The Call for A CHILDREN’S ADVOCATE CO-ORDINATOR

By Daria M. Brezinski, PhD

Children have no voice or representation, cannot vote, or hire lobbyists, work or pay taxes yet are acted upon daily. When it comes to children’s issues, WHY are billions of taxpayer dollars expended on research, accumulating data, evaluating results but little to implement the findings? Deep and abiding interest for the disenfranchised is evident in some legislation but implementation is quite another thing. US children fall through the cracks of one department or another because government agencies work independently competing for the same dollars, threatening collaboration, unable to organize and communicate the research data cohesively to impact the lives of children.  How can a nation thrive, create, grow and prosper when the formative years in a child’s life are devalued in comparison to every other agenda that has more advocacy, lobbyists and funding? Children’s issues would be best served in one central jurisdiction or clearinghouse: The Office of CHILDREN’S ADVOCACY for the following reasons:

DEFINE ADULTHOOD: Children are making decisions that will affect the rest of their lives- internet, pregnancy, abortion, drop out, homelessness. Without cultural rituals like indigenous cultures, initiations and ceremonies marking the beginning of adulthood, delineation is unknown. A CHILD can:

–          have unlimited access to internet navigation at any age. Child bloggers, according to David Huffaker, Georgetown University, post significant details online: First name 70%; Age 67%; Contact information 61%; Location 59%; Email address 44%; IM name 44%; Birth date 39%; Link to home page 30%; Full name 20% leaving them vulnerable.

–          have a baby at the onset of puberty (for some girls that can be age 8)

–          carry a credit card with parental consent at any age;

–          be married with parental consent at 14 years of age in some states

–          open a Facebook account at age 14 and in the click of a mouse with inappropriate postings expose privacy information that may annihilate financial, legal and/or career status for life.

–          drive a car at 15 years of age and use it as a weapon at 16

–          seek full time employment at 16 years of age; earn an income earlier as a winner of a beauty pageant or a child star or a paperboy or own a business

–          be tried as an adult at age 13

–          become a child felon for life

–          become emancipated by rule of a judge at age 16

–          drop out of school at age 16

–          attend college at 17 years of age

–          drink legally at 18 years of age

–          smoke legally at 18 years of age (about 81% of adult smokers started as children and adult drug, alcohol addicts began as addicted smokers)

–          still have missing molars at age 18 years old

–          die for country at 18 years old BUT

–          cannot vote for person who puts them at war until 21 years of age (in some states)

–          cannot develop discrimination and discernment skills until the age of 20 when the mid-brain and forebrain are fully formed.

–          extend adolescence to age 30 by continued university participation

Is one 18 year old the same as another? There is an inverted chronology of expecting children to behave like adults and encouraging adults to behave like children. Although there is no ‘real’ age that denotes one step to the next, there are natural phases that signal change is imminent. The onset of teething as well as loss of the first tooth, the development of language, taking the first step, menstruation are all natural benchmarks in a child’s life. A clear definition as a determiner for adulthood must be nationally celebrated with benchmarks, clear ‘rights-of-passage’. When do individuals become responsible adults legally, biologically, morally, mentally, spiritually and emotionally and WHEN does childhood end?

BONDING AND BIRTHING PRACTICES: The absence of bonding due to the birthing practices of separating mother and child as well as birth trauma is the norm. Midwives, doulas and pediatricians all encourage mothers to bond with their unborn and new born children. According to practitioners like Carista Luminare-Rosen, PhD, research shows that babies in the womb have the emotional and intuitive capabilities to sense their parent’s love. Prenates can see, hear, feel, remember, taste and think before birth. Healthy attachment between mother and baby enables the baby to believe the world is a safe place. Birthing practices have stripped the sensorial relationship between mother and child, placed social stigma on breast feeding (which enables babies to develop immunities for life long health), and inhibits the development of sense organs (thwarted by the deprivation of the aroma of mother’s skin at the moment of birth as well as her voice, breathe, and touch which all activate sensory parts of the brain for future intellectual development). In addition to separation anxiety, birth trauma from over-stimulating lighting, excessive procedures and abrasive handling, newborns suffer from birth trauma.

Cesarean Section: The World Health Organization states that no region in the world is justified in having a cesarean rate greater than 10-15%. In 1989, the rate in the Unites States was 23.8% and by 2006, it was 29.1%. Our societal acceptance and indoctrination of C-section births has far reaching ramifications and side effects both for mother and child. According to Joseph Chilton Pearce author of Magical Child, a report by the American Medical Association in JAMA in 2001 determined that babies have a greater number of neurons prior to traveling through the birth canal that are eliminated during natural birth but remain in tact with C Section leaving children with over stimulation and the inability to filter the environment- hence a possible source of ADD and autism. During hospital births, the child is whisked off prodded, poked, physically manhandled.

Genital Mutilation: No complete accurate record exists for the number of circumcisions performed or circumcision related complications. Some conservative estimates are that 95% of infant males are circumcised annually or 1.25 million or 3,300 daily at a rate of one every 26 seconds. The numbers of complications from these procedures is about 10% or 6.6 million males. In truth, the complication rate is 100% because shorn of its normal functioning foreskin, the circumcised penis is denuded, desensitized and deprived of the physiological functions of the foreskin regardless of the ‘complications’ that accompany amputation. Although female circumcision in the US was viewed and performed as ‘medically valid’ as late as the 1950’s, it is still done by some immigrants (for cultural reasons) and care facility (like insane asylums). The female numbers are estimated globally at 100 million (which does not include the numbers of female children gang raped). No study can be found that correlates genital mutilation to rise of sexual crimes yet in countries with no circumcision, these issues are not prevalent.

Foster Care (growing numbers of handicapped, African and Hispanic children): According to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, in the year 2006 there were 510,000 children are in foster care in the United States with the state of California at 83,000. Reliable statistics about the child-welfare bureaucracy are scarce and those that exist demonstrate that the system is likely to harass innocent parents and unnecessarily place children in the damaging foster care system as it is to protect abused children. While vague categories like ‘deprivation of necessities’ may save a child from virtual abandonment by a crack mother, they also allow the hand of the child welfare agency to fall heavily on low-income families. The Association of the Children of New Jersey found that 25% of Newark’s foster children were taken from parents because they were homeless.

