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Where does the calm voice of reason lie when it comes to hotbed topics that ignite American political passions or give the passive pawns (those of us who are now some scaled-down version of consumers) plenty of opportunity to turn away?
When it comes to the conditions created within our society that directly affect the lack of well-being of our nation’s children might it be best to listen to the trained voices of those who study societies as a whole – the sociologists?
I post here the informal email correspondence that took place this past hour between myself and my sociologist daughter concerning
The United Nations — The Innocenti Report Card 9 (2010)
It appears that this report concerns the gap between the haves and the have-nots in our nation regarding the well-being of our children. As my daughter clarified for me, the variable being measured in this 2010 9th report card is different than the overall well-being measured in the 2007 7th report card: +21 RICH NATIONS COMPARED ON CHILD WELL-BEING – U.S. AND U.K. AT THE BOTTOM. I did not initially understand the difference between what was specifically being measured in these two reports until my daughter clarified this point for me.
If you would like to see the September 2009 8th United Nation’s Report Card 8: Progress for Children: A Report Card on Child Protection it is available by clicking on this title.
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I sent my daughter the link to The Innocenti Report Card 9 — THE CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND: A league table of inequality in child well-being in the world’s rich countries (December 2010) and this is the discourse that followed:
She: Definitely not good. I don’t think we can even call it cognitive dissonance — most Americans just flat out don’t realize we aren’t best at everything! So, therefore, what is there to fix?
Me: I sense it even in your comment here, honey — nobody gets the real issue
like it’s destiny that we DON’T? Is our nation MEANT to fail in the grand scheme of things?
NOBODY CARES!
This isn’t the issue of “most Americans just flat out don’t realize we aren’t best at everything!”
It’s an issue of suffering children, suffering families — social problems that CREATE this discrepancy — and long term extremely destructive consequences!
She: I do get what you are clarifying here. Cognitive dissonance would require that we have an awareness of facts that contradict each other. Many Americans simply operate in ignorance of the reality/facts around them. The collective national psyche is that “America is the shining example” — which I think contributes to ignorance of the severity of problems in the first place and to the lack of making changes. I think that is a very important part of the picture.
Many people do care — but it is an uphill struggle much of the time. Yes, it is incredibly serious. I don’t know if we will turn things around, but I don’t think it is “destined” either way. There are solutions out there and there have been times when we’ve made decisions in a relatively quick timeframe that changed the course of the country (for the better) — the implementation of Social Security/Medicare and civil rights, being more recent examples. Those things didn’t occur without resistance!
Just for some perspective — in terms of inequality — conservatives argue that the overall quality of life in the United States has risen dramatically over the past century — for everyone. And also that even most of the poorest Americans are far better off than those in third world nations.
This ignores, however, the rapid social changes that have occurred and the consequences on things that aren’t as tangible as food/water/shelter. The impact on children being raised by stressed mothers/parents and subpar child care environments, the quality of education as a whole, what is going on with our food supply.
More to say, obviously — hopefully I’m articulating at least somewhat coherently.
Me: This isn’t MINOR though — we are just plain too far down at the bottom to even BE blissfully ignorant – like the canary in the mine shaft, if there’s this much wrong with the well-being of our nation and its children, there is a WHOLE UGLY PICTURE here!
There will not be an America in 50 years at this rate, plain and simple – if we last that long
Me: If what makes us feel better about our abysmal failure in taking care of the most important, most vulnerable, most helpless and dependent segment of our nation’s population is to compare our suffering children with those in the ‘third world’
I hope we get the hell dropped off of the rich nations’ list entirely!
She: agreed
Me: Then the UN should fire its statisticians – obviously they are lying
She: No, they are looking at disparity — the gap between the middle and the lowest. Just imagine having moved the whole curve over a bit. Inequality is a very important measure. The fact that inequality continues to worsen in the U.S., and reflects a larger (and growing) gap than our other “rich nation” peers — is a BAD thing.
Me: Wasn’t that what the civil rights movement
and the ‘women’s movement’ were about
inequality?
revolutions?
civil wars?
We could make a separate nation, entirely separate, of the portion of our population – say the top 1/2 of one percent that owns at least 95% of our nation’s wealth
THAT would create a more accurate picture for everyone else remaining American — or would they have the power to take our nation’s name with them?
For every single one of these nationally neglected children some kind of trauma altered development and insecure attachment is building their body-brain
We will end up being a nation, as these children mature, of war mongers
Oxytocin and the human attachment connection calm peaceful potential growth is being thwarted in favor of vasopressin and testosterone — along with such an imbalance in neurochemistry that the reward system will continue to go in the wrong direction
These [have-not] children are being raised in degrees of malevolence, not benign benevolence and their BODY development will show it
from excerpt in last night’s post: +WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO US: VIOLENT TRAUMA, MALTREATMENT, ATTACHMENT – BIRTH TO AGE THREE (and beyond)
“Recent research has also supported transgenerational transmission of biological response to trauma. Whether this finding proves ultimately to be a risk or resilience factor remains a question. An affected mother’s exposure to violent trauma during pregnancy (i.e., the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City) and her glucocorticoid stress response were linked to the glucocorticoid levels, upregulation of the receptor setpoint, and behavior of her infant by 9 months of life (Yehuda et al., 2005)…. Could this transmission of response to shared stress during pregnancy be one example at the very beginning of the organism’s life of adaptation in the service of evolution? Is the mother’s biology preparing the offspring for expectation of threat? If so, can one say that the development of PTSD (and/or other posttraumatic psychopathology) is a form of risk if no further threat actually exists, or resilience in the form of potentially beneficial hypervigilance to actual subsequent threat?” [bold type is mine]
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There is such a thing as a tipping point – when this all goes TOO far we will not be able to bring our nation back to center or to the positive — That’s where destiny-natural consequence enters the picture.
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Stop the Storm 