One More Day Alive

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how our mounting debt crisis is going to saddle our children and our grandchildren with great difficulty.

Well, thank God we are finally talking about our children. Now maybe we can start talking about all the ways we need to help them right now as well as in the future.

Twenty years ago the first article I ever wrote professionally was an opinion article in the local daily newspaper that was inspired by an interview I did with the director of St. Mary’s Food Bank. He informed me the hunger rate in children was a whopping 25 percent.

It was unfathomable to me that a quarter of our children could be going to bed hungry every night. Unlike adults, children are helpless to help themselves out of such a situation.
So why would we possibly allow such a situation to continue?

In 2011, the state of our children is still in jeopardy. There is still a 20 percent hunger rate in children. The good news is that’s down 5 percent; the bad news is that it’s still too high. And when you add to that the deficits children face in the availability of health care and education, it begs the question why.

I dare to be optimistic and suggest it’s not because we can’t change it, but maybe it’s because we are way too accustomed to feeling good in our society — at the expense of our children. But a little attitude shift could change everything.

Just look at the number of children who have been sacrificed to abortion — 42 million globally each year. The number one reason given for wanting an abortion in this country is not hardship but inconvenience.

But a friend who had an abortion 10 years ago because she thought a child would get in the way of her life recently confided in me how differently she now sees things. After a lifetime of pain, suffering and loneliness, she realizes the life she could have had with that child, not to mention the life she could have created and fostered would more than outweigh the loss of her “freedom.”

Look at the huge surge of drug use in the “if-it-feels-good -do-it” 1960s, ’70s and ’80s in America, and then look at the fact that since 1986, more than 70 percent of the child welfare cases in America have been shown to be caused in some part by substance abuse.

My prayers are with any individual who has ever suffered from a drug addiction. But I hope with all my heart that anyone with a child comes to their senses and realizes that the life of their child is at stake every time they give in to their addiction.

Maybe we don’t all need as many comforts, as many excuses, as many vices, as many conveniences, or to “feel good” as much as we think.

Thirty years ago my Fr. turned down a high-paying job in Los Angeles because I had asthma and he knew the smog would kill me. My mother sacrificed a career as an opera singer to be a mother to three children. They knew their most important job was being parents.

Ten years ago I interviewed a retired chief petty officer and nurse living on modest wages who decided to adopt 10 foster children because they knew those children needed them.

Maybe what we need — and what will serve us even more in the long run — is if we step up to the plate to take care of our kids, to give them the education, the resources and the attention they need, even it means sacrificing a little of what we think we need.

Then hopefully all this talk about the future of our children will make its way into the present.

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