A study by the Department of Research at NYU’s School of Social Work found that 28% of children in foster care had been abused while in the system. A child in the system is 10 times more likely to be abused than one in the care of parents of any socioeconomic background. Although social workers are required to make an effort to reunite children with families, the reality is that no reasonable effort is made once the child becomes part of the system. There is a financial incentive for this: The Federal Government provides huge counterproductive incentives by rewarding agencies billions for placing children in foster care and NOTHING, no countervailing program to keep a child in the home. It is estimated that 1 in 4 children are abused in the Foster Care System and is greatest contributor to the prisons than any other care agent. Approximately 87% of female inmates who spent their childhood in foster care were abused. Children are moved from one home to another, abused, because the system is so overwhelmed with abandoned children that there are not enough social workers to manage. The fastest growing population in foster care besides African and Hispanic populations are the number of children born to drug addicted mothers.

Unaccompanied minors The government calculates that 1-3 million children live in the streets in the United States, homeless. Each year about 80,000 unaccompanied children seek entry into the United States. These figures do not include human trafficking victims, runaway and missing children, those crossing borders illegally, those whose parents have been incarcerated or deceased, and the abandoned. Approximately 1 in 7 children between the ages of 10-18 run away at some point. Youths 15-17 make up a third of the total. These children are fending for themselves, live off of the streets, uneducated, unemployed and prison bound, lured into the sex and drug trades. Educational institutions and Law enforcement agencies cannot handle, have little staffing and are more apt to call these children ‘runaways’ than to locate their whereabouts. ‘Lumping’ of the unaccompanied minors is a reflection of the agency that oversees them: The National Incidence Studies Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Throwaway Children.

Teen Pregnancies: Nationally, nearly one million young women under the age of 20 become pregnant each year. That means nearly 2800 teen become pregnant each day. Approximately 4 in 10 women in the US become pregnant at least once before tuning 20 years old. Teen childbearing alone costs US taxpayers nearly $7 billion annually for social services and lost tax revenues. Pregnancy for young girls is no longer a shameful condition as it was two generations ago. Instead, young girls, with the collaboration of Hollywood (whether it is teen movie stars becoming pregnant or glorifying it in a movie) infer that becoming pregnant before marriage or during high school is a glamorous endeavor.

ABORTIONS The number of legal abortions a year in the United States is 1 million, which is approximately 3,700 a day. Of those, 52% are younger than 25 with girls under the age of 15 at 2% and 64% of abortions performed on never married teens. While 1% of abortions occur because of rape or incest, 93% occur for social reasons. A staggering 43% of women have at least 1 abortion by the time they are 45 years old. No hard statistics are available for girls taking the morning after pill. HOWEVER, little is ever remarked about the emotional, physiological, mental and spiritual side effects of abortion;

• Endometriosis
• Infertility
• Heavy and persistent bleeding
• Infection or sepsis
• Scarring of uterine lining
• Perforation of uterus
• Damage to other organs
• Death
• Mild regret, depression, guilt, anger, shame, loneliness, isolation, impaired self-confidence, insomnia, nightmares, relationship issues, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, anxiety

A study published in April 2003 in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility found that women who have had abortions may be left infertile if fragments of their aborted children’s bones are left in the uterus. Bones are present in unborn children by 12 weeks, the gestational age at which many abortions occur. Almost half the abortions in the US are repeat abortions.

The rise in the infertility industry (insemination, surgery, sewing uterus, ectopic pregnancies) parallels the rise in abortions and birth control during the woman’s formative development in the teen years. How will the patch add to this? The number of women ages 15-44 who have reportedly used infertility services because of impaired ability to have children is 7.3 million or 11.8%. This statistic only reflects women who have come forward. Young girls who subject themselves to early abortion and contraceptives are subject to infertility and health problems later in life.

ABDUCTION An average of 2,185 children under the age of 18 are missing each day, which is about 800,000 children annually. Of these, hundreds are kept for a period of time and killed. On average, 2 in 5 abductions of children ages 15-17 are due to internet contact. Law enforcement is overwhelmed with the number of unsolved cases. Of these, about 25% are abducted by family members. Although Amber Alert networks safely recover a small percentage of these children, the problem is serious.

RapE Children who have been raped and/or abducted suffer long-term effects. According to the Center for Disease Control, as many as 76% of all adults diagnosed with cognitive impairment are also victims or survivors of sexual violence. Every two minutes somewhere in the US, someone is sexually assaulted. Yet, nineteen out of every twenty rapists walk free. In the US, 72 of every 100,000 females has been raped while 7 in 10 women who had sex before 14, and six in 10 of those who had sex before age 15 report having sex involuntarily. Of the reported rapes of children under 12, some 90% knew the rapist. Teens ages 16 to 19 are three and a half times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape and sexual assault. According to the Justice Department, one in two rape victims is under age 18; and 1 in 6 is under the age of 12. While 9 out of 10 rape victims are women and girls, men and boys are also victimized by the crime. Rape victims often experience anxiety, guilt, nervousness, phobias, substance abuse, sleep disturbances, depression, alienation, sexual dysfunction and aggression.

Sex Trafficking of MINORS Human trafficking is modern day slavery. Trafficking involves school age children particularly those not living with their parents who are vulnerable to coerced labor exploitation, domestic servitude and commercial sexual exploitation. There is no way to determine how many of our missing children have been abducted for trafficking whether as prostitutes here and abroad or used as sex slaves. It is impossible to know the numbers of children involved in this trade because no one has the manpower or the tenacity to broach the magnitude of the problem. Law enforcement is overwhelmed and society is apathetic.

VENEREAL DISEASE: Venereal disease has a long recorded history with major epidemics in the late 15^th century Europe, avoidance of premarital sexual activity became the deterrent for the rise of venereal disease.  In the US, 1 in 4 sexually active teens are infected with an STD every year (15 million are infected with one and 65 million with an incurable). As of 2000, more than 9,000 children and 45 adolescents in the US have died of AIDS acquired from their mothers. Nationally, less than half of teenagers are virgins until they are 17 years of age. In addition, one quarter of 15 year-old females and less than 30% of 15 year-old males have had sex, compared with 66% of 18 year-old females and 68% of 18 year old males. The CDC has confirmed that untreated STD infections cause infertility and untreated gonorrhea facilitates the transmission of AIDS. Children are no longer concerned about gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, genital warts, herpes or HIV because they are conditioned to believe that science, in the form of pharmaceuticals, will always have a solution.  

children AS Sex Offenders: Teen youths posting inappropriate pictures on websites, dating consenting minors and a number of other minor inappropriate offenses have recently become classified as lifetime sex offenders in an over zealousness attempt to identify sexual deviants. Children are incarcerated and labeled for life for promiscuous behavior thus transforming some exploratory childhood behaviors as criminal acts. Children in these registries are expelled from school, thrown out of parks, taunted by neighbors, harassed by strangers, and unable to live within 2000 feet of a school, day care center or park. Children as young as age 14 are published in the National Sex Offender Registry. Are these lascivious acts and sane, civilized responses?

EMOTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Abuse: Although each state has its own definition of abuse and neglect, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System reported an estimated 1,530 child fatalities in 2006 cause by injuries from abuse and neglect, and that 50-60% go unreported or not reported as such. In 2007, an estimated 5.8 million children were referred for abuse or neglect, most under the age of 5 and about half being white. Statistics demonstrate that one in four girls under the age of 18 and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused in this country excluding emotional, mental, physical, verbal abuse. Abuse has become a way of life for many.

• 4 children die everyday as a result of abuse and 3 of 4 are under age 4
• child abuse reports are made every 10 seconds
• child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level across ethnic and cultural lines all religions and education levels
• 37% of all women and 15% of men in prison were abused
• sexually abused children are 2.5 times more likely to abuse alcohol and 3.8 times to be drug addicted
• 1/3 of abused, neglected children will eventually victimize their own children
• About 80% of women prisoners have been sexually or physically abused before being incarcerated

Post-traumatic Stress can be transgenerationally transmitted. Multitudes of the Baby Boomers were children of PTS parents from World War II while children today are exposed to Middle Eastern returnees. If studies are accurate, generations of children have been exposed to the effects. Some of the symptoms include sustained anticipatory anxiety for potential threats (that may or may not exist), uncontrollable sense of danger and fear, fear conditioning that permanently alters the neuro-circuitry of the brain, nightmares, avoidance behavior, hyper vigilance, isolation, emotionally inaccessible, emptiness, diminished capacity to concentrate, irritability and survivor guilt.  If PTS affected our fathers and grandfathers and continues to affect the soldiers returning today, successive generations are hardwired as ‘normal’ its characteristics and behaviors. Untreated generations of affected children of go undiagnosed. The result is violence and abuse as the accepted ‘norm’.

Teen Suicides: Why are children so non-resilient than a century ago when they had more responsibilities prior to going to school and less material possessions? What makes teens egos so fragile? Teen suicide is rising at an alarming rate of 4 per day in the United States tripling in the last 60 years. At least 1-in-7 consider it and 1-in-14 attempt it. Yet, almost 90% of parents are unaware of their children’s attempts. The reasons sited by teens for the rise include issues such as fear, hormones, anxiety, depression, stress and anger. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It is the second leading cause of death for college students. Is it the cocktail of drugs and/or alcohol combined with raging hormones clouding decision-making?

Overmedicating children: Drug abuse is jeopardizing the foundation of this nation: employers pay twice as much in medical costs and worker compensation for drug users; mental capacity is diminished with drug use sending intelligence scores plummeting; drug addicted children become parents of drug addicted children; drug addicted military threaten the nation’s safety and security; drug addictions keep the penal system overflowing. Does commercial advertising reinforce the acceptance of prescription drugs as solutions to everyday problems?

Prescription Drugs: Children are medicated for ‘normal’ childhood behaviors into complacency. According to the Partnership for a Drug Free America, 1 in 5 teens report taking prescription medication for non-medical purposes. The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan report that a 26% swell in teenage use of Oxycontin since 2002. Utah leads the nation in prescription drug abuse among children. More and more children are mixing prescription drugs- either purchased or stolen- sleeping pills, stimulants, depression medications and alcohol which all depress breathing, and often end in fatal results. In addition to the immediate health hazards, these behaviors are a proven path to other criminal behavior. There are no accurate statistics of the number of children who die each year from overdosing on prescription drugs.

Drug addictive children become drug-addicted adults. One in ten Americans are drug addicted adults with 19.9 million children ages 12 and up using illicit drugs or 8% of the population; 70.9 million under age 12 using tobacco; 14.4 million using marijuana; and 15.4% of 12^th graders using Vicodin. More than 68% of youths reported that marijuana was easy to obtain. Psychological and psychiatric practitioners as well as the pharmaceutical companies in western countries are in collusion for medicating and over medicating children for presumptive illnesses (that have no tangible measurement mechanism) at the expense of children becoming lifelong consumers. Most of the 2 million children labeled ADD in this country or one per every classroom in the US are eliciting normal childhood behaviors and level of activity! Most ADD are merely children who need attention from parents and caregivers, need to exercise, need more nutritious diets, need more intellectual stimulation, need more love and affection rather than sitting still in a classroom all day (especially boys). Childhood disorders being overmedicated include:

• Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PPD) 3.4 of every 1000 children ages 3-10 

        

• Bipolar Disorder 5.7 million 2.6 % prior to age 18
• Conduct Disorder 1 to 4% of 9-17 year olds
• Depression 1 in every 10 children
• Eating Disorders 5 to 15 %
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) disobedient behavior 6% of children
• Post-Traumatic Stress 5.2 million 
• Risk-Taking Behavior  Since 72% of all deaths among 10-24 year olds result in  motor vehicle crashes, homicide and suicide this condones prescription
• Schizophrenia 1% 
• Suicide the third leading cause of death among teens 12.3% of deaths

The growing number of children born to drug addicted (alcohol, prescription and illegal drugs) mothers is growing. Drug addicted babies suffer from an array of problems from prematurity to long-term developmental disabilities. In a small study in Southern California of 53 women, between them a total of 396 pregnancies with 150 abortions, 16 stillborns, 21 died after birth of complications and 163 survived and are in foster care! This country is facing the fourth generation of cocaine- addicted children. The strain on taxpayer is enormous- social services, Medicaid, reimbursing schools for handicapped programs, welfare, foster care… the services needed throughout the lifetime of a drug addicted child.

EVERY school shooter in recent times was prescribed one or more antidepressants at a time when the brain is exploding with hormones. Here are some statistics from Citizens Commission on Human Rights:

November 20, 1986: Rod Matthews, 14, beat a classmate to death with a bat in the woods near his home in Canton, Mass. Though Rod was extremely bright, he was put on Ritalin when he was in third grade.

September 26, 1988: 19 year-old James Wilson went on a shooting rampage at Greenwood elementary school in South Carolina. Two children were killed and nine others wounded. Wilson had been treated by a Greenwood psychiatrist since age 14, and given psychiatric drugs including Xanax, Valium, Vistaril, Mellari, Thorazine, Tofranil and Halicon. He was withdrawing from Xanax at the time of the shooting.

