We Owe Children Their Childhood
The seven-year-old granddaughter of dear friends recently described how she is supposed to protect herself if there is a school shooter. "Find a tiny space and crouch down low. Cover yourself and be really quiet." There has been a recent dramatic rise in the sale of bullet-proof backpacks, though tests make clear they will stop a handgun bullet but not one from an AR-15.
It's certainly true that such measures as active shooter drills and bullet-proof backpacks are understandable in the context of the level of gun violence in America. According to research by Everytown for Gun Safety, American children aged 5 to 14 are 21 times more likely to be killed with guns than children in other high-income countries. Gun violence, of course, kills not only children but parents of children, leaving their kids to grow up missing a loving caretaker so central to their physical, cognitive and emotional development.
There is something terribly wrong here. What kind of country tolerates this danger to children? What kind of nation is more concerned about the right of adults to carry firearms than the right of children to grow up in schools, homes, and towns without fear of themselves or their parents being gunned down?
The dangers to our children are, of course, much broader than gun violence. Sex trafficking, child pornography, and sexual predators in the Catholic church, the Boy Scouts, and organized gymnastics have destroyed the childhood and in too many cases the adulthood of thousands. Children in our inner cities are exposed to excessive levels of drug use and violence, devoid of ways to escape the dangers of pushers, gangs, and drive-by shooters. Almost all children are exposed to heavy levels of media violence. Overzealous sports coaches and over-demanding parents, intent on winning games and sports scholarships, destroy the power of play. Excessive levels of lead in the drinking water in many cities is threatening the mental and physical health of the young. The United States even lags in its support for parents who wish to nurture their newborns, being one of only a small handful of countries that lacks a national paid parental leave policy (the others: New Guinea, Suriname, and a few Pacific Island nations).
Children are our future, whether we have any of our own or not. On them depends not only the happiness of parents and families but the security of all of us in our old age. Every serious problem that affects them affects us, now and in decades to come. Wounded childhoods lead to broken lives and the social costs they generate. Childhood adversity increases the likelihood of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, impaired cognition, poor impulse control, and antisocial behavior, including aggression (see Behave by neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky). Prudence alone argues for more attention to the needs of children, but there is an ethical imperative too. We have a moral obligation to protect and nurture the most vulnerable among us.
Clearly, many people, organizations and all levels of government are concerned about these issues. But current support is neither sufficiently resourced nor coordinated. Programs that address the needs of children comprise only 9 percent of the federal budget, according to government figures compiled by the Urban Institute, and most of that is in tax provisions, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, the child tax credit, and the tax exemption for children. That percentage is expected to fall to less than 7 percent by 2028 as more of the budget is consumed in interest payments on the national debt and mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for adults. Current programs for children are spread across multiple departments and agencies, so there is no central coordination and no national authority that speaks and acts powerfully on behalf of children. There is no Department of Children and Youth, so when the president's cabinet gathers, who makes sure that the needs of children get on the table? What gets measured gets attention. We have multiple national, well-publicized indicators of the health of the economy that grab our attention and guide thinking and public policy, but what are the well-publicized indicators of the health of childhood?
Children deserve a childhood which today, for too many, is fleeting and endangered. Children's lives are in danger, and their psyches are not a renewable resource. "The gravest of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child's spirit," said the developmental psychologist Erik Erikson. It is a sin no society should permit.
Photo Credit: Carol Donsky Newell
