Children “Forgotten” in Overheated Cars

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Thank goodness for technology, that’s all I can say….no, it’s not all I can say after all.   The Associated Press reports that the number of children left to die in hot cars during the summer is rising.  Research shows that July is the month when most are “forgotten” by their parents to die a slow, horrible death in the back seat of cars.

Now, in addition to your cell phone, BlackBerry, iPod, iPhone, GPS device, Bluetooth and mini-tape recorder, you can buy a “ChildMinder.”  The device, costing about $60.00, consists of a sensor pad placed under the cushion of a car seat, and is wirelessly linked to an alarm on the parent’s key chain.  If the adult walks more than a few feet away from the car with the child still in the seat, the alarm will sound.  Wow!  What a great way to help a parent remember that they have a small human being with them!

In the past 10 years, almost 350 children have died in cars, because the parents or other caretakers simply forgot them.  Only about 7% of these sad deaths involved drugs or alcohol on the part of the adult.  Most cases involved dentists, nurses, ministers, college professors, concert musicians, social services board members, NASA engineers…you know, the pillars of the community.  These are the busy, self-involved folks always in a rush, for whom even dropping  kids off at a day-care center instead of tending to the little ones themselves was too difficult an assignment.

Astonishingly, these parents, when prosecuted at all (and only 50% of them are prosecuted), receive only three to five year prison sentences.  Also astonishing is how much “understanding” public support they get from those who say “It can happen to anyone.”  No, it can’t happen to anyone. 
It can happen only when parenting and family are not the highest priorities.  It can happen only when parents spend their time focused on maximizing their own personal fulfillment at the expense - and very existence - of their children.

My DNA Made Me Do It!

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At this point, every news outlet has discussed the conclusions of some researchers from the University of North Carolina.  The researchers insist that three genes “may” play a strong role in determining why some young men raised in rough neighborhoods or deprived families become violent criminals, while others do not.

The research team studied only boys, and used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a U.S. nationally representative sample of about 20,000 adolescents in grades 7 - 12.  They found specific variations in three genes that appeared to be associated with bad behavior, but only when the boys suffered some other stresses.  “But if people with the same gene have a parent who has regular meals with them, then the risk is gone,” said one of the researchers.

Genes give us a range of potential - the interaction of those genes with real life determines the outcome - and it appears like family is everything with respect to raising decent, adjusted, functional children.

When Children Have Children

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The teen pregnancy rate is up for the first time since 1991, according to a report released by the National Institutes of Health, and is a cause for concern.   “This is one of the key indicators for the health of the teen population,” said Edward Sondik, Director of the National Center for Health Statistics.  “Not only does this affect teen health at this point, but their health and well being for the next 20 to 40 years, as well as the health and well-being of their children.”

This is one of the most self-centered actions a female can take.  It is obviously not in the best interest of a child to be robbed of a father, a two-parent home, and a committed relationship which would give the child the security and role-modeling he or she needs to fulfill hopes and plans for a loving, secure marital future.

It’s very “in” lately to be a pregnant Hollywood star, and lots of money is offered for exclusive pictures of the heirs to celebrity notoriety or fame.  It doesn’t seem to matter if the star is married or not - there is no judgment, no condemnation, no “clucking,” no criticism, no shame, and no consequences.  It is just all “okay.”
 
When people do the wrong thing, repent, and then do the right thing, you’d think that they would be idolized.  Nope.  The media tends to humiliate and denounce them as hypocrites.  So, the “act” is irrelevant; the only thing that is relevant in current day society is that you must never say that anything is “wrong.”  If you do dare to call anything “wrong,” then you will be attacked. 

But back to the children.  Children having children is in no way a positive thing for either child.  There is sufficient research and practical experience to confirm the problems encountered by children without an intact family.  Why is this ignored?  Why is this denigrated or dismissed?  Why doesn’t anybody care about the children?  Why is it all about how the female “feels” - which, I’m sure, isn’t too great, once the reality sinks in that caring for an infant involves a lot of sacrifice and stress.

Kids have very little to connect to these days.  That might sound like an odd comment considering all the means of communication available:  email, text messages, cell phones, and Internet social networking sites, but paradoxically, as the number of technological advances continues to grow, the sense of truly being bonded and connected one-on-one in the non-virtual space continues to diminish…significantly.  When one has a site with 200 “friends,” one really doesn’t have a true friend.

With parents not around to connect with kids because of busy careers or divorce, or because they’re shacking up or never got married, having a baby of one’s own seems like an obvious way for a kid to get attention, bond to someone, and have some “hands-on” love.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t play out that way as the child-mothers discover that children are seriously dependent beings.

I remember when actresses like Ingrid Bergman (who left her husband and child to go to Europe to have an affair with one of her directors) were shunned from Hollywood for such behavior,  Now, having affairs, abandoning children, and giving birth out-of-wedlock are met with magazine covers and more job offers based on increased visibility.

