Elian should be shared. That's right, shared. Every family in America--not just the Florida relatives of little Elian--should have the responsibility of raising him. Each family, for example, would have an "Elian week," at the beginning of which Elian would be received by parcel post (or if you want to get luxurious, Federal Express) and for the next week, the receiving family would be responsible for Elian's care, including room, board and education. At the end of the week, Elian would be packed up and shipped to the next family.
Obviously, every family won't get the opportunity of being an "Elian family." That's why there should be a lottery. People would buy their tickets much like they do for state lotteries involving cash prizes. But instead of money, the prize would be Elian.
I can imagine it now: a family of four from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan ranting and raving in the streets because they've won the opportunity to host Elian in the third week of June, 2006. They would immediately become the envy of their community. "They're an Elian family!" people would remark in hushed tones as they ride by the lucky family's home.
The winning family would then make elaborate preparations for the sojourn of "America's adopted boy." Some families, for instance, may choose to enroll him in prestigious day schools, even if the cost of a week's attendance throws the family into dire straits. I can imagine a newspaper headline now:
FAMILY OF FOUR STARVES TO DEATH AFTER SPENDING ENTIRE LIFE SAVINGS ON ROOM, BOARD AND EDUCATION OF 'AMERICA'S ADOPTED BOY'. (Or something like that.)
Receiving families would try to outdo their predecessors, thus improving the life of Elian. The mental trauma induced on Elian by the constant changes would be, of course, superseded by the high standard of living he would enjoy. Elian would be a shining example to Cuba of America's position on Castro's Communist regime: we wish to undermine it one Cuban refugee at a time.
Besides, this is the best and fastest way to destroy Castro's government, right? To take away the very people it governs?
It is unfortunate that Elian -- or any child (or any person for that matter) -- is caught in a situation so imbued with political fervor. At one end of the struggle is a man -- a father -- who has traveled to this country to retrieve his son. At the other end of the fight is a family that believes they have a right to the boy because of the prevailing social and political indignities in his homeland.
I must admit here that I remain wholly uninformed about the specifics of the atrocities committed by Castro in his rise to power. But I gather (and fully acknowledge) that like any coup d'tat the road to control was sullied with the blood and fortune of those who stood to lose from the new government.
Now fast forward from the 1960s to 2000. A man, who, by an accident of birth, was born under Castro's regime, had a child, became estranged from the mother of his child, learned last Thanksgiving that the child was found floating in an inner tube and had been brought to the United States, was informed that his child may not be returned to him, then given hope that the child may, is -- by circumstances entirely beyond his control-- now the representative of an evil foe. What is unnatural about the situation is the fact that his fatherhood -- the idea that half his chromosomes are contained in Elian -- is now secondary to the man-made notions of politics. What is especially unnatural is that Elian has been made to turn against his father not because his father has shunned or abused him but because his father was born into a society that does not respect or uphold the freedoms that we have deemed the most inherent to existence.
Why must prevailing laws (or sacred axioms, e.g. our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights) destroy the most basic of familial bonds that goes back to the origination of our species? How can we reconcile man-made "truths" with something that is so natural as the parent-offspring relationship? The answer is we cannot.
If Elian were allowed to stay, his citizenship would be a stain on the national conscience in that because of laws we as Americans have canonized, the most primeval of connections would be cut-off. In effect, every week for the rest of our lives would be "Elian week." I don't know about you, but I don't want that on my conscience.
