Valuing Children

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This morning I took Stella and Brando, my Humane Society Specials, to the dog park for their hour of running, chasing tennis balls, and playing. A family without dogs wandered in. A man and his wife (evidently) and three little boys who were probably two, three and maybe seven. My dogs have never been around children. Their only reaction when I’m walking them on a leash has been to bark wildly and go into their bucking bronco routine when they see little kids. My own fault, no doubt. I’m not alpha male enough. When one of the little boys ran towards my dogs, I told the man I didn't know how they would act around little kids. He was pretty blasé. When I said I certainly didn’t want the kids to be bitten, he looked surprised. He obviously hadn’t thought of that.

At least ten other dogs roamed the park, and he apparently didn’t know any of the dogs, their reactions, or their owners. Despite big-time liability insurance, I would never get over the guilt if Stella or Brando bit a child. Stella is Australian Shepherd-ish, and aggressively herds if I let her. I didn’t want her or Brando snapping or nipping to get the little boys to form a circle, so I put their gentle leads on them and we left. The parents seemed sanguine about the possibility of their kids being bitten. Does this mean they don’t value their kids? Probably not. But the parents didn’t show that they cherish their boys, either.

I sometimes think we don’t really value children in the United States. For some they are fashion accessories: "Look at my cute child; look at my new Prada purse." We say we want only the best for our children, certainly. But that applies as long as it isn’t too much work. We don’t want to be bothered by them or the people who care for them (in whatever capacity).

When I was a child (here we go, old fart stories), if I misbehaved away from home (I was a perfect child so that seldom happened), I knew my parents would punish me. (One time my dad used a board to spank both me and my sister, although as I think about it she was in another room and she may have gotten off lightly.) Today, if a child misbehaves, it is someone else’s fault. "The teacher needs to give each of the thirty children in class more individual attention. The rules are wrong. This perfect child would never do that. The system is has it in for a particular child for whatever reason." It all adds up to the fact that we frequently don’t love our children enough to make them live up to pretty minimal standards. We give in for fear that children won’t like us any more.

And no doubt that is a rational fear. There were times I didn’t like my parents (particularly when my dad spanked me with a board), but I always respected them for doing the best they could with the resources they had available to them. Despite all their flaws, and my own, they raised me to be a reasonably responsible, generally functional adult.

Children are not necessarily supposed to like their parents. Parents are certainly not supposed to be their kids’ buddies. The parents’ job is to turn children into responsible, mature human beings and then help them move away from home.

In a larger context, we see Americans’ disdain for children in our educational systems. In Illinois, as in most other states I suspect, each school district raises money to educate children by assessing local taxes with the state chipping a few bucks into the pot. Each local district then raises taxes based on the wealth of that district. In the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, real estate values are astronomical and the amount spent per pupil in individual districts can be as much as five times what districts in poor, downstate Illinois districts spend. A teacher who makes well over $100k is not unusual on the North Shore. (I hasten to add that well-paid teachers earn their compensation.) Teacher salaries, on the other hand, top out at far less than half that in poverty-stricken areas of the state. The disparity means that rich kids get better educations than poor kids. No good teacher is in it for the money (or the vacations!). But no teacher can afford to work at such a salary and still pay off college loans, provide a decent house for a family, and still put food on the table.

Children from wealthy families, in general, already have greater opportunities. They have books and magazines in their homes, they travel, they get tutoring if the children even appear to need it, they have better nutrition, better health care, better lives over all. They have parents who both push them and value education. Many poor children don’t have any of these. If society cared about children (as opposed to “my child”), this would change.

In Illinois, the governor recently proposed universal children's health care, despite their parents’ income level. In a recent issue of the local bi-weekly rag, a columnist suggested that we can't afford to provide decent health care for children. Why, the next thing we would have to give them is adequate nutrition in the form of breakfasts. And what would it cost us? I was flabbergasted. Gob-smacked. If we don’t provide adequate health care and nutrition for children, what will it cost us? Their brains cannot develop properly, and we create an underclass. How much more than breakfast or healthcare or education does it cost to keep a prisoner? How much does it cost if we don’t develop every person to live at his or her potential?

