JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.

Government in the modern age has assumed increasing responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. This expansion of responsibility has been accompanied by an increase in the scale and complexity of the activities that government conducts. Respect for the enormity of the administrative task that confronts the modern welfare state, as well as for the scarcity of government resources, counsels that public officials enjoy discretion in determining the most effective means of fulfilling their responsibilities.

The very pervasiveness of modern government, however, creates an unparalleled opportunity for intrusion on personal life. In a society in which most persons receive some form of government benefit, government has considerable leverage in shaping individual behavior. In most cases, we acknowledge that government may wield its power even when its actions likely influence choices involving personal behavior. On certain occasions, however, government intrusion into private life is so direct and substantial that we must deem it intolerable if we are to be true to our belief that there is a boundary between the public citizen and the private person.

This is such a case. The Government has told a child who lives with a mother receiving public assistance that it cannot both live with its mother and be supported by its father. The child must either leave the care and custody of the mother, or forgo the support of the father and become a Government client. The child is put to this choice not because it seeks Government benefits for itself, but because of a fact over which it has no control: the need of other household members for public assistance. A child who lives with one parent has, under the best of circumstances, a difficult time sustaining a relationship with both its parents. A crucial bond between a child and its parent outside the home, usually the father, is the father's commitment to care for the material needs of the child, and the expectation of the child that it may look to its father for such care. The Government has thus decreed that a condition of welfare eligibility for a mother is that her child surrender a vital connection with either the father or the mother.

The Court holds that the Government need only show a rational basis for such action. This standard of review has regularly been used in evaluating the claims of applicants for Government benefits, since "a noncontractual claim to receive funds from the public treasury enjoys no constitutionally protected status." Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 772 (1975). Plaintiff child support recipients in this case, however, are children who wish not to receive public assistance, but to continue to be supported by their noncustodial parent. Their claim is not that the Government has unfairly denied them benefits, but that it has intruded deeply into their relationship with their parents. More than a mere rational basis is required to withstand this challenge, and, as the following analysis shows, the Government can offer no adequate justification for doing such damage to the parent-child relationship.

I A

The family is an institution "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503 (1977). Our society's special solicitude for the family reflects awareness that "[i]t is through the family that we inculcate and pass down many of our most cherished values, moral and cultural." Id., at 503-504 (footnote omitted). As a result, we have long recognized that "freedom of personal choice in matters of family life is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753 (1982). See also Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U.S. 632, 639 (1974). Therefore, "when the government intrudes on choices concerning family living arrangements, this Court must examine carefully the importance of the governmental interests advanced and the extent to which they are served by the challenged regulation." Moore, supra, at 499.

A fundamental element of family life is the relationship between parent and child. As we said in Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248, 256 (1983): "The intangible fibers that connect parent and child have infinite variety. They are woven throughout the fabric of our society, providing it with strength, beauty, and flexibility. It is self-evident that they are sufficiently vital to merit constitutional protection in appropriate cases." We have thus been vigilant in ensuring that government does not burden the ability of parent and child to sustain their vital connection. See, e.g., Santosky, supra, at 753; Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923).

"[T]he rights of the parents are a counterpart of the responsibilities they have assumed." Lehr, supra, at 257. When parents make a commitment to meet those responsibilities, the child has a right to rely on the unique contribution of each parent to material and emotional support. The child therefore has a fundamental interest in the continuation of parental care and support, and a right to be free of governmental action that would jeopardize it. As the next section discusses, a child in modern society faces perhaps more difficulty than ever before in sustaining a relationship with both parents.

B

It is increasingly the case that a child in contemporary America lives in a household in which only one parent is present. The percentage of households headed by one parent has doubled since 1970, from 13% to 26%. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Household and Family Characteristics: March 1984, p. 1 (1985) (Current Population Reports). Researchers predict that "close to half of all children living in the United States today will reach age 18 without having lived continuously with both biological parents." Furstenberg, Nord, Peterson, Zill, The Life Course of Children of Divorce: Marital Disruption and Parental Contact, 48 Am. Sociological Rev. 656, 667 (1983).

