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What Are Our Children Worth?
by Howard Davis
I'm spending my children's inheritance!" The bumper sticker on the huge recreational vehicle ahead of me may have been meant only in jest. But it reminds me of the best-selling title my wife saw recently in a bookstore: Die Broke. The book proclaims a radical plan to "afford the lifestyle of your dreams."
These are catchy, lighthearted phrases. But they mask a darker truth for societies with exploding populations of alienated youths, many struggling with personal crises.
It's ironic that, while baby boomers and other older adults live better and have more wealth than any other adult population in the history of the planet, they place such a comparatively small value on children.
In the United States one third of all children are born out of wedlock. In Britain two out of five children are illegitimate. One third of children in America live in single-parent homes (usually a single mother), with a third of those living below the poverty line. Tens of millions of American youths hunger for spiritual and emotional care. Many cry in the dark, alone. While some of these literally hunger for food, all hunger for parental love. They long to be valued and appreciated.
The problems are especially acute in households with teenagers. In the United States 60 percent of mothers in two-parent families work outside the home. In families headed by single mothers, 70 percent of them work outside the home. Overall, only 25 percent of teens say their mothers are always home when they return from school. Only 58 percent say their fathers care about them.
The effects of this out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach have left permanent scars on millions of children. They in turn will influence the future of the nations for generations. Newsweek magazine reported that since 1991 the percentage of American 12th-graders who have illegally obtained and used alcohol, cigarettes and illegal drugs in the last 30 days is up dramatically to 50 percent, 35 percent and 25 percent, respectively (May 10, 1999).
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