| We have no biological children. By choice.
We love children. On my wife's side there are four nieces and nephews and one step- of each. On mine, my niece and nephew are now grown, and we have two delightful great-nieces.
Any year I have a gross or more of students in my classroom, and more that perhaps I deal with as a coach, mentor, sponsor, or because I have previously taught them.
We care deeply about all children, not just those to whom we are connected by blood, marriage, or occupation.
Herbert framed his column talking about Thursday's Thanksgiving Day Parade, sponsored as always by Macy's. That holds a special place in my heart, as when I was a child my father was an executive for the company: my sister appeared in the Parade, we always had great seats, and even better: to get to my dad's office we walked through the toy department. We would go to the parade, then to my mother's parents for Thanksgiving dinner, in an elegant apartment overlooking Central Park. We might not celebrate Christmas, but it was a joyful time: we did not know want.
In the paragraph before that with which I begin Herbert reminds us: We have an obligation and an opportunity at this special moment in history to do right by these youngsters, and all the rest of America's kids. It's a special moment because we've seen so clearly the many things that have gone haywire in the society, and while it may not be easy to articulate, we have a sense of what needs to be done.
we have a sense of what needs to be done - if we don't, we have not been paying attention.
Parents are losing - or have lost - jobs. That puts children at risk, of being homeless, of lacking nutrition or medical care.
Even before the most recent series of economic crises, there were children who were homeless, lacked food.
There have for too long been too many children who lacked sufficient medical care. I have seen that in Wise and in Grundy. Teaching in Prince George;s County MD I remind you yet again of Deomante Driver.
There are children missing one or both parents because of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of those parents will come home broken in body or mind. Some will come home in flag draped caskets.
Despite the stimulus local and state governments face huge economic crises. Arlington County Virginia, where I live, is hardly poor. In 2008 the Census Bureau estimated our per capita income at 37,706 and our per household income at 92,345. We have lived here since 1982 and to balance its budget for 2010 for the first time in our memory the County will be laying off employees. Our unemployment rate is only about 4%. Virginia as a whole is only about 6%. Both jurisdictions suffer mildly (although the Commonwealth has cities like Martinsburg at over 20%) compared to other parts of the nation. Our foreclosure rate is similarly low. If we have to cut employment and services, imagine the impact elsewhere. And remember for most local governments, there are two key things to remember:
1. most of their revenue comes from real estate taxes, which are now down
2. their biggest expense is for schools, many of which are seeing increases in students as parents can no longer afford non-public alternatives.
The economic woes are exacting a fierce toll on family life, and children are taking a big hit - emotionally, psychologically and otherwise. Herbert is right about that. The number of runaways is up, as are numbers for homeless children, for children who are hungry. Consider the latter. As more families need help with housing government funds for that purpose have not increased. That puts more strain on family budgets. Sometimes that decreases the money for food. And thought there is a school lunch (and in some cases breakfast) program, it has not expanded, nor is it sufficient. Our schools are on a 5 day break. What about those children whose primary nutrition comes through the school lunch program? Read what David Shipler wrote in 2005 here about hungry children: Even when hungry children are able to go to school, they don't do well. "Learning is discretionary, after you're well-fed, warm, secure," says Deborah Frank, a pediatrician who heads the Grow Clinic at Boston Medical Center. She treats infants who look like wizened old men, and older children who are bony and listless.
Remember that there are now far more hungry children.
From the same article: What is not visible may be more serious. Inadequate nutrition is a stealthy threat, because its hidden effects on the brain occur long before the outward symptoms of retarded growth. Several decades of neuroscience have documented the impact of iron deficiency, for example, on the size of the brain and the creation and maturation of neurons and other key components. If the deficiencies occur during the last trimester of pregnancy or the first two or three years of life, the results may last a lifetime.
Long after malnutrition ends, such children have lower IQs. In adolescence, they score worse than their peers on arithmetic, writing, spatial memory and other cognitive tests. Parents and teachers see in them "more anxiety or depression, social problems, and attention problems," according to a volume of studies compiled in 2000 by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.
And finally, again from that article, this: Youngsters who cannot succeed in school usually drop out and go on to fail in other ways. So the Bush budget exchanges a short-term gain for a long-term loss, overlooking the simple fact that the less we invest in children now, the more we will have to invest in prisons later. Connect the dots.
Connect the dots. Then read again Herbert's conclusion: We still keep fighting tragic, futile, stupid wars, squandering lives and resources and creative energies that could be put to use right here at home, where the need for nation-building is beyond critical.
The U.S. should be a paradise for young people. We need big changes in this country, approaches that are constructive, creative and fundamentally new, if we're going to give those smiling kids I saw on Thanksgiving Day the kind of society they deserve.
tragic, futile, stupid wars
a paradise for young people
the kind of society they deserve
If you have children of your own, think about your hopes, aspirations and dreams for them. Are not all children entitled to at least some of that?
If like us you do not have children, think of your own childhood, of the children of friends and family, and ask the same questions.
This nation faces many crises. The President has many difficult decisions to make. The Members and Senators will have to make critical choices, some of which might jeopardize their political careers.
Those political careers should weigh far less than the future of our children. To be sure, they represent the future of our nation. It is also a basic moral question for many of us.
And let me again remind you of the words of Hubert Humphrey, applicable to this offering as well:
It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
All of our children are at what should be the dawn of their lives. Too many are already in the shadows, and lest we act appropriately, many will spend much or all of their lives their.
Unstack the deck.
Remember the children. All the children.
Peace. |