Almost 90% of single-parent households are headed by women, and a considerable percentage of them face great financial difficulty. One prominent reason is that divorce "produces a precipitous decline in women's household incomes." Weiss, The Impact of Marital Dissolution on Income and Consumption in Single-Parent Households, 46 J. Marriage Fam. 115 (1984). In 1977, one-half of all related children under age 18 in female-headed households were below the poverty level. Espenshade, The Economic Consequences of Divorce, 41 J. Marriage Fam. 615, 616 (1979). Not surprisingly, many such households must rely on public assistance.

Increasing numbers of children in this country thus reside only with their mother, in a household whose financial condition is precarious. These children have a fundamental interest in sustaining a relationship with their mother, since she is their primary source of daily emotional support. They also have a fundamental interest, of course, in sustaining a relationship with their father, whose absence from the household does not diminish the protection that must be afforded this parent-child relationship. The need for connection with the father is underscored by considerable scholarly research, which indicates that "[t]he optimal situation for the child is to have both an involved mother and an involved father." H. Biller, Paternal Deprivation 10 (1974). Research indicates that maintenance of a relationship with both parents is particularly important for children whose parents have divorced: "By his or her presence or absence, the visiting parent remains central to the psychic functioning of the children." Wallerstein Kelly, The Father-Child Relationship: Changes After Divorce, in Father and Child: Developmental and Clinical Perspectives 451, 454 (S. Cath, A. Gurwitt, J. Ross eds. 1982).

In short, "training, nurture, and loving protection . . . are at the heart of the parental relationship protected by the Constitution," Rivera v. Minnich, ante, at 580, and a child's relationship with a father outside the home can be an important source of these benefits.

C

The Government's insistence that a child living with an AFDC mother relinquish its child support deeply intrudes on the father-child relationship, for child support is a crucial means of sustaining the bond between a child and its father outside the home. A father's support represents a way in which the father can make an important contribution to raising the child, and the benefits to the child are both financial and emotional.

Financially, child support makes available resources to help meet the child's daily material needs — resources especially important because of the financial difficulties that confront many households headed by women. Child support is also integrally related to the father's ongoing involvement in raising the child. The father is not there on a daily basis to wake the child in the morning, bring him or her to school, answer innumerable questions, offer guidance with personal problems, put the child to bed, and provide the countless doses of encouragement and consolation that daily life requires. Nonetheless, by helping to meet the child's daily material needs, the father can let the child know that the father is committed to participating in the child's upbringing. Meals, clothes, toys, and other things made possible by this support represent this commitment even when the father cannot be there to affirm it himself.

The provision of support by a father outside the home therefore constitutes a parent-child relationship founded upon the pledge of the father to provide support that is responsive to the particular needs of the unique child that is the father's own. Braces, special shoes, lessons — a father may not be able to provide all these things for his child, but he is entitled to try. The father may not be the custodial parent, available on a daily basis. Nonetheless, he is the child's father, and "[t]he significance of the biological connection is that it offers the natural father an opportunity that no other male possesses to develop a relationship with his offspring. If he grasps that opportunity and accepts some measure of responsibility for the child's future, he may enjoy the blessings of the parent-child relationship and make uniquely valuable contributions to the child's development." Lehr, 463 U.S., at 262.

The role of child support in providing a "critical bond" between father and child, Brief for Juvenile and Family Court Judges as Amicus Curiae 23, is documented in studies on divorced families. "[C]hild support is unquestionably one of the major strands in the relationship between fathers and children during the years following divorce." Wallerstein Huntington, supra n. 11, at 135. As one national study concluded:

"The performance of the parental role, especially for males, is linked to the ability to provide material support for the child following marital dissolution. It has been suggested that lower-status males withdraw from the paternal role when they cannot contribute materially to the welfare of the child. [This study provides] evidence that fathers who pay some support are much more likely to see their children on a regular basis." Furstenberg, Nord, Peterson, Zill, 48 Am. Sociological Rev., at 665.

