It’s the week after Mother’s Day, and after being feted with handmade cards, sticky kisses, and a delicious meal I did not have to cook (or clean up after) I am back at work – surrounded by evidence that neither my city of Philadelphia nor my country are particularly hospitable places for us moms. Whether the news is about funding for the war, the dismal state of our local schools, the most recent homicide on our mean streets, or the “idols” being worshiped on TV, there are plenty of opportunities for a mom to become depressed about the world her children will inhabit. So it is with my mom hat on that I would like to propose three critical questions for the Democratic candidates that will speak at Pentecost 2007 next month.
1. Perhaps the single most important thing we can provide for all of our children are connections – connections to stable, loving families and communities, connections that last a lifetime, connections to parents, mentors, and teachers. Yet every night in our country, more than half a million children go to bed in a foster home, not knowing if they will sleep in the same bed tomorrow night, or attend the same school next week. Over a million children in America are homeless each year. Many more live at the fringes of our society, disconnected youth, living out their own personal terrors, and at times staving off their own loneliness and fear by creating terror on our streets and in our schools. Please describe your strategy for ensuring that all of our children can have the opportunity to grow up in safe, stable families and communities where they are securely connected to caring adults.
2. A good education is often seen as the great equalizer – a place where every child can feast at the great American opportunity table. And yet, we know that a child whose belly is rumbling with hunger, or who was awake all night hearing gunshots and sirens outside her window, or who attends a school with no textbooks cannot fully benefit from the American dream of a free and public education for all children. What is first thing you will do, if elected, to ensure that every child in America can have a fighting chance to succeed and achieve in school?
3. Like the mother of Seung-Hui Cho, I have a son with a mental illness. Like the mother of Emilio Gonzales, I have a son with severe disabilities requiring feeding tubes, multiple medications and round-the-clock care. Like Sherry Grace, I am the mother of an incarcerated son who struggled with drugs and addiction. What hope do you offer to mothers, like us, who live with children in pain, children struggling to cope with physical, mental, and emotional challenges every day? We go into our communities seeking help for our children and doors are closed in our faces – for lack of insurance, lack of access, lack of public will. When our children struggle, act-out, or “fail,” we are often vilified and blamed, rarely supported and helped. How will you ensure that all of our nation’s children have access to the health care, mental health services, dental care and other supports they need to grow up strong and healthy?
“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. ” (Mark 9:42)
Susan H. Badeau is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Children’s Commission, a parent of 22 children by birth, foster care, and adoption, a life-long advocate and a Sojourners/Philadelphia volunteer. This article was part of the inspiration for this post.
posted May 18, 2007 at 10:21 pm
hmmmm, no comments here yet, but all kinds of things to be said about Falwell’s demise What was it St. James said about the definition of true religion again?
posted May 18, 2007 at 11:03 pm
I would like to think the reason is that these questions are completely non-controversial, their relevance to James and the rest of the Bible (Old and New Testaments) being beyond obvious. Dream on?
posted May 19, 2007 at 1:22 am
Excellent questions that should be asked on both sides of the table – how the candidates answer would be very telling. peace
posted May 19, 2007 at 5:21 am
Exactly – and as soon as answers are offered, the silence will no longer be deafening. The only problem I see with the questions themselves is in the use of the word “ensure,” which, if the candidates are honest, is something they will admit they can’t do, at least on questions 1 and 2 (universal health care might deal with 3). I like to think that any proposal that would ensure these things is one that every Christian would support. What I’ve seen again and again on the God’s Politics blog is that, in the absence of failsafe solutions, there seems to be very little that Christians can agree on. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. In fact, as a longtime educator, I would suggest that my own answer to number 2 might begin: “I would try to promote the awareness that every child is an individual, and that any educational program that inflexibly applies the same standards to them all is missing something precious and incalculably important.”
posted May 23, 2007 at 4:27 pm
The article said in part,”What hope do you offer to mothers, like us, who live with children in pain, children struggling to cope with physical, mental, and emotional challenges every day? We go into our communities seeking help for our children and doors are closed in our faces for lack of insurance, lack of access, lack of public will. When our children struggle, act-out, or fail, we are often vilified and blamed, rarely supported and helped. How will you ensure that all of our nation s children have access to the health care, mental health services, dental care and other supports they need to grow up strong and healthy?” Why is it the state’s responsibility to care for your children? I love how “fail” is in quotations as if there is not such thing as failure. There is and it is not the state nor the taxpayers responsibility to clean up your mess. Unfortunately, that is what we the taxpayers end up doing all the time. The answer to all the questions you pose can not be answered by any politician. The answer is called “personal responsability”.
posted May 23, 2007 at 8:30 pm
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29) This message thread has been visited by a God’s Politics Blog moderator for the purpose of removing inappropriate posts. Click here for a detailed explanation of the Beliefnet Rules of Conduct: http://www.beliefnet.com/about/rules.aspThere were no innapropriate comments on this thread.Help us keep the conversation civil and respectful by reporting inappropriate posts to: community@staff.beliefnet.com
posted May 27, 2007 at 3:18 am
Elsa – Not sure if you will check back in for a reply, but I will offer oone anyway. You ask: “Why is it the state’s responsibility to care for your children? Actually, since my children came to me via the foster care system, it is indeed the state’s responsibility to provide some level of care for them – the state has intervened in their lives and taken custody of them – meaning the state became their legal parent. I think that by taking in over 75 foster children and making a permanent home through adoption to 20 children in addition to my 2 birth children, I have indeed demonstrated “personal responsibility”, and I do not see how the suffering that my children face has anything to do with “messes” that I need to clean up. But your post raises a larger point – and that is this – parents who desire to take personal responsibility for their children and provide the necessary health care, dental health care and mental health care to meet their needs are often unable to do so for lack of access to those services. Many working parents are unable to obtain or afford health insurance for their children. And even for those who have certain health care that is available to lower income, but often working families, the insurance doesn’t do much good in communities where there are no service providers that will accept it. Finally, even when there is both insurance and an available provider, the services are often not designed for children and are inadequate – for example, 8 sessions of physical therapy coverage might be appropriate for an adult who needs to receive some rehab services to recover from an accident or surgery, but it is woefully inadequate for a child with cerebral palsy who needs regular physical therapy just to grow and function. This was the case for one of our children. So we took “personal responsibility” to learn how to do the therapy at home, ourselves, so that she could have more than the 8 sessions a year the insurance would cover. Yet, I also know that not all parents would have the capacity to learn how to do PT and be able to do it on a regular basis. This is just one example of the type of situation the question referred to, and yes, I do believe there is a collective, or community/corporate responsibility to help make sure that our communities make it possible for parents to care for their children by providing access to the services they need for children who have disabilities whether physical or mental, and for other basic health care needs. Part of God’s call to look out for the orphan, the widow and all of the “least of these” . . . at least in my view.