Kids
I don’t
want to run for public office, I never have, but if I did, I would focus on our
children and how to set them up for future success. As a member of the first
generation in this country predicted to be worse off than their parents both
physically and financially, this is particularly important for me. Kids are our future, and we need to do a better
job taking care of them and enabling them to have the quality of life we wish
for them (which I’m assuming is better than the one we have made for ourselves).
I’m a public-school teacher of middle and high school students and have been for
over a decade (since before the iPhone came out and teaching fully
metamorphosed into an exercise in frustration). As a public servant and one who
has a heart for the future success of our nation through the next generation, I
find it important to address what we are going to do for our descendants (while
figuring out what to do for ourselves); the next generations will deal with the
consequences of our decisions, for good or ill. I prefer to leave them a
kinder, braver, and more sustainable world than we have now.
Taking care of kids means
doing so for their entire childhood. This means making sure they have
the nutrients and care they need before and through development. This also
means children have social support and invested caregivers (preferably parents
or family) throughout their lives. Kids become students, and their school
system needs to better address the requirements for being successful individuals
and citizens, not how to compliantly become perfect. Kids need safe spaces to
play, grow, and interact with their environment. There
are things that all children need: Nutrition, Practical Education, and a
Support Structure. These are the issues I want to discuss first, and I
can only do so by reframing the arguments that involve children.
First things first: no
child should go hungry in this country. According to No Kid Hungry and Feeding
America[i], there
are 9 million children who live in food insecure homes. In order to create
infrastructure that feeds people for generations, there are a few programs that
need to be expanded or put in place: remove food deserts (affecting 23.5
million people[ii]),
repurpose food waste, increase the amount of benefits and qualifying income for
WIC, and provide free breakfast and lunch to all school-age students.
We need to reverse the trend over the past half century that made
processed foods cheaper and healthier foods less available to the communities
that would benefit the most. This means, among other things, removing subsidies
from grains and processed food and giving them to small farms, cooperates, and
other agricultural industries using sustainable practices. This will drive down
the cost and increase the supply of fresh foods that are available to Americans.
Starting urban farms will remove food deserts and provide local economies with farms,
businesses, and income, which will economically stabilize neighborhoods that
have historically been neglected and politicized.
Most food grown is not sent to the consumer for a variety of reasons
(spoilage, looks ugly, etc). A program to encourage making products (jams, sauces,
compost, etc.) with the produce not destined for a store. This will reduce the
emission of greenhouse gases, or at least redirect them, and increase revenue
streams for farmers and their communities. The combination of industry with
farming will allow rural areas to increase their income and provide a more
stable community for what is inherently a seasonal profession.
One way to make sure kids have enough food is to ensure their
parents can buy enough to feed them, and feed them well. In Amazon’s
documentary A Place at the Table, there is a mother who, at one point,
made $2 too much to qualify for food stamps, specifically WIC. Thirty years
ago, my single mother found herself in a similar situation and did not have the
income to feed me and my sister. My mother had her father and family to help
her out, and I never knew we were poor, the mom from the documentary was not so
lucky. Because of the lack of benefits, her youngest son has developmental
delays that she can trace to the lack of nutrition in his formative years. This
needs to happen to no one else, as it furthers social inequality, whether based
on income or ethnicity. By increasing the income cap so more people can
qualify, and increasing the allowance so enough food, and quality food, at that,
can be purchased, we are providing basic needs to our citizens and giving them
their best chance at the American Dream.
Kids need food to learn, so breakfast and lunch should be provided
on campus for free for all students. Removing the free lunch card reduces the
stigma of income, which means more students will use, and benefit from, the
program. Another key change to make is provide culinary arts as a requirement
in all schools and provide free meals at school for all attendees
(parents in night classes and teachers are included). The chefs receive a tax
break and fair wage for running the kitchen, and all students will know how to
cook for themselves and experience how to provide for others.
A second, related issue is clean drinking water, which all children also
need for healthy development. Almost half a million households in the US do not
have clean drinking water (even more do not have hot and cold water or sewage
lines).[iii] Several
chemicals in untreated water, natural gas and lead among the worst, have been
shown to reduce achievement and outcomes for children exposed to these
chemicals. The laws are in place, but not enforced. Water needs to be a human
right, not just a privilege for the wealthy and a source of corporate profits.
The existing infrastructure needs to be updated to address the current needs of
our communities and how to provide consistently for them in the coming decades.