Thus, aside from its intrinsic importance, child support is a strand tightly interwoven with other forms of connection between father and child. Removal of this strand can unravel all the others.

Through child support, then, children in the increasing number of one-parent families in this country have a means of sustaining a relationship with both parents. The bond with the custodial parent, usually the mother, is forged through daily contact and care. The bond with the parent outside the home, usually the father, is maintained to a significant degree through provision for the child's material needs. In these ways, the family sustains the involvement of both parents in the upbringing of the child as best as the fragmentation of their lives will permit.

Such an arrangement is a hard-won accomplishment, for, sadly, the stresses of separation often result in the effective disintegration of the relationship of the child with the parent outside the home. Many children report only infrequent visits from their fathers, and a large number do not receive the child support payments to which they are entitled. The father outside the home and his child who sustain a relationship therefore may claim a rare and fragile achievement, for "outside parents who are committed to maintaining a relationship are a special breed and their children recognize it." Furstenberg Nord, supra n. 14, at 903.

II

The first part of this section describes the infringement on the parent-child relationship produced by the household filing requirement. The second part demonstrates that the claim presented in these cases differs from the unsuccessful challenges to benefit programs that the Court relies upon to uphold the filing provision.

A

If a child is living with its mother and receiving support from its father, it is clear that the Government could not terminate either of these relationships without substantial justification. It could not remove the child from the custody of the mother without a compelling reason, and would have to prove its case by clear and convincing evidence to do so. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982). The argument that other connections might remain would be unavailing, for the custodial relationship is a vital bond between mother and child.

Nor could the Government forbid the father to support his child without some powerful justification. A father is entitled to support his child, and the child is entitled to look to the father for this support. To prohibit paternal support would deny the father a crucial means of participating in the upbringing of the child, and deny the child its entitlement to receive support from a biological parent who has a deep-rooted interest in seeing that the particular needs of that child are met. The argument that other forms of connection might remain likewise would be unavailing, for a father's support of his own child is integral to sustaining the parent-child relationship.

The intrusion on the fundamental interest in family life in each of these scenarios should be apparent to us all. Yet the Government in these cases has used its economic leverage to achieve exactly the same result. It has told children who live with mothers who need AFDC that they cannot both live with their mothers and receive child support from their fathers. Rather than terminate either relationship itself, the Government requires the child to choose between them. It has declared that, for an indigent mother with a child receiving child support, a condition of her AFDC eligibility is that her child relinquish its fundamental constitutional interest in maintaining a vital bond with either her or the child's father.

On the one hand, if the child stays with its mother, the father is told that henceforth the Government, not he, will support the child. Unless he is wealthy enough to support the entire household, all but $50 of any support payment that the father makes will be used to reimburse the Government for making a welfare payment for use by the whole family. This conversion of the father's support payment into Government reimbursement means that the father is rendered powerless in most cases to respond to the special financial needs of his child.

It is important to illustrate why this is the case. Let us suppose that a couple with one child obtains a divorce, that the mother has a child by a previous marriage, and that the mother has custody of the two children. The mother has no source of income, but the father from whom she obtained her recent divorce provides $150 a month to support his child. If the mother desires to keep both her children, the $150 in child support must be assigned to the State. In return, the three-person household receives, let us say, $400 a month in AFDC. Of the $150 in child support assigned to the State, $50 is returned for use of the child for whom it was paid, and $100 is kept by the State as reimbursement for its welfare payment.