October 17, 1995, Brian Pruitt, 16, fatally stabbed his grandparents. The prosecutor in his murder trial said he had a history of psychiatric treatment and was prescribed medication for depression.

February 19,1996: Timmy Bection, 10, grabbed his three-year-old niece as a shield and aimed a shotgun at a sheriff’s deputy who accompanied a truant officer to his home. Becton had been taken to a psychiatrist in January to cure his dislike of school and was put on Prozac. His parents stated that when the dosage was increased, Timmy became violent.

July 1996: In Japan, a 16-year-old high school student was stabbed by two boys 15 and 16 who were taking sleeping pills because it made them feel ‘invincible’.

September 27, 1997: A 16 year-old New Jersey boy raped and strangled to death an 11-year-old who was selling door-to-door for the PTA. The boy took graphic pictures of the murder and told his mother he was trying to kill his doctor because he was not listening. The boy was heavily medicated on antidepressants.

May 21, 1998: Before going on a wild shooting spree in Oregon, 14-year-old Kip Kinkel had been attending anger classes while taking Prozac and Ritalin. He shot his parents as well as 26 others killing four.

April 20, 1999: Following the chain of events before the shootings, Eric Harris was planning his future in an attempt to join the military. Why would a youth who was contemplating murder and suicide plan for future careers? Mr. Harris of Littleton, Colorado was under psychiatric care for violence and depression and medicated on Luvox.

Mind altering drugs have a serious and detrimental effect on the evolving child mind. Some of the effects listed in Facts and Comparisons include:

• Tranquilizers and anti-psychotics cause difficulty in thinking, poor concentration, emotional problems, nightmares, depression, tardive dyskinesia- sudden uncontrollable spasms in all parts of the body, akathisia- severe restlessness causing agitation and psychosis, neuroleptic malignant Syndrome- altered mental states, irregular pulse and heart beat. Other symptoms include confusion, hallucinations, and severe depression even seizures.
• Anti-depressants can cause difficulty thinking, confusion, poor concentration, panic, extreme restlessness, delusions, manic reactions, delirium, etc.
• Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors can cause anxiety, agitation, bizarre dreams, confusion, suicidal thoughts, hostility and violent behavior.
• Ritalin side effects include nervousness, insomnia, hypersensitivity, and even Tourette’s syndrome.

Alcohol: The rate of first use of alcohol among 12-17 year olds had dramatically increased to 28% over the last ten years. More than 51% of teens that admitted to drinking said they drink when they are upset; 35% said they drink alone and 28% said they drink when bored and 28% said they drink to get ‘high’. Each year, students spend $6.5 billion on alcohol more then they spend on soft drinks, tea, juice, milk, coffee and books combined. On a typical campus, students spend over $500 per student far exceeding the budget of a college library. Approximately 350,000 to 380,000 of the nation’s current undergraduates will ultimately die from alcohol-related causes- more than the number of MA’s and PhDs combined. Nearly 60% of college age women diagnosed with sexually transmitted disease were drunk at the time of infection. Eight young people A DAY die of alcohol related crashes.

The body is an extremely complex biochemical machine. When synthetic chemicals are introduced, the body overreacts.  Is it any wonder the test scores, level of intelligence and creative minds have declined over the last decade so that we must import intelligence in the areas of science and math? Neurophysiologists are still mapping and attempting to understand the delicate balance between the chemical and electro-magnetic functions of the brain. Millions of children, even infants and toddler, are prescribed powerful drugs without substantial data as to the ramification or long-term effects in adulthood.

violence TOWARDS CHILDREN:

Violence: The young, Blacks and males are the most vulnerable recipients of violent crimes: 1 in 10 children age 12 to 15 compared to 1 in 350 age 65 or more; 1 in 20 blacks compared to 1 in 28 whites; 1 in 23 males compared to 1 in 33 females. According to the Justice Department, about a fourth of all victims of violent crimes are ages 12 to 19 and almost half are under the age of 25. The percent of students reporting street crimes has tripled from 1995 to 38%. Homicide is the second leading cause of death for persons 15-24 years of age and is the leading cause of death for African American and Hispanic youths. Youth ages 15-24 are victims of an average of 23 homicides a day.

Children are unable to recognize a healthy, safe existence after being exposed to so much violence from home, school and the media. Violence is on the rise with almost 30% of youths (over 5.7 million) are estimated to be involved in bullying, either as bully, target or both, a precursor to criminal activity for the future. The common misconception is that bullies are insecure and self-loathing while studies show they are confident with high self-esteem and hot tempered, easily angered, impulsive with a low tolerance for frustration.

ENVIRONMENT BODY HEALTH

Eating Environment: If you are what you eat: therefore eating cattle products produces behaviors like cattle who:

• walk in straight lines
• follow the same monotonous path daily
• follow the leader without question
• don’t learn from their mistakes
• are injected with hormones to grow faster, fatter, quicker (ingested into the blood stream of humans)

In addition:

• cattle production is the most eco-unfriendly industry from the pollution of the water supply to the toxic packaging used to get them to market to the petrol used to transport them
• cattle milk is naturally produced to grow 300+ pound cows producing equivalent fat cells in humans over generations
• the United States is one of the few countries in the world that consumes milk products after the weaning stages of maturation

In conclusion, consumption of additives, preservatives, food dyes, insecticides, non-foods, non-nutritious foods, synthetic drugs, with high sugar, fat and corn content are transforming the DNA genetic coding according to the carbon testing of Steve A. Macko National Science Foundation in the movie ‘The Corn People’.

Hungry Children According to the United States Department of Agriculture, in the United States 13 million children are hungry. This represents more than one in ten households. These statistics reflect the state of the nation prior to the economic downturn yet an increase since 2002. Some children frequently skip meals or eat little, sometimes going without food for the whole day.

Sleep Deprivation doubles the risk of children becoming obese, according to specialists because children eat to stay awake, sit in front of the television exhausted, consume more caffeine and sugar only to be revved up at bedtime where narcotics are used to promote rest. Sleep is a basic human need and is required for survival. In studies of elementary children, nearly 40% had some type of sleep problem and 10% demonstrated sleepiness during the day. Nearly half of teens had difficulty falling and/or staying asleep and 13% had insomnia. Children with C’s, D’s and F’s had an average of 40 minutes less sleep than A students. Sleep deprivation can have serious effects on a child’s health physically as well as mentally and emotionally. Deprived of sleep, children have ‘sleep debt’, which has a negative impact on performance, thinking, concentration, reaction times, learning, self-image and mood. Children are at risk for accidents, injuries, memory lapses and impaired immune system. It is estimated that children sleep one and a half hours less than they did a century ago. Over time, symptoms can become more severe- heart conditions, high blood pressure, psychiatric problems and increased mortality risk, slurred speech and tremors (not to mention hallucinations). Sleep deprivation may be a leading cause for depression.

