We adore and spoil our children as individuals. We shuttle kids from soccer practice to music lessons and coordinate game dates with the utmost care.
But overall, we mistreat American children, especially by the standards of other wealthy countries. When we create policies for children as a whole, rather than pampering our little angels, we fall shamefully short. Although we respect children in the abstract, as a society we tend to ignore their needs. In America, children are more likely to go hungry or live in poverty, and far more likely to die from drugs, guns, accidents, and an inequitable health care system than in most other countries. It has become expensive.
If the U.S. youth mortality rate were simply the same as the rest of the wealthy world, at least 40,000 Americans under age 19 would die each year, according to Stephen Wolf, a population health expert at Virginia Commonwealth University. It is said that lives will be saved. . In other words, an American child dies approximately every 13 minutes. The reason is that we don’t do as good a job as other countries at protecting children.
And the situation is getting worse. The likelihood that American children will reach adulthood has declined in recent years, Wolf said.
In this election year, these are the issues that should be at the center of the battle between Democrats and Republicans. This is not the case because children do not have the right to vote and are political orphans.
It’s not just children from remote, low-income backgrounds who are feeling the effects. The country as a whole cannot prosper if too many people are left behind. What set the United States apart for more than a century and helped make it the world’s leading economy was that while some European countries excelled in elite education, strong It was a great public education. But over the past 50 years, as other countries have advanced, we have collectively stumbled in supporting and educating our children.
We’ve been trying to solve problems on the back end, whether it’s the juvenile justice system, the criminal justice system, or alerts to monitor human traffickers. However, there are structures in our society that have completely failed, such as foster care facilities. Less than 5 percent of young people who spend time in foster care graduate from a four-year college. Some studies suggest that up to 60 percent of human trafficking victims participate in this system. But when was the last time a politician was asked how to improve foster care?
I’m thinking about this because I recently attended the Summit on America’s Children and Families, sponsored by Common Sense Media. The organization’s founder, James Steyer, wants to push children onto the local, state and national agenda this year — not with a “March of One Million Children” on Washington. I wonder? Political candidates are therefore forced to answer questions about our indifference to the well-being of children.
In the summit’s closing session, several of us discussed what a pro-child agenda would look like. My suggestion is:
Early child care program It is modeled after what exists in the US military. If our military can operate fee-for-pay child care programs, then so can the rest of the country. Government-supported early childhood programs help parents and children alike. Approximately one in six of her children have lived with a parent who abused drugs in the past year, and some of them may find a lifeline in a quality program like Educare that also provides parent coaching. You can find it. Other wealthy countries spend on average about 29 times more per infant on child care than the United States.
Expanding the refundable child tax credit To eliminate child poverty. Most other rich countries have introduced monthly child benefits to lift children out of poverty, and the United States also introduced a refundable child tax credit in 2021. This was a huge success, cutting child poverty by almost half. This is one of the most successful policies of my lifetime. Then, due to Republican opposition, the program expired at the end of 2021, and child poverty soared again.
New regulatory body to oversee technology companies Just as the Federal Communications Commission oversees old media, so does new media. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet supports the idea, which is gaining urgency as TikTok and artificial intelligence become more prominent in children’s lives. Young people are already facing a mental health crisis that appears to be correlated with the proliferation of smartphones and social media. We don’t want to overregulate, but tech companies need oversight to monetize children.
Improving K-14 Education To ensure that all children are literate and numeracy, graduate from high school, and, if possible, attend at least community college, military training, and technical training. American children are particularly bad at math, which is holding the whole country back. If Mississippi, with its unconscionable child poverty, could focus on reading and significantly improve educational outcomes, there would be no excuse for any state to fail students.
The best indicator of a society’s future is how well it can nurture the next generation. So this election year, let’s move beyond political competition and culture wars and grill candidates on their policies toward children and, ultimately, the future of our country.