Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

WHERE ARE THE ADULTS?

by Ruth A. Sheets

Paying attention to the news lately has been a trial .  We hear/see how this group has attacked that group and performed atrocities that are nearly unspeakable, but of course, they speak them. 

The commentators try to analyze the cause of the attack and the reasons involve religion, language, land, power,  or  some other of the usual excuses.  I think they are wrong.

Children are coming across the border, desparate for safety and a real childhood and they are often met by screaming people who cannot summon sympathy let alone empathy for their plight .

Lying seems to be the order of the day in politics, especially on the side of conservatism, as if truth will bring down severe punishment from on high.  But, in God’s name, the ends justify the means.

What do these events have in common? Absence of adults. There are clearly grown-up people involved, but somehow, they didn’t mature into adults. Their childish dialectic, self-centered  thinking, keeps them from making good judgments. They have not learned to value the lives of anyone different from themselves.

And, there is no adult present to say “NO!!” In fact, the would-be adults have been absorbed by the childish insanity and often eagerly participate.  Perhaps hoping they will gain power when they pick up the pieces.

These child actors in the various scenarios are mostly male, but the females often stand by nodding and smiling, rooting on the bad boys, just like high school teens.

Would-be adults make massive weapons and sell or give them to the children and are shocked to see what they do with them.  But, of course, it is all about money for the sellers.  It’s free enterprise, you know.  We just sell them.  We can’t control what they do with them.

Sadly, we can’t expect the United States to assume the adult role in the world because we have too many of our own children in Congress, the judiciary, and other places of power.  They are proud of their limited knowledge, but want to foist their beliefs on everyone else, and like out-of-control kids, try to rule the house, assuming their own superior intelligence, talent, and love of country. 

Their petulant sulkiness makes them impossible to work with, so very very little gets done.  Many are enamored with guns and war, especially since they and theirs will not have to participate.  It’s a game.   

What do we do?  Well, we adults can start by withdrawing our support for the children.  We go to the polls and vote out the children who are not mature enough to serve, you know, the ones who deny reality, who dare anyone to teach them anything..

We need to stop preaching jihad and other forms of hatred.  Speaking a different language, worshiiping a different diety, having a different color skin  do not make a person worthy of death, well, except, perhaps to grown-up children.
 
Then, serious penalties should be applied to corporations who sell to the children:  insurgents, terrorists, religious extreemists, and the rest of the kids.  We adults need to fund and apply education about how to behave in a civilized world.  The “children” need to be incorporated into communities of adults who can care for them and help them grow up. 

We need to put more women in charge, since it is they who often mourn most when they see the death and destruction caused by out-of-control children.  They can often come up with workable solutions too.

It’s time for the reasonable adults to step out of hiding and assert their proper role.  They must  find ways to put the children in a safe place until they grow up,

Thursday, June 23, 2011

OUR MOST VALUABLE RESOURCE

The school year has just ended for me and the news for the coming year does not look good.  Rumor has it that 40% of our teachers and support staff will be laid off.  Due to state and Federal budget crunches, our children will be sacrificed again. 

I hear so often “our children are our most valuable resource” and I even have a great T-Shirt with that thought on it.  I think that is the exact truth.  When one notes the way we treat our natural resources in general, one cannot be surprised that our “most valuable” resource should be treated so badly.  We clear-cut our forests.  We fish out our rivers and oceans.  We use our precious FRESH water to drive natural gas from deep in rocks.  We destroy our wetlands to provide entertainment spots for the wealthy.  We hunt animals to extinction.  We strip mine some of our most beautiful places. 

In that same spirit, we allow 25% and more of our children to live in poverty.  We blame teachers for student lack of success, then pile more and more children into their classes with fewer supplies, guaranteeing low success for the children in our poorest communities.  We allow for-profit organizations (charter schools) to suck the resources of the districts who are already tapping taxpayers out.  We drive our kids into prisons because we have no jobs for them.  We charge so much for college that it may take a lifetime to pay it off, that is if they can get work.

Like our other “cherished” resources, we fail to see that what we do or do not do now will sharply impact the future for generations.  What fools we are to choose to live only for the present, spouting our political nonsense while our children’s well-being goes the way of the dodo.

Peace,
Ruth

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

HERE’S TO INDIANA

I just learned that Indiana has “proudly” passed a law to refuse all state and federal funding to Planned Parenthood and any other organization that offers abortion to women.  The governor, a potential candidate for president, signed this law despite his claim to set aside divisive social issues in favor of dealing with the economy and other pressing problems.

How is it we allow conservative white men to decide for women what is right for us?  How is it we stand by when right-wing women tell everyone else that, because they believe something is evil, they have the right to impose their beliefs on everyone else?

If Sarah Palin is right and the Indiana folk are the “real Americans,” the majority of America is in trouble.  The least willing to think for themselves should not be dictating to those who choose to take the effort to think.

So here’s to Indiana, a triumph of the deceived.  Defunding reproductive service organizations does not decrease spending.  It will ultimately significantly add to it when the unplanned pregnancies bear fruit and the state has more children in poverty to support.  Oh, wait, they’re cutting funds that support those children, too.

Peace,
Ruth

Friday, April 29, 2011

THE JOBS OF PRINCES AND PRINCESSES

Last evening, I was watching ABC News.  At the very end, they did a story about what children around the world think princes and princesses do.  Some of the answers were cute, describing where they sit and that they do not work.  Other answers were really moving.  One child said that the princes and princesses help people like the homeless and children in orphanages.  It made me think that children really do count on people in authority for a lot. 

It occurred to me that maybe children count on all adults for a lot.  I wonder how often we disappoint them because we too often decide that our adult needs and interests supercede those of children most of the time.  If that were not true, we would not have so many children living in poverty, even in our country, the most wealthy in the world. 

Maybe we adults need to examine our priorities and start putting our children at the center of what we do.  We don’t have to be royalty to make a difference.  I know this is not profound, but seeing those children so serious and sincere, it made me want to commit even more strongly to the well-being of the youngest generation. 

We need schools more than prisons, good living conditions more than subsidies for corporations, decent healthy food more than a military that polices a world that doesn’t care for our actions, and health care for everyone more than for super rich people.  Let's get our priorities straight, O ye in Congress.  Worry less about abortion and more about the living breathing children who depend on you to act like princes and princesses who help people.

Peace,
Ruth