Childhood Play Generations past understood the need for play like Ovid, the Roman poet, “In our play, we reveal what kind of people we are.” Studies show that young children learn MOST through free play (a time when social behaviors, morals and values are acted out and programmed into the neurocortex). “Children are born in a state of play and intelligence”, says Pulitzer Prize winning author of Playing By Heart Fred Donaldson, Ph.D. Donaldson’s Original Play transforms patterns of fear, aggression and violence into kindness, love and belonging combining cognitive, affective and sensory motor learning practices. Play is non-existent because in day cares and schools, the large numbers of children are unmanageable and uncontrollable unless treated with rules and regulated play. Therefore, learning is hampered and intelligence diminished and physiology/health compromised without free play

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Home Environment: toxic elements to a child’s health and safety:

1. i.      building materials- glues in wood, fumes from new carpets, paints and varnishes, floor coverings instead of natural woods, dyes
2. ii.      unnatural clothing made from synthetics instead of natural cotton, wool and silk
3. iii.      cleaning products- clothing, body, floors, countertops, dishes  by comparison to the baking soda and ammonia of the last generation
4. iv.      high levels of electrical and magnetic energy that flows out of the walls in addition to the energy flowing from technology- television, computer, cell phones
5. v.      microwave energy- flowing from heating devices, telephones and towers
6. vi.      unhealthy plastics- bags, bottles, storage products from dishes and containers, pacifiers, toys with no decomposition over generations and subject to chemical change from extreme heat and cold
7. vii.      polluted air and water

Living Environment: From the beginning of life, children:

• are birthed in boxes
• live in boxes
• move in boxes
• play with and in boxes
• work in boxes
• are educated in boxes
• is it any wonder children are unimaginative, uncreative, unproductive and think in boxes?

CHILDREN’S PRODUCTS: Corporations are more concerned with bottom line than the health and safety of children. Who monitors the products (and billions of dollar industries) sold specifically for children; lead based products, formula, baby food, bottles, pacifiers, toys, clothing, cribs and furniture, strollers, car seats, prescriptive drugs? Research is lacking or absent and/or unapplied data exists as to the long-term effects. For example, is the plastic content in pacifiers harmful; do they impede speech development. No independent agent has studied whether the rise in cancer among children is due to the plastics used in children’s oral products, bottles, pacifiers and teething rings. Are wood treatments and plastic playground equipment toxic carcinogens when exposed to heat, sun or cold? The results of toxic products are masked and often fatal because children are so vulnerable. Adults purchase items with misguided confidence, and WITHOUT clear defined safety data secured BEFORE marketed because it is cheap, fashionable and esthetic.

ENCULTURATION ENVIRONMENT

It may Take A Village but where IS the village? Communities no longer have geographic boundaries but rather, exist online in cyberspace. To whom is the child accountable? Students are not accountable as in the past but the schools are. Cause-and-effect has been replaced by heinous forms of punishment like expelling a child from school instead of investigating the reasons for transgressions. Communities are too mobile for one to know ones neighbors, too overextended to keep track, too busy to notice and have someone keep a watchful eye like the case of JayCee Dugard. Fear pervades culture so deeply that citizens hide behind work, solitude, distance and separateness. The ‘village’ no longer exists in realtime.

Morals and Ethics Are these necessary or realistic in a free society? The difference in cultures, religions and social values would make this impossible although the three major religions share similar views, morality, ethics and values. Societies generalize concepts regulating behavior like the Golden Rule. Yet a recent poll shows that 66% of citizens think the moral state of the world and especially the US is declining. In 2008, 81% said it is getting worse. In the name of freedom of speech and privacy, the lines of demarcation are fuzzy; villains are portrayed as heroes with redeeming qualities in film; violence is treated matter-of-factly, explicit and subliminal sexuality is displayed in commercials and on film exposing children to far more sensitive subjects than parents desire; adults cross lines with minor infractions like photocopying at work and taking office supplies for personal use; bankers and insurance brokers steal billions without reciprocity; 15 minutes of fame (negative or positive) is more powerful motivator than intellectual prowess; a different code of conduct exists for rich and poor.  A global common minimum of standards of morality is necessary to promote universal values.

Delayed Gratification: A basic value driven issue in modern families: Statistics state that 35% of teens have a credit card. Credit card ownership and use do not encourage self-restraint in teens but rather delay the skills necessary for learning delayed gratification, the ‘spend now and deal with the consequences later’ attitude. Since anyone under the age of 18 must have parental consent, it is difficult to determine how much debt children owe. Credit card companies targeting teens and their parents have outlined ownership as a ‘rite of passage’ into adulthood. One in three high school seniors use credit cards. More than 54% of college freshman carry a credit card with an average debt of $1585 a year. By sophomore year, it is 92%. And 7 to 10 students drop out of school because of credit problems.

Media and Technology: Are values and morals subliminally exemplified through media and technology commensurate with national ideologies for enculturation and social standards? Is anyone really monitoring the media for content? One of the most personally appalling commercials on prime time television impinging on personal values are the sexual enhancement products like Viagra. The notion that a child would have to inquire about a ‘four hour erection’ fills this parent with horror. Is a Victoria Secret or 50’ billboard with underwear-clad models a contradiction of the basic home values? WHY is a child being exposed to this information during primetime when television executives have deemed this ‘family viewing time’ or in the public domain where children are unshielded? Do I really have a choice, freedom, with commercial content when there is no fore-warning? Has the media apathy become so ingrained that discrimination and discernment is completely obliterated? Hollywood portrays villains as heroes and blurs the line between good and the not good so that children, who are unable to distinguish right from wrong, do not have clear definition of integrity, honesty, courage, perseverance, wisdom, the values that enliven a society.

The average television viewing for families is seven hours a day! Television, computers and technology have become virtually devoid of adult supervision because air space is uncontrollable. Even so, children become technology savvy, thwarting the efforts and circumventing parental control. Parents away working or in broken home settings are unable to be the mentor, guide for children, allowing for risk taking behavior (like sexting, posting inappropriate information and photos or purchasing items that are harmful like prescription and non-prescription drugs, guns) and lifelong consequences. The lack of face-to-face relationships, the anonymousness of technology, enables children to take things further than when a responsible elder is present.