If the father wanted to increase the amount of child support, say to $200, because of the child's special needs, none of the extra money would go to the child. The family would still receive $400 in AFDC, and the child would still receive $50 of the support payment. The only difference would be that the State would now get to keep $150 as reimbursement for the welfare payment. By continuing to live with the mother, the child has lost not only the financial benefit of the father's support, but a father-child relationship founded on the father's commitment to care for the material needs of his child. If the child has a conscientious father who has shouldered his paternal duty, that father will be enlisted to help defray the cost of providing for other children whose fathers are not so responsible. A child thus must pay a high price for continuing to live with its mother.

This price is not merely speculative. The affidavits in these cases establish it. Diane Thomas, for instance, has two children, Crystal, aged 9, and Sherrod, aged 7. App. to Juris. Statement 22a. Although she has sought gainful employment, she has been unable to find work. Crystal's father has almost never complied with a court order requiring him to contribute to Crystal's support. Sherrod's father, however, has voluntarily paid $200 a month on a regular basis toward Sherrod's support. Prior to October 1984, Ms. Thomas received $194 a month in AFDC for the support of herself and Crystal. In October, she received a notice that if she did not file an AFDC application for Sherrod and assign his child support to the State her assistance would be terminated. She then applied for benefits for herself and both her children, assigning Sherrod's child support rights to the State. Because the child support is now regarded as the income of the whole household, the AFDC grant has been reduced to $73 a month. Whereas Sherrod formerly had been entitled to $200 a month in support, he is now entitled to one-third of the $273 total income attributed to the household, or $91, and to $50 of his father's monthly support check assigned to the State, for a total of $141. The financial cost to Sherrod of staying with his mother is thus $59 a month.

Sherrod has paid an emotional price for continuing to live with his mother as well. Two months after the household began receiving welfare, Sherrod's father began to withhold support payments. Ms. Thomas stated: "He informed me that as long as I was going to use Sherrod's support money to keep up my daughter Crystal, he would continue to withhold the support." Id., at 25a. Furthermore, he has not visited Sherrod since beginning to withhold support payments. As Ms. Thomas stated, "[Sherrod's father] is extremely opposed to his son being on welfare benefits, and has told me that he stopped seeing his son because I now receive AFDC for Sherrod." Id., at 26a. Sherrod, of course, has no control over any of this, but nonetheless must suffer the loss of his father's care:

"Sherrod is very upset that his father no longer visits him. He frequently asks me why his daddy does not come to see him anymore. Since the time his father has stopped visitation, Sherrod has begun to wet his bed on a frequent basis. Also since the visitation stopped, Sherrod has become much more disruptive, especially in school. Furthermore, his performance in school seems to have declined." Id., at 26a-27a.

The testimony at trial in this case sheds some light on the reactions of fathers such as Sherrod's. Professor Stack of Duke University testified:

"A law that tells fathers that their efforts cannot keep their children off the welfare rolls, or that what they can provide is not good enough, challenges the efforts and integrity of good men and fathers. Feelings of anger, frustration and shame are not inappropriate or unexpected. The anger is sometimes vented at children, sometimes at mothers, more often both." Id., at 82a-83a.

North Carolina District Judge Hunt also testified about her experience in dealing with fathers who have an obligation to provide child support:

"Many of these fathers grew up on welfare and they are very sensitive to . . . the lack of a father involved in their lives. They know and understand the pride the child feels when he or she can say `my daddy supports me.' These fathers know firsthand that the children will grow up knowing that they are on welfare and that their mothers depend for support on a check each month from the Department of Human Resources and that food stamps buy the groceries. It isn't the same as financial and emotional support from your own father." Id., at 84a.

The reaction of Sherrod's father may be misguided. It may be that he should overcome the obstacles the Government has placed in his way, and still maintain some form of involvement in Sherrod's life. The point, however, is that he should not have to try.

