Helping Children

Robert P. Watson

In the Bush years, poverty rates rose and a disproportionately large number of children – one in five – now live in poverty. So too are hunger, malnutrition, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol use among our youth on the rise. Yet, the response from President Bush and Congress was to cut food stamps for some 300,000 needy individuals, and cuts in child care, health and fitness programs, Head Start, and even literacy programs. The latter cuts are ironic given the fact that Laura Bush and Barbara Bush embraced family literacy as a cause close to their hearts.

My "Healthy Start" proposal recognizes that educational reforms must include pre-school opportunities for children that give them a healthy start in school, in their communities, and in life. It must also include before and after school educational opportunities. Indeed, a number of experts have estimated that at least 4 million children are at present in serious need of further after school care or tutoring. We need affordable, accessible, and quality child care and before/after school programs.

A healthy start also means supporting families who are struggling with the skyrocketing costs of child care, costs that are growing twice as fast as inflation. A less than robust economy has forced more and more parents to work overtime or a second job just to prevent a decline in their earnings. More single mothers and two-income families are forced to decide between work and child care.

As society designs viable pre-school and after-school care programs we must also recognize that more than one-in-three teenagers are caring for themselves unsupervised from the end of the school day at approximately 3:00 PM until their parent or parents get home from work a few hours later. The late afternoon is often idle, wasted time or a recipe for drug and alcohol use, pregnancy, violence, and juvenile delinquency. Yet, President Bush cut after-school programs by 30-40%, cuts that the YMCA and After-School Alliance have said will harm our children and communities. I believe we can either pay a little now or a lot later.

We would all agree that our children are our future and our greatest resource. Yet, at the same time the richest one-tenth of one percent of society enjoyed record gains in their worth and at the same time our politicians cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans, programs to help pregnant women, newborns, and children were gutted.

I submit that it is not because of the budget but because of a lack of values. The fact of the matter is that some politicians threw children out of programs they need, programs that cost about as much as a new bomber or fighter jet. If a society’s moral fabric is judged by how it treats its children, I am afraid that our leaders would not measure up.

I live in south Florida, so at the least our area schools should be offering Florida orange juice as part of the school lunch experience. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends eliminating sweetened drinks from schools as do many parents. The goal of wellness for our children should give us the courage to remove French fries and hotdogs from lunches, and replace them with whole-grain bread and fruits, for instance.

Here at home, Palm Beach and Broward Counties are trying to combat obesity and health problems among our children by improving fitness and nutrition. Broward schools don't offer sodas in their cafeterias but still permit them in vending machines and Palm Beach County has established a Healthy Schools Task Force. We must offer them our help.

We can’t pretend kids won’t experiment sexually. However, the Evangelical community is wrong: it is not a matter of either promoting abstinence or promoting promiscuity. That is a false argument offered by extremists on the religious right. Sex and health education must encourage abstinence while promoting awareness of pregnancy, disease, and contraception. Adults must be responsible and promote responsibility to children.

A host of doctors, healthcare experts, parental groups, and organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the National Campaign to End Teen Pregnancy endorse awareness and responsibility. Studies have repeatedly found that student "virginity pledges" are likely to be broken within months (an astonishing 88% broke the pledge in 2004) and students in these abstinence-only programs are just as sexually active as others, just as likely to contract STDs, but slower to get medical help and far less knowledgeable about sexual matters. Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Cal) has found that over 2/3 of school curriculums have errors in teaching about STDs, HIV, and pregnancy, in large measure because funds for education and awareness have been replaced by abstinence-only programs. Studies here in south Florida show that an alarmingly high and growing number of our teens are reporting that they are sexually active and both teen pregnancy and STDs are on the rise. At the very least, policies to protect children should be based in reality, not wishful thinking and misinformation.