Reclaiming and water treatment facilities need to be expanded and systems built
to sanitize and reuse water. This will not only provide reliable, clean water,
but will reduce the outsized impact human water use has on ecologic systems.
How do
all these educated people cook their own meals and man their own
infrastructure? Education, of course. Not the current system; that produces
workers and supervisors. We need self-sufficient problem-solvers to follow
their dreams, and we need a reimagined education system that provides a
learning environment that fosters these ends. Success in education will be
based on mastery of concepts needed to navigate society in the modern age. Once
all the concepts have been mastered, kids can apprentice and apply their
knowledge before going on to higher education or to work in the free market.
Students are evaluated on their mastery of a topic and either move on or
continue studying until they understand the objective. There is far more to
this, and the detail is explained in Band-Aids on Bullet Wounds (another
of my writing projects).
To get work in the free market, it is easier to do when there is no criminal
record. Isolating children who have committed crimes and treating them like
social pariahs almost guarantees that they will not succeed in the
free market and will be a drain on society's resources through the cost of
incarceration, the burden on the justice system, and the number of kids and
adults on entitlement programs. If people were more forgiving and the
punishments were more relevant to the crime and intended to reduce recidivism,
there would be more economic opportunities for those who had to learn the rules
of affluent society the hard way. Criminal Justice reform is hard, which is why
a simple, introductory program would be to reintroduce educational and
vocational programs into correctional facilities. The completion of these
programs needs to lead to job placement and early release. There needs to be a
prison to profession pipeline to end the cycle of recidivism that prevents
social change in many neighborhoods throughout the nation.
The
more parents have had to work the past four decades, the less time they spend
with their children. It is the parents’ responsibility to ensure that their
children are cared for. At the same time, parents work and therefore need
social support, and most do not get it. Either because they are separated from
their community through their work life, geography, they are away from their
support system, or their community is so broken or full of fear that there is
no social network to be found. All of these obstacles can be addressed in
various ways. One of which is addressed through ensuring that no one is without
shelter (as discussed in the previous episode).
I’ll end
with a note on the beginning of life, which is unfortunately the most talked
about and yet the shortest period of a child’s life. Women carrying babies need
to have access to quality care, regardless of income and community. This
includes sound medical advice and access to nutritious foods and supplements
that will promote positive outcomes for the mother and baby. This will enable
the birth of healthier and wanted babies. This is not only better for all
people involved, but also for the economy and social safety[iv].
Women’s health also needs to be considered equal with that of the developing
baby, since not having their mother around hamstring’s a child’s chances of
success from the beginning. Keeping children with their family needs to be
prioritized in all aspects of social services involving children.
Unborn children deserve to enter a world that wants them
and provides for them. Until this system is in place and of quality, the
discussion about their right to life is irrelevant, as their quality of life is
not assured. No child should be intentionally born an orphan or unloved. The
development of a child before birth is less than 5% of their legal childhood,
and therefore should take no more than 5 percent of the conversation. I do want
to note that there needs to be a nuanced argument about the realm of abortions
that separates medical necessity from elective procedures (like gallbladder
removal vs. liposuction): one is for biological survival, while the other one
is for increasing one's social standing.
Caring
for children does not stop at birth; it starts there. This is one of the
fundamental flaws I have found in our current civic discourse: it’s all about
the fetus and then we leave the child and their (usually) mother on their own.
Most families are led by one parent or in a “non-traditional” situation. It is
now common for kids to not know, or worse dislike, at least one of their
biological parents. Those that raise their children need extra support, no
matter the reason why they are on their own. We cannot legislate human
behavior, but there need to be incentives for actively participating in a
child’s life. It is difficult not to insult one or more groups of people when
discussing policy for the almost and newly-born. However, we are social
creatures and need to ensure that the society our children grow up in is
caring, safe, and healthy. This blanket approach needs to be our priority.
What
do children need, other than the right to live? Adequate food and nutrition,
natural places to play and socialize, mentors of various age groups, and an
education that sets them up for success as adults. Is this what they receive?
Unfortunately, millions of children in this country do not. Kids need to be our
first priority as a socio-economic foundation for our nation’s future.
[i] Nokidhungry.com, feedameria.com
[ii] Dosomething.com, Colorado.edu
[iii] The widespread and unjust drinking water and clean water crisis in the United States | Nature Communications
[iv]Dubner, Steven and Levitt, Steven. Freakonomics
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