The financial and emotional cost of losing this connection with the father may be too much for the child to bear. If so, the only way to avoid it is for the child to leave the custody of the mother. This price for continuing to receive support from the father also is not speculative. At least one of the families in this case has chosen this course. Mary Medlin has four children, one of whom, Karen, receives $200 in child support from her father, and another of whom, Jermaine, receives $50 in support. Id., at 27a-28a. Ms. Medlin originally received $223 in AFDC for herself and her two other children. When, as required, she added Karen and Jermaine to the welfare rolls, her entire family became ineligible for AFDC. In order to obtain assistance for her family, she agreed to relinquish custody of Karen to her father. Id., at 29a.

Karen may now keep her $200 in child support, and her mother may now obtain AFDC for herself and her other children. They may no longer, however, live in the same household. The burden of their choice hardly requires elaboration. "Continuity of relationships, surroundings, and environmental influence are essential for a child's normal development." J. Goldstein, A. Freud, A. Solnit, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child 31-32 (rev. ed. 1979). The relationship between the child and the custodial parent is a bond forged by intimate daily association, and severing it unalterably transforms the parent-child relationship. It may be that parent and child will be able to fashion some type of new relationship; even if they do, however, each has lost something of incalculable value.

It is thus clear that in these cases the Government "`directly and substantially' interfere[s] with family living arrangements and thereby burden[s] a fundamental right." Lyng v. Castillo, 477 U.S. 635, 638 (1986), quoting Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 387 (1978). The infringement is direct, because a child whose mother needs AFDC cannot escape being required to choose between living with the mother and being supported by the father. It is substantial because the consequence of that choice is damage to a relationship between parent and child. Furthermore, the Government has created an inherent conflict between the interests of the father and the mother. As the record in these cases testifies, a typical father will feel strongly that his son should be supported by him and not by public assistance. The typical mother will feel that loss of the father's support is a price worth paying to keep the child with her. The child may well be swept up in a custody dispute over which living arrangement is in its best interest, especially given the recent trend toward easier modification of custody arrangements. See Wexler, Rethinking the Modification of Child Custody Decrees, 94 Yale L. J. 757, 760-782 (1985). In short, the Government has sliced deeply into family life, pitting father against mother, with the child in the middle.

B

The nature of the interest asserted in these cases, as well as the direct disruption produced by the Government, distinguishes this litigation from typical challenges to the operation of Government benefit programs.

First, unlike those cases on which the Court relies, plaintiff children receiving child support do not assert that they have been unfairly denied a Government benefit. Rather, they claim that the Government has deeply intruded on their relationships with their parents. In Weinberger, we directly acknowledged the difference between these two types of claims: " Unlike the claims involved in Stanley and LaFleur, a noncontractual claim to receive funds from the public treasury enjoys no constitutionally protected status." 422 U.S., at 771-772 (emphasis added). The children in these cases obviously present claims based on the constitutionally protected interest in family life involved in Stanley and LaFleur. Their claims thus must be met by more than a mere demonstration that there is some plausible basis for the Government's action.

This leads to a second point. We are willing to accept the validity of many conditions on participation in Government programs because this Court has never held that anyone has an absolute right to receive public assistance. The Court has thus assumed that participation in a benefit program reflects a decision by a recipient that he or she is better off by meeting whatever conditions are attached to participation than not receiving benefits. In assessing the burdens imposed by a program, then, the theory has been that whatever reasonable burdens are borne by the recipient are willingly assumed. Thus, for instance, if a child, through its mother, voluntarily wishes to participate in the AFDC program, the requirement that child support be assigned to the State is one of the conditions to which a recipient is deemed to have freely consented. See 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(26) (1982 ed., Supp. III).

In these cases, however, the burden placed on the child is not the result of his or her voluntary application for AFDC benefits. Indeed, participants in this litigation are children who do not wish to receive AFDC. Rather, the child must choose between the father and mother solely because other household members are indigent and desire public assistance. It is the presence of these persons in the household, not the child's voluntary application for public assistance, that triggers the requirement that it choose which parental relationship to maintain.