When children have children, it’s largely because nobody is taking care of them; they’re lonely and lost.  But we should never point a finger or suggest fault - after all, someone’s feelings might be hurt!  And we all know that “feelings” are the most important value - right?  Dead wrong.

Kids and Cholesterol Drugs

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The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that under the current guidelines, thirty per cent of the nation’s children are overweight or obese.  Many doctors fear that a rash of early heart attacks and diabetes will strike these children as they grow older.

The nation’s pediatricians are therefore recommending wider cholesterol screening for children - starting at age two - and more aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs starting as early as eight years of age in hopes of preventing adult heart problems.

Because statins (cholesterol drugs) have been around since only the mid-1980s, there really is no evidence to show whether giving statins to children will, indeed, lower the risk for heart attack in middle age.

The main problem is that we live in a culture which is largely hooked into electronic entertainment and spend too much time feeding one end and not moving the other.

Changing Her Little Piece of the World

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This came from Kami, one of my radio listeners:

I am a stay-at-home Mom with a Master’s degree who chose to quit my job to raise my three sons (ages 5, 2, and 11 months).  I never dreamed of growing up to be a Mom.  I wanted to use my brain, get an education, and change the world through my career.  Now, every day, I find myself using my brain, getting an education, and hopefully, changing my little piece of the world as I work to shape my boys into men.

Instead of having them sit in daycare or pre-school for a big part of the week, I want my kids to play and read with me, and go to the library and find books of their own.  I want the freedom of knowing I can wake up and decide that we are going to hang out in our pjs until noon, and make bread or watch the birds building nests on our porch.  I want to help them make forts and play “hide ‘n seek,” and go on adventure walks around the neighborhood, even though it takes us twenty minutes to get past two houses.  I want them to go to the store and pick out their own veggie seeds to plant in the garden.  I want them to have snowball fights with me when I’m shoveling the driveway, and to help me fix dinner for someone who is sick.

My son has taught me so many things while he wasn’t in pre-school.  I learned that yogurt, pudding, and shaving cream can be used to draw with your finger; that bad weather, not necessity, is the mother of invention when it comes to craft projects; that math can be learned when baking cookies, cleaning up toys, handing out snacks, and putting away laundry; that some of the best talks happen in my bed when we just don’t feel like getting up.

And talk we do.  We talk about life and death, how planes work, where snow comes from, and whether pirates are decent.  We study geography as we drive around doing errands, and learn about engineering as we watch the progression of building construction.  We even tried to figure out why God made flies.

From the moment my first child was born, my life has been about my children, and some of those sweet moments can bring me to tears when I think about how fleeting they are.  My kids will get to be little, and they’ll get to have fun.  They are not in a hurry - and neither am I.”

Gloucester High Pregnancy Pact

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All media outlets recently went “buzzy” over the alleged conspiracy by a group of minor girls to get themselves pregnant.  My immediate concern went to the babies these children were so carelessly producing.  The real issue for me is that the babies are going to be born into troubled circumstances.

It is terribly sad that these children had so little to hold on to and look forward to that they used this as a way to feel connected, important, and/or loved.  I can only hope that their babies will - because of all this critical scrutiny - be adopted into loving two-parent (Mom and Dad), mature, stable marriages and families.  This ultimately is in the best interest of the children.

Three Internet Providers Agree to Block Child Porn

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Internet providers Verizon, Sprint, and Time-Warner Cable have agreed to block access to child pornography and eliminate the material from their servers, according to Andrew Cuomo, New York State’s Attorney General.

According to the AP, “Investigators said they found 88 newsgroups devoted to child pornography in an 8 month investigation. “   All are being shut down by these cable providers.

“We are doing our part to deter the accessibility of such harmful content through the Internet, and we are providing monetary resources that will go toward the identification and removal of online child pornography,” said Sprint spokesman Matthew Sullivan.  “We embrace this opportunity to build upon our own long-standing commitment to online child safety.”

A Verizon representative pointed out that they can’t possibly scan every user group, but they will work very quickly to deal with the issue when it is brought to their attention.

Ya know, technologically, Internet providers have incredible resources for scanning….they just need the will.  It looks like Andrew Cuomo has made them find the will.

China and the Value of Children

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China has a population control policy of one child per couple.  To encourage families to comply, population planning authorities have regularly been giving parents in rural areas amounts ranging from $8 to $17 annually for 18 years, and $144 after the parents reach 60.  Because so many children  died in the recent Sichuan earthquake, the Chinese government has decided to drop the 60 year old age requirement and will compensate the families now.

China has a limited pension and health care system, so parents expect to have a heavy financial dependence on their offspring during their elder years.  For the families whose sole children died, this support is now gone, although the government has permitted these families to adopt.

Recently, there were angry marches in which parents protested the shoddy school buildings in which their children died.  In some cases, the schools were the only buildings to completely collapse, according to Mei Fong, a journalist from Chengdu, China.

According to some news reports, the government is considering extra compensation after authorities have concluded investigations to decide the extent of negligence in the collapse of the school buildings following the quake.