Kids are just collateral damage

 Kids are just collateral damage

 

Our society keeps telling everyone who will listen that we really care about children.  Fact is, it is behavior that shows what we really care about.  And based on our behavior we don’t care about children much at all.

Babies are born drug addicted, damaged with fetal alcohol syndrome and/or tobacco use and our society does not hold the mother in the least bit accountable for the lasting damage to that child’s life.  Males create multiple children with multiple females for whom they have neither the intention nor the capability to actually “father" these children they have created.  Yet, there are no consequences for these behaviors.  At least not to the male who “fathered” the child.  There are lots of consequences to the child.

Families want to adopt these children, but they cannot without the biological parent allowing the adoption and giving up custody.   Our social services agencies are addicted to the fiction that kids are always better with biological parents so these people are given multiple chances to clean up their acts so they can regain custody of the child.  In the meantime, the child gets to bounce from foster home to foster home belonging to everyone and to no one.

By the time these kids become teens their lives are often in disarray, turning to street gangs for the nurturing and sense of belonging they should be getting from families.   Then we start pouring millions of dollars to save them from the one-way ticket from school to jail.  By that time the train has left the station and the barn door cannot be locked.   When these children needed society’s intervention, society was busy protecting the rights of the adults, the children were the leftovers.

And our disregard for children extends to the professionals who care for their needs.  Otherwise well-paid professionals earn less if they earn their money caring for children.  Pediatricians, child-psychologists, child social workers all earn less than the adult serving counterpart.  We all know about teachers.   

School staff are mandated reporters for child abuse.  Yet when they call Child Protective Services to report a concern, they are just as likely to get a recorded message as they are to be able to speak with a social worker.  Child protective services agencies are understaffed and over worked.  They can’t begin to do the job they need to do.  But it doesn’t matter because they only serve kids and children can’t vote.

Every child deserves a loving family, food security, a safe neighborhood free from fear, and stable housing.  As a society we speak good words, but kids are just the collateral damage because above all, we need to take care of adult rights and the collateral damage to children be damned.