The Government has thus placed a burden on the child's fundamental interest in a relationship with both parents on the basis of a factor over which the child has no control. What we said with respect to illegitimacy in Weber v. Aetna Casualty Surety Co., 406 U.S. 164, 175 (1972), is equally applicable here: imposing such a burden "is contrary to the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility or wrongdoing. Obviously, no child is responsible for his birth and penalizing the illegitimate child is an ineffectual — as well as unjust — way of deterring the parent." See also Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U.S. 762, 770 (1977) (children "can affect neither their parents' conduct nor their own status"). The paradigm of the willing AFDC participant is inapplicable in this case, for the child's fundamental rights are infringed so that other members of the household can receive the assistance that they desire. In insisting that the mother use one child's support to purchase AFDC for other household members, the Government ignores our pronouncement in Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 170 (1944): "Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow that they are free . . . to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves."

Finally, the disruption directly produced by the household filing requirement distinguishes these cases from cases in which we have upheld Government benefit provisions from a challenge that they interfered with family life. In Lyng, supra, for instance, we upheld the food stamp program's presumption that parents, children, and siblings who live together constitute a single "household," so that such persons could not individually apply for benefits as separate households. We noted that the definition "does not order or prevent any group of persons from dining together. Indeed, in the overwhelming majority of cases it probably has no effect at all." Id., at 638. In Califano v. Jobst, 434 U.S. 47 (1977), we upheld a provision whereby a recipient of dependent Social Security benefits lost those benefits upon marriage to anyone other than another beneficiary, even though we acknowledged that the provision "may have an impact on a secondary beneficiary's desire to marry, and may make some suitors less welcome than others." Id., at 58. These cases reflect recognition that the extensive activities of Government in modern society inevitably have the potential for creating incentives and disincentives for certain behavior. By itself, plausible speculation about the effect of Government programs generally cannot provide the basis for a constitutional challenge.

In these cases, however, the impact of Government action is not speculative, but direct and substantial. If a child support recipient lives with a mother who needs public assistance, AFDC will be provided only if the child either leaves the household or gives up its right to support from its father. Determining whether other eligibility requirements for Government assistance will influence family choices may call for subtle inquiry into the nuances of human motivation. Here, however, the burden on family life is inescapable, because it is directly required by the Government as a condition of obtaining benefits. "`Governmental imposition of such a choice puts the same kind of burden upon [the child's rights] as would a fine imposed against'" the child for living with its mother or being supported by its father. Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U.S. 136, 140 (1987) (citation omitted).

The Court contends that applying heightened scrutiny in this case would jeopardize AFDC's general requirement that AFDC be available only to families without two resident parents, ante, at 602, n. 17. Assuming, arguendo, that the latter provision would not elicit heightened scrutiny, it is distinguishable from the one at issue in these cases. Since the regulation in these cases applies only to households in which a child support recipient lives, we know that a condition of AFDC eligibility for every household covered by the regulation is that a child choose between parental relationships. We thus know that this eligibility provision will intrude on family life in every case in which it is applicable. We cannot say the same of a general eligibility provision, such as the requirement that AFDC be given only to families without two resident parents. Many households will be able to obtain AFDC without any intrusion on family life, since they would only have one parent present in any event. Our speculation that the single-parent requirement might affect the family decisions of some households to which it applies is thus far different from our certainty that the support assignment requirement will affect the family decisions of every household to which it applies.

The contention in these cases is therefore that the Government as a condition of AFDC eligibility will inevitably burden the fundamental interest of a child in maintaining a custodial relationship with its mother and a support relationship with its father. Such a burden must be justified by more than a mere assertion that the provision is rational.

III

Turning first to the Government's purpose in enacting the provision at issue in these cases, the Government urges that the change in the household filing requirement was meant to be a "rational means of carrying out Congress's conclusion that families whose members have access to additional sources of income have less need for government assistance than families without access to such income." Brief for Federal Appellant 41.

