the question even more urgent. This act reduces the time allowed before the state must start proceedings to terminate the rights of parents with children in foster care and make the children eligible for adoption.

The law is intended to end "foster care drift," which sees many children moving from one short-term placement to another for years. That is a worthy goal, especially for the many children who have been severely abused or abandoned and will likely never be able to return home safely. But for children from families thrown into crisis by the loss of welfare benefits, these new timelines may mean a permanent severing that could have been prevented.

ASFA and the numerous state laws passed in its wake turn away from "family preservation" services -- counseling, drug treatment, in-home support and the like for parents at risk of losing custody of their children. In part, this reflects the fact that no one has been able to prove these efforts work. But one family preservation service that did seem to work was the monthly AFDC check, originally intended to keep widows from having to send their children to the poor house. The impact of the loss of that program remains to be seen.

In an era when the idea of family has been elevated to the highest political pedestal, we seem simultaneously to have swallowed the notion that the interests of children and the interests of their families are unrelated. One weird provision of the welfare reform legislation distinguishes between the parent's and the child's portion of the welfare check, and allows the states to continue providing the meager child's portion even after the two-year limit has expired and the adult is no longer deemed deserving.

This might seem to imply that the state has a responsibility to make sure that children don't pay for their parents' failings. But anyone who has ever been part of a family knows that children's fortunes are tied in the most direct way to those of their parents. The new law seems to require that mothers feed their children while they themselves go hungry. It is likely that many will. But it is hard to overestimate the damage to a child of having a mother who is desperate and hungry.

Those who worry about former AFDC recipients flooding the foster care system generally speak in terms of what to do for the children -- how to find more adoptive homes and improve the child welfare system.

Few express outrage at the prospect that poor families may lose their children to the state simply because they are poor.

In terms of shrinking public expenditures and rising numbers of working parents, welfare reform has been declared a ringing success. But by a more elusive measure--the value of the bond between parent and child--it may yet prove a disaster.