WHY in every newspaper and on every media website is there equal space for honoring the role models who are intellectual, emotional and spiritual successes as those with physical prowess or superficial beauty? Who monitors the daily headlines that emulate murders, robbers and thieves by broadcasting their antics instead of the good, service minded and honorable? If the focus in the media were; those that do outstanding work in service to the community that achieve the heights of intellectual, emotional prowess, respond in compassion and caring for others, would the social message be the above as valued assets? The message children elicit from media murder and dramas are an accepted way of life. Social acceptance and repetition allows children to be exposed to too many violent, immoral, inappropriate, unethical behavior and volumes of negativity and despair.

internet Pornography oF infants, children: Since 2003, there were 1.3 million pornographic websites with a worldwide industry of $97 billion with 72 million viewers. More than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted online every week with 100,000 illegal child porn websites. About 20% of all Internet pornography involves children. In 2005, the child pornography business reached $3 billion annually. Some 9 out of 10 children ages 8-16 viewed child pornography on the Internet most unintentionally. Caregivers drug and exploit children. Children are affected for life as the recipients of such inhumane treatment. At the other end of the commodity trail are those who stimulate the markets in its behalf- the consumer. Who IS watching out for the children? One in five children ages 10-17 who use the internet have been sexually solicited online. “Never in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions”. US Department of Justice.

DAY CARE CENTERS: Mark Ginsberg of the National Association for the Education of Young Children said, “ The real question isn’t what it will cost our nation to provide high-quality child care but what the cost of our nation will be if we fail to do so”. According to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, 63% of the nation’s children under five years of age are in some type of child-care arrangement every week with parents assuming such programs are regulated to ensure health and safety. Only ten states require unannounced inspections of care facilities; only 12 states require caregivers to have training in early childhood education prior to working with children and 10 states require caregivers who work from home to be licensed. In addition to these, scientific research over the past twenty-five years such as the Craig Ramey study demonstrates that children who do not attend Day Care are equal academically to their school/day care attendee counterparts by grade four while children who stay at home longer tend to be more well adjusted emotionally and socially. By the time children reach first grade, they are tired of being in the school regiment and prone to school failure as well as loss of health, fatigue and behavior problems.

Successful Day Cares like Montessori, Waldorf, free schools, democratic schools and the Reggio Emilio schools of Italy demonstrate decades of Day Care success because the model is more humane, less regimented and more creatively, lovingly, experimentally focused academically. But the majority of US Day Cares:

• Care providers have little more than a high school diploma, can be illiterate and receive minimum wage and have little or no knowledge of the stages in child development. These are the individuals molding the minds of children at THE MOST influential time of their lives.
• Can there ever be a compromise between caring for children while the business, nurturing and educational components are in competition? Molding the minds, hearts, souls and the future of this country should not be a business proposition. Most private Day Care’s are concerned with the bottom line and profits and resort to cost saving measures: Nutrition can be compromised; some children are not served enough food for their growing bodies; maneuvering children from one room to another for the sake of hourly wage salaries is a typical habit (when the class size declines starting about 3PM through 6PM, children are moved from room to room so as to release care givers with fewer children eliminating hourly wages).

• There are too many Day Care facilities to ideally be monitored by state licensing agencies during the course of the year. Generally, Day Care administrators are forewarned of their coming and put on their best show to the detriment of the children. Regulators are more concerned, usually, with the standards of measurement between the spokes on the playground fence than with the standards for humane treatment of children.
• Private Day Care’s can be emotionally unsafe environments. More importantly, they contain care providers that display toxic behavior such as the need to demean, belittle and humiliate children into complacency rather than loving, caring, safe and secure environments.
• A child’s mental/emotional health is just as important, if not more so as studies have shown, than their intellectual prowess. Day Care’s, are more concerned with the child’s intellectual capacity- filling out papers with pencils before the fingers are capable of holding a pencil or the brain is coordinated enough for hand-eye manipulation.
• Children are imparted too much information, over stimulation, burdening the children, the conclusion of a study by the Children’s Society of Britain. Excessive exposure makes a child materialistic which in turn affects their relationship with parents and their health. Exposure to factoids and information via computer discourage young children’s organizational skills. A study by ChildWise, Australia’s leading international child protection charity, states that exchanging the computer for human contact is endangering children of maturing without proper human relationship skills. More and more children have creased forehead brows, body ticks, bite classmates and/or parents, display aggressive behavior, are unable to be potty trained until older ages because too much information exposes the child to emotional and mental overload. We dress them like adults, treat them like adults, expect them to responsible like adults, and behave like adults far sooner than the forming fragile ‘ego’ can tolerate.
• The eco-environments of Day Care’s are so toxic that children are suffering from allergies at an alarming rate. The National Institute of Health conducted several studies among them the increase of asthma among children, concluding that toxic chemicals from cleaning fluids to new carpet fumes to the glues, paints and chemicals used in construction, are detrimental to children’s health. In addition, food contamination, low nutrition intake, lack of sunlight contribute to the rise in childhood allergies are on the rise. Yet, because of their depleted immune systems, children have more lice, flu, colds and other contagious illness than ever before.
• In Day Care, children are exposed to situations that are beyond their capacity to learn. A young child’s brain cannot fathom the notion of sharing until it has developed a sense of ownership during the formative stages of life. Whether having their own space, room or toys, children are required to perform adult behaviors long before they are capable of understanding them. As adults, these unresolved, thwarted needs and wants are magnified into antisocial, psychotic behaviors, often to the extreme.

illiteracy The United Nations defines literacy as “ the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning to enable an individual to achieve his/her goals, to develop knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in a wider society”. The literacy rate during the time of the American Revolution was 90% (with no television or technology) while today, it is 38%.

According to the National Commission on Reading, the single most significant factor influencing a child’s early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to AT HOME prior to beginning school. The only behavior measure that correlates significantly with reading scores is the number of books in the home (not poverty) where great disparities exist among middle and low income families. Almost 60% of kindergartners who performed poorly in schools did not own a single book. Almost 40% of US children have difficulty reading or learning to read. Today, a child’s meaningful conversation with parents is 33%; while 56% of children have a TV in their rooms yet less than 25% of teens can name the city of the Constitution but 75% can name the zip code of Beverly Hills. Low literacy is related to crime, unemployment, poverty and homelessness. Additional statistics:

The adult literacy rate is 38% (26% males; 50% female)

Of the Gross National Product of 2000, 5.3% is spent on education.