This concern for program efficiency is certainly a valid objective, and serves to justify governmental action in most cases. It cannot in itself, however, provide a purpose sufficiently important to justify an infringement on fundamental constitutional rights. If it could, its reach would be limitless, for it is probably more efficient in most cases for Government to operate without regard to the obstacles of the Constitution than to attend to them. Nonetheless, "the Constitution recognizes higher values than speed and efficiency." Stanley, 405 U.S., at 656. It is true that Congress could, if it chose, completely eliminate the AFDC program in order to save money, for this Court has held that no one may claim a constitutional right to public assistance. Having chosen to operate such a program, however, it may not invoke the efficiency of that program as a basis for infringing the constitutional rights of recipients. See, e.g., Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 633 (1969) (in equal protection context, "[t]he saving of welfare costs cannot justify an otherwise invidious classification"). Surely no one could contend, for instance that a concern for limiting welfare outlays could justify mandatory sterilization of AFDC beneficiaries, or the forfeiture of all personal possessions. "Indeed," as we have said:

"one might fairly say of the Bill of Rights in general, and the Due Process Clause in particular, that they were designed to protect the fragile values of a vulnerable citizenry from the overbearing concern for efficiency and efficacy that may characterize praiseworthy government officials no less, and perhaps more, than mediocre ones." Stanley, supra, at 656.

Thus, the Government's desire to target AFDC payments more efficiently cannot in itself serve to justify infringement of the child's fundamental interest in living with its mother and being supported by its father. Even if a concern for program efficiency could serve as a sufficiently important objective in this context, however, the Government need not infringe upon family life in order to accomplish it.

It may well be unrealistic to assume that no child support is available as a common household resource, given the fact that a child enjoys such common benefits as shelter, utilities, and food. It is thus reasonable to account for the reality of household living by assuming that a portion of the child support payment is used to meet the child's share of these common expenses. Thus, the Government could regard as household income that portion of the support payment that represents the child's pro rate share of common expenses. This calculation could be done easily for each household size, and would require no case-by-case determinations. Such attribution of income would require no pre-emption of state child support law, since the use of support payments to meet the child's share of such common expenses is consistent with state-law requirements that child support be used solely for the benefit of the child.

At the same time, such a provision leaves intact the father-child support bond. In making a commitment to meet the particular needs of his child, the father surely realizes that some of those needs are common needs for which it is only fair to seek a contribution from the child. This is far different, however, from assuming that the entire child support payment is available for the whole household. The father's unique relationship is with his child, not with other members of the household, and the father and child, not the Government, should be the ones to decide if it should continue.

If the Government is concerned that some mothers may be violating their fiduciary duty to their child by using the support payment for all household members, it could easily require as a condition of AFDC participation that the mother account for the use of child support money. If the money is in fact being used for everyone, the father is not simply supporting his child, but everyone, so that the child has no special parental support relationship different from any other child in the household. In that case, it is fair to require the assignment of child support to the Government, since this requirement does not represent the child's relinquishment of a distinctive father-child bond. The assignment provision in such an instance does no more than reflect the family members' own decision about how the child support should be used. It may be that the accounting will inform the father that the money is being used against his wishes, so that he will demand that it be used for his child. Families may resolve this disagreement in various ways, but the resolution will reflect the decision of the parents, not the Government, as to the best way to meet the needs of the child.

If an accounting revealed that some, but not all, of the support were used for the needs of other household members, the Government would be free to attribute this amount as household income, and to require the assignment of some representative portion of the support payment. That portion used or saved for the child's special needs, however, could not go to the Government, for it represents the father's commitment to meeting the particular needs of his child. These funds may be used to permit the child to pursue a particular interest, to help defray the cost of special training necessary because of a learning disability, or to save for the child's education. Whatever the use to which the money is put, the child knows that it may look to its father for it. The allocation of the support payment between the needs of the child and those of other household members represents the decision of family members, not the Government, as to how best to raise the child.

