Childrens' Lives Matter

The world is in turmoil over pandemic and perceived racial inequities, and once these things calm down a bit, Greta Thunberg is sure to surface again and wag her finger at us for not doing enough about climate change.  While media, sports and Hollywood are obsessing over “racial injustice,” age injustice towers over racial injustice as a problem in our society.

Age injustice?  Yes, age injustice.  Age injustice runs counter to the American Dream and we are failing on several fronts.  You see, the American Dream goes something like this—you come to this country, or you come from very modest means and you suffer the indignities of a marginal existence, doing crummy, low paying jobs day after day, without complaint, so that your children can receive a decent education and have a better life than you had.  Perhaps they can get into a profession, have more control over their lives, live in a better neighborhood, afford a real therapist instead of the local bartender. 

After the Manchester bombing in May of 2017, I wrote a blog post that excoriated the West for not doing enough to keep our children safe (.http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2017/05/our-children.html)   Last autumn, I wrote a post entitled Bloody Fall, in which I highlighted the murders of 4 young high school and college girls of different races last fall (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2019/12/bloody-fall.html).

Things have not gotten better.  Of all the stresses that are affecting our society, our failure to put our children first, to have enough of them,  to protect them, to nurture and educate them, to allow them to have a childhood worries me a great deal.

After the Manchester bombing, I was concerned about Islamic terror. But it turns out that most of the terror is coming from within our own population.  In Philadelphia, 100 children under the age of 18 have been shot so far this year.  In Chicago, 38 juveniles have been killed so far this year.  Shootings are up 53% in New York, with many children as victims.  Similar increases are occurring across the U.S.  The shootings affect those families and the friends of those kids, depriving them of the magic of childhood.  One Chicago Public School has lost 3 players to its football team to gun violence.  As I asserted after the Manchester bombing, a civilization that will not do what is necessary to protect its young from physical violence is in serious trouble.

The management of our schools during this pandemic is another indicator of putting children last.  Teachers unions across the country have demanded that they not be required to teach in person due to COVID19.   And most districts caved, even though numerous studies have shown that the risk of transmission of COVID19 by children is not significant. We do know that remote learning is ineffective, especially for special needs children and lower income children.   The cost to these children is incalculable.  Many will never be able to make up the loss in math and science.  The psychological costs of social isolation are beginning to pile up.  Yet the unions remain intractable.  In a different era, we took on risks to ensure a better life for our children.  But not this generation. 

A monumental debt burden is the legacy we are leaving to our children.  The national debt is at $25 trillion and rising.  State governments like Illinois are leaving the next generation an unmanageable debt level.  And this is on top of a burgeoning debt load many individuals took on to get a college degree.  This is unconscionable.  Instead of leaving them something in the will, so to speak, we are consuming their future earnings, their future wealth, their future opportunities.  Neither of our political parties even talk about it.

Finally, there is the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and sexualization of children.  Incredibly, much of this has been perpetrated through institutions.  Yes, there has been the coverup by the Catholic Church.  But we have also had the UN involved (Peter Newell, the top UN childrens’ rights official was just jailed for sexually assaulting a child).  We had the incredible scandal at Michigan State with Larry Nassar that resulted in the resignation of MSU’s president and charges brought against the athletic director.  The details of Epstein’s island are unfolding with the implication of Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton.  Libraries across the country have been hosting Drag Queen Story Hours.  Hasbro just released a troll doll that giggles when you touch it in its private area.  The New York Times has been running op-eds suggesting that pedophilia is not a criminal act but either a treatable condition or a sexual preference.  The liberals’ open border policy conveniently ignores the widespread child sex trafficking that goes on.  There are many tentacles to this, but the bottom line is that we are permitting the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and continue to normalize pedophilia.  This needs to stop and it needs to stop now.

Racial injustice is infinitesimally tiny in the West.  Age injustice is the elephant in the room.  Our inability and unwillingness to sacrifice for, and protect our children is unconscionable. Our recent riots are a ruse.  We should be rioting over how we treat our children.