As many as 1 in 5 children will have a reading disability

75% of children with oral language difficulties at 3 will have difficulty reading by 3^rd grade

In high poverty schools, 68% of fourth graders fail to reach basic achievement skills with 64% of Blacks and 60% of Hispanics

DROP OUTS: According to the Department of Education, the percentage of high-school dropouts ages 16-18 depends on the ethnicity of the student as well as the state location. In some US cities, the drop out rate is 50% in comparison to Finland that has a drop out rate of 0%! For students nationally, 70% of white students graduate while minorities (Black and Hispanic) graduate at 50%.  Iowa has the lowest drop out rate with 2.8% while 10% of large cities are drop out Factories. Is it because Iowa is an agricultural based state with smaller schools and districts, close knit communities and high family ideals? Iowa’s internal research show that smaller school districts are more successfully academically with higher proficiency scores and lower drop out rates. Dropouts become statistics at taxpayer expense and end up unemployed, in prison, living in poverty, receiving government assistance, less healthy, divorced, and/or single parents. Youths offer solutions but no one really listens- better teachers, better mentoring between students and teachers, offer more alternatives, more school-to-home communication, real-life opportunities, more supervision, tutoring and summer school and a ‘fifth year’ of high school for those who want to return.

Child Soldiers recruit to kill A Child Soldier is defined as a person under the age of 18 that directly or indirectly participates in an armed conflict as part of a group like gangs and soldiers for hire. What drives a child to become a soldier? Hunger, poverty, protection in the face of violence, chaos, immigration, segregation or ideology, are some of the major reasons. Children also identify social causes, religious expression, self-determination and freedom as reasons. Some of the emotional causes of gang participation is naivety, low self-esteem, belonging, love, peer pressure, respect, fear, sense of power, excitement, glamorization in the media and family problems.

Street gangs in the United States can be traced back to the time when large metropolitan areas like Chicago and California formed gangs as a means of self-preservation leading to criminal activity and sources of income. Today, large street gangs, MATA, MS13, 18^th Street, Blood and Crypts, numbering in the hundreds across the nation, smuggle, produce, transport and distribute large quantities of illicit drugs and are extremely violent. Because of the economic downturn in this nation, child soldiers in gangs is a highly valuable commodity (especially in the areas where drug trading near the borders is prevalent.)

SOLUTIONS

The family is the ‘basic social unit for the individual because it represents the source of basic need: protection, food, shelter and safety’. Citizens must purchase a license to drive, to fish, to carry a gun, to practice a profession or career path. As responsible citizens, we enroll in coursework, decades of college, become apprenticed and practice our chosen fields. YET, The most important function as a citizen and human being, parenting is relegated to a hit-or-miss, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants process without training, preparation (other than modeling) or certification required for the job. Youth are unprepared for the lifelong commitment for raising, nurturing, guiding and providing a safe, secure environment for children. Healthy families impart stability, safety and security (instilling emotional, physical health), modeling behavior (socialization), generational wisdom, culture and tradition. Since World War II, stay-at-home parents are made to feel inferior in social status. WHY is parenting so devalued?

Supporting and Valuing Parenting is essential to sustain a culture and society. Demystifying the trials and tribulations of marriage and parenting, substituting real-life for TV drama (soap opera), teaching communication and social skills (from technology isolation) and reevaluating the ease of divorce is a beginning. The television sitcoms and reality programming like Father’s Knows Best or Leave It To Beaver in the 60’s led to unrealistic expectations of family life and parenting, stepping stones for the when family issues and problems are solved within a 30-minute timeslot. Because this culture ill prepares youth for the commitments and sacrifices as well as compromises of married life and/or lifelong relationships, divorce is an easy option for immaturity, narcissistic individuals who believe they can maintain the ‘single’ lifestyle after children are born and then become disillusioned when reality strikes. Fathers feel rejected and threatened when mothers devote time, attention and energy to nurturing and caring for children. High rates of divorce happen within the first two years of a child’s life or the first two years of the second child’s life because fantasy is more appealing than reality. Parents feel guilty (especially working moms), less supported, less appreciated, lacking in control and pressured into social, cultural and societal values that are unrealistic and unachievable. The repercussions for children from devaluing parenting are numerous: lack of bonding, safety, security and support to the children (of all ages). This devaluation continues to pervade in subtle ways- like the Simpson’s who are idiots and the children who are more intelligent. From every direction, this culture sends the message that parenting is a thankless job.

Role Modeling: Modeling behavior used to be primarily hardwired in the formative years to age 8 through the actions of close family, friends and community. Nature follows the model: birds sing like birds and do not bark like dogs. In the past two generations, parents have lost the modeling influences over their children in meaningful areas because the role models have become teen idols (most of whom have no real world skills), movie stars (who memorize likes and pretend to be someone else), models (who are anorexic, bulimic and physically enhanced) and singers (who most likely have drug, sex and alcohol addictions. Can parents and elders retrieve influence? The loss a nation suffers because of this is immeasurable.

Because children have fewer opportunities to appropriately fail at a task (hence never afforded the opportunity to develop resilience, patience, delayed gratification and long term cause and effect), because parents are guilt ridden over having to go to work or subject a child to the chaos of divorce, because adults inappropriately pamper with ‘things’, money and food instead of time, love and care, children are more prone to become egocentric, egotistical, self-serving, feeling entitled (as adults). This threatens national survival. These skills are developed in the formative years through the modeling behavior of family and elders.

Respect for Elders is learned during the formative years. US children rarely have close personal relationships with grandparents. As a younger nation, older civilizations like the East Asians and Native Americans demonstrate lessons in elder acknowledgment, respect and wisdom. To some degree, elders here are respected in professional atmospheres- in apprenticing programs like medicine or college. Medically extending life has become a quantity versus quality debate. With affluence and entitlement (Medicare) has come the ability to sequester the elder population, with its richness in wisdom and knowledge of age and experience, into degrading, humiliating and often unhealthy circumstances. The manner with which the elderly are treated has an effect on the mental mindset of this nation unlike Native and Oriental cultures who respect and honor elders past and present. How about elders as volunteers in classrooms or caring for grandchildren?