Finally, to the extent that Congress sought to give recognition to the fact that individuals living together enjoy some economies of scale, ante, at 599, this could be addressed far less disruptively. The Government need only require that the child support recipient be included in the calculation of household size. Since per capita AFDC payments are lower the larger the household, this measure would accomplish the Government's end while not intruding on the parent-child relationship.

The Government's justification for its direct and substantial infringement on parent-child relationships thus falls short. As salutary as a desire for cost-effective program management may be, alone it is not a purpose of adequate magnitude to warrant such infringement. Even if it were, the Government need not abandon its desire to target AFDC more efficiently in order to avoid direct intrusion into the intimate domain of family life. Measures are available that would achieve a more realistic consideration of household income while still permitting a child to sustain vital bonds with both its father and mother. As a result, the household filing requirement cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. This conclusion does not represent an effort to second-guess Congress as to the most effective use of its funds, nor does it represent a threat to the discretion that program officials must inevitably exercise. Rather, it reflects adherence to the principle that on those occasions that the Government deeply and directly intrudes on basic family relationships, there must be a powerful justification for doing so.

IV

In The Republic and in The Laws, Plato offered a vision of a unified society, where the needs of children are met not by parents but by the government, and where no intermediate forms of association stand between the individual and the state. 2 The Dialogues of Plato 163 (B. Jowett transl. 1953); 4 id., at 189. The vision is a brilliant one, but it is not our own:

"Although such measures have been deliberately approved by men of great genius, their ideas touching the relation between individual and State were wholly different from those upon which our institutions rest; and it hardly will be affirmed that any legislature could impose such restrictions upon the people of a State without doing violence to both letter and spirit of the Constitution." Meyer, 262 U.S., at 402.

If we are far removed from the Platonic Republic, it is because our commitment to diversity and decentralized human relationships has made us attentive to the danger of Government intrusion on private life. Those who are affected by the Government in these cases are fathers and children who have sustained a relationship whereby the child is supported by the father, not dependent on the State. The State has told the child that if it is to live with a mother not so fortunate, it too must become a dependent of the State. If it does so, the child's material needs will no longer met by a father's attention to his particular child. Rather, the child will be one of many who are supported by the Government, and the father, powerless to direct assistance to his child, can only reimburse the Government for supporting the entire household. Such an arrangement calls to mind Aristotle's criticism of the family in Plato's Republic: "[E]ach citizen will have a thousand sons: they will not be the sons of each citizen individually: any and every son will be equally the son of any and every father; and the result will be that every son will be equally neglected by every father." The Politics of Aristotle 44 (E. Barker transl. 1958). Regardless of the benevolence with which it is issued, a Government check is no substitute for the personal support of a loving father.

"Happy families," wrote Tolstoy, "are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." L. Tolstoy, Anna Karenina 1 (C. Garnett transl. 1978). Contemporary life offers countless ways in which family life can be fractured and families made unhappy. The children who increasingly live in these families are entitled to the chance to sustain a special relationship with both their fathers and their mothers, regardless of how difficult that may be. Parents are entitled to provide both daily emotional solace and to meet their child's material needs; the fact that in some families a different parent may take on each role does not diminish the child's right to the care of both parents. The Government could not prohibit parents from performing these duties, and what it cannot do by direct fiat it should not be able to do by economic force. The Government has decreed that the only way a child can live with its mother and be supported by its father is if the mother is wealthy enough not to require public assistance. A child cannot be held responsible for the indigency of its mother, and should not be forced to choose between parents because of something so clearly out of its control. No society can assure its children that there will be no unhappy families. It can tell them, however, that their Government will not be allowed to contribute to the pain.

I dissent.

JUSTICE BLACKMUN, dissenting.

I am in general agreement with much of what JUSTICE BRENNAN has said in Parts I, II, and III of his opinion. I therefore also dissent from the judgment of the Court.