Perhaps the columnist was exhibiting not-so-subtle racism. Perhaps this is an idea she didn’t think through. But she was so facile when she wrote it that she obviously believes children (other than her own), do not deserve a chance. She decried the cost of providing nutrition and health care for the children of Illinois whose parents cannot already provide it. I think we could divert cash from Halliburton and the War (Conflict? Unrest? Invasion? Crusade? Politicians’ Pocket Lining? What do we call it these days?) in Iraq to more than take care of poor children in Illinois. Indeed, in every state.

It is time that we become the global village that it takes to raise a child. That doesn’t necessarily mean we throw money at them although judicious applications of cash work well. It does mean that we talk with children (and young adults), protect them, set limits for them, give them opportunities, read to and with them, help them learn, advocate for them and cherish our children, all our children. They are the future. That’s trite, but also true. Children are the future. Children are our future.

Senator Obama

I voted for Barack Hussein Obama for Senator from Illinois. I would like to vote for him for President of the United States.

At some time in the idealized past, perhaps during the FDR years when “dollar a year” men were the rule in government, elected officials ran out of a sense of altruism. I am sure that such people exist today, and they may well be in the majority in political circles. It may well be that CNN airs only negative sound bites and focuses only on conflict rather than the true patriots in public office who work hard to improve life in the United States -- rather than to line their pockets.

I would like to think that’s true.

And I would like to believe that Candidate for President and Illinois’ favorite son Barack Obama is just such a virtuous politician. I don’t care whether Obama is white enough or black enough to win. I like his charisma. And I would hope that he is competent enough to be president even though he lacks experience. Lacking experience seems to be a strike against him, certainly, but it worked for George W. Bush, who spun himself as “a Washington Outsider.” On the other hand, Bush’s lack of competence, his smugness at his lack of scholarship, his blind trust in the antediluvian neo-cons he surrounded himself with, and his rigidity all work against him.

Donors with big bucks have put their trust in Senator Obama. I don’t know whether that means he will have the financial means to run a thoughtful campaign and end up a thoughtful president, or whether he will merely be struggling to escape from donors’ pockets.

Lacking experience need not be a problem. Sen. Obama has a year and a half before the election to gain experience. Experience in statesmanship, Experience in political (in the best sense of the word) give and take, Experience in legislation that works for the American citizenry rather than Democrats or Republicans. The opportunity to become a great senator is at his door step. All he has to do is work in the Senate instead of spending his time campaigning and fund-raising. He could well start by introducing legislation that has been ignored somehow in the political back stabbing that is characteristic of politics today.

Here are a five issues he could address that I pulled off the top of my head.
• Veterans’ health issues. The diminishing budgets for Veterans since President Bush took office are immoral, scandalous, obscene. Maneuvering the Veterans’ health system should not be an obstacle course for our aging veterans or for those newly returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Universal Health Care, including mental health care (consider Virginia Tech). Too many people in these United States do not have health insurance. Too many of these too many people are children. When Bill Clinton first took office, Hillary tried to spearhead this issue and was shot down. The health insurance lobby and the pharmaceutical manufacturing lobby may well scream and cry and withdraw their funding of Sen. Obama’s campaign, but this is an issue that affects us all in one way or another, even if it means our premiums are high already because those of us who have insurance end up subsidizing those who do not.
• A carefully thought-out plan for withdrawing from Iraq that has the least consequences on the Iraqi people and the fewest casualties for American and United Nations (are there any left in Iraq?) troops. Maybe even armoring (you can verb anything) the troops already there until they withdraw.
• Revamping of FEMA so that it works for those who need help after disasters instead of lining the pockets of Bush cronies (Heckuva job, Brownie).
• A considered plan, in conjunction with both state and local authorities, for New Orleans. I don’t know whether that means re-locating the citizenry, building a new New Orleans on higher ground, installing levees that actually protect the existing city, or something totally innovative.

Senator Obama has a wonderful chance to gain experience and do well by the American people at the same time. Perhaps becoming a great senator will spoil his chances of becoming president, at least in 2008.

On the other hand, being a great senator isn’t a bad calling.