In the United States, grandparents and elders (professionals and otherwise) are disrespected as authority figures. The media portrays elders- parents, teachers, and grandparents- in a negative light. Advertisers wedge the gap between the generations by labeling children as the “Pepsi Generation” the “X” Generation or the “technology” Generation rather than the transgenerational link connected to a long line of heritage. The family unit has disintegrated so much that children have no sense of belonging, cling to peers for comfort and support, rather than respecting, honoring and listening to elders. Technology has become the connecting link that bonds peer to peer.

DIVORCE: The National Center for Health Statistics released a report that concluded 50% percent of first marriages end in divorce within the first 15 years. If both partners are calculated, the numbers of divorced individuals is staggering. With 53% of the children in this country in single parent households and most lacking in the support system of extended families (grandparents, siblings or other members), with mother’s (for the most part raising these children) tired and exhausted from a hard days work and responsibility not to mention having to care for a home/apartment, sick children, cook, clean, accountant, chauffeur, is it any wonder that women are frazzled, cardiac deaths are on the rise and unable to take care of themselves (much less their children)? Sara Eleofff describes in An Exploration of the Ramifications of Divorce on Children and Adolescents the life altering effect of divorce on children. “Because children are inadequately prepared, they experience a sense of vulnerability as the family disintegrates, a grief reaction to the loss of the intact family, loss of non-custodial parent, a feeling of intense anger as the disruption of the family and strong feelings of powerlessness”. Consequentially, 78% of the nations jailed and imprisoned males grew up in fatherless households compared to 77% of incarcerated women. Nearly 2 million children have parents who are incarcerated with African American children 9 times more likely than whites.

According to The State of The Union 2005 issued by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University only 63% of American children grow up with biological parents- the lowest figure in the Western world. To uphold the notion of the Iconic Ideal of Family as mother, father, and child when the divorce rate is more than half of family homes is ludicrous. That model defined another era. Acknowledge the reality. A healthier ideology instead of pining for an ideal that obviously is elusive in the modern world. Children from divorced families are more concerned with the location of their favorite blanket or shirt or where their homework was left than what the teacher is discussing in class; are unable to concentrate because they are worried about their parents, listen to them arguing, are afraid for their safety (even in the best of schools); are consumed with worries they SHOULD not have to be concerned about in day-to-day life because of the economic climate as well as the emotional climate. The effects of divorce need to be honestly recognized, addressed and solved in this country. The family structure defines the fabric, texture and structure of a nation. It pervades every aspect of a child’s life (body, mind, spirit and emotion) from schooling to relationship with others.

Single Mothers are considered a risk both as career potential as well as housing opportunities. Because they are called upon to take care of sick children, because they choose less valued job positions that pay meager salaries, because they may lose a job from excessive absences from caring for children, because children might be left unattended, middle and lower class single mothers are scorned members of society.

The National Institute of Health under James Prescott, PhD, conducted a 25-year project studying 25 countries and the root causes of violent teen males. Dr. Prescott’s documentary ‘Rock-A-Bye-Baby’ describes the influence of different practices in infant treatment and child rearing on emotional development, both in humans and monkeys. The contact of the child to the mother represents the first socio-emotional interaction the child experiences and lays the fundamentals for its later behaviors. The social animals isolated from their mothers and receiving no nurturing physical affection develop severe depression and can die from such deprivation. In addition, maternal-infant isolation that leads to sensory deprivation can cause developmental brain damage. Mother love has a neurobiological basis that is essential to life. Much like the Missouri Prison project demonstrates today: lack of nurturing a child (especially boys) from birth throughout the formative years has a direct correlation to teen male violence.

Dr. Harry Harlow’s experiments with surrogate mothers have shown that monkeys raised alone in an environment without mother and peers prefer to be with a cloth-covered mother surrogate (without milk bottle) rather than with a wire-care surrogate mother that provides a milk bottle, even when hungry. They cling to their cloth-covered wooden dolls when they are frightened and they experience the same emotional stress other social animal’s experience when isolated from their surrogate mothers. These experiments show that the need for a loving relationship is stronger than the mere need for food even when hungry. Love-hunger is stronger than food-hunger.

Drs. William Mason and Gershol Berkson provided the single greatest contribution to understanding the mother-infant separation syndrome in their swinging mother surrogate experiments where the importance of body movement in mother-infant bonding was documented. Monkeys raised singly in cages with stationary cloth mother surrogates were compared to those raised with swinging cloth mother surrogates. The infant monkeys reared on the stationary mother surrogate developed all of the abnormalities which isolation-reared monkeys develop- depression, social withdrawal, aversion to touch, stereotypical rocking and chronic toe and penis anti-social behavior. The infant monkeys reared on swinging surrogate mother developed normally with only minor stimulus-seeking behaviors. Depression, social withdrawal and avoidance of touch were absent in the swinging mother surrogate mother reared infants.

Countries like Sweden seriously adopted these findings into national policies for rearing young children enabling mothers (fully funded) to stay home with children for the first six years of life as well as father’s for the first year. The calculation in government savings for incarceration is approximately $350,000 per child. WHY hasn’t the US adopted the findings of its own studies into policy?

CONCLUSION define adulthood; Who is policing the air space for our children’s sake? Has this nation become so extreme in its defense of freedom of speech? Can civilization not police itself without having to pass laws protecting rights? Is there a defining moment when morals and values that sustain a culture supercede freedom of speech?

The research statistics demonstrate that ‘family influence’ is paramount to healthy, happy, successful, productive children as human beings, national and global citizens. As a nation, is it financially, emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually worth sending children to Day Care or Foster Care and separating mothers from babies compared to the growing prison population, mental health population, lax morals and values, decline in literacy, abductions, teen pregnancies and abortions, divorce, sleep deprivation, lost childhoods, teen suicides, drug and alcohol addictions, venerial disease, drop outs and violence? Wouldn’t it be more cost effective as a nation to consider encouraging and SUPPORTING one parent or the other to stay home in the most formative years in a child’s life? Married couples, single mothers and fathers would love to afford to stay home with children to give them a firm foundation. The price of incarceration and crime is far more expensive than keeping parents at home and training them to defer to natural instincts as well as proclaiming societal honor, respect and adulation as an at home parent. Until then, any measures to solve these problems are superficial and neglect the root or heart of the problem.

Black Elk said, “Children are God’s promise that life will continue on this planet.” Isn’t time there is a non-partisan voice that speaks on their behalf? The coordination of all of these legitimate issues impacting children’s lives must have an advocate, a unified voice from the Oval Office to be effective, expedient and exacting. It’s time for a Children’s Advocacy Coordinator.

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