Parenting

You Left LA to be Here?

By in Parenting, Personal, Religion, Teenagers Tags: , ,

 

“You mean you left LA to be here? In Española? Why in the heck would you do that? There’s nothing out here. It sucks.”

She is about 10 feet away. Black shiny wavy long hair. Maroon sweater and a blue backpack to her left on her desk.

I zero in. Stare into her eyes without even a fluttering of my eyelids.

“Because I want to be here with you.”

I jerk my gaze and look at José, then James then Sylvia as I say, “And for you, and for you, and for you,” pointing with my right index finger in unison with “you.”

Do you know that look – almost like a blush, but nothing romantic? The this-is-so-hopeful-I-almost-don’t-believe-it look?

I was one of them as a teenager. And in my twenties. And into my thirties. You feel alone. You think you’re not one of them. You feel nobody important cares about you.

A boy at the corner of the horseshoe table raises his hand. “So, Paul, you were a horrible student in high school. You didn’t have the best family life, and education wasn’t stressed when you were our age. And you made it.”

“What do you expect we do better?”

Total silence in the class. They await my answer. I relish their attention. What I say will matter.

“You’re in bed. It’s pitch dark. You’re thirsty. You get up. You must search with your hands for the light switch. You all know what I mean?”

Nodding.

“You find the switch. You flip it. You now see. Your vision changes. You’ve all been there?”

More nods.

“That will happen to some of you. You will somehow see that nobody can f-ing determine your future. You will become almost enraged, obsessed, almost demonized. Because it’s your life — you will own it and not let anyone else own it.”

Silence. Fourteen fixed gazes.

On the wall is the mission statement of the school. I point to it. I read this part.

“Look at that. You believe it? You? A globally competitive citizen?”

Stares.

“I do, and I thank each of you for being so respectful and paying attention.”

As founder of the Child Rights Foundation, I am here, we are here, for them. Because children matter. And they are always innocent.

 

Front Line Workers (and thinkers)

By in Parenting, Philosophy Tags: , , ,

This is my daughter, Bree. She is a student at Columbia Medical School. Because she works in the hospital, she was able to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.
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Growing up, I indoctrinated my children. Often to their chagrin, there were lectures, tutors, and many conversations about philosophy, faith, politics, and science — the stuff that really matters in life.
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But I never tried to never tell them what to think — I taught them HOW to think. I taught them that knowledge isn’t the same as belief. That truth and certainty are, also, very different.
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They learned the difference between a priori and a posteriori, sound versus unsound premises, logical fallacies, and how to spot the ever-so-common false dualism.
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They were to respect those of other faiths, no faiths, other political parties (and I never revealed to them who I voted for or which party I belonged to) — that it was easier to hate your opponent than to take the time to understand his or her point of view.
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Finally, I taught them to trust the guilds of science — empiricism — and beware of the allure of trendy conspiracy theories (which are based on the fallacy of affirming the consequent). That the Center For Disease Control, The National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and The American Medical Association — tens of thousands of the world’s greatest scientists and doctors — develop and administer vaccinations for viruses such as polio, smallpox, measles, rabies. Countless lives, as a result, are saved.
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I’m proud of Bree, and those like her on the front lines who study and trust science and give their lives to keeping us safe.

Protect Was My Word: Day 24

By in Foster Children, Parenting, Personal, Relationships Tags: , , ,

Protect was my word

Today Bree turned 25. Bree, my eldest, my baby.

She lives in New York City. She attends Columbia University Medical School. Her graduate work is the field of genetics.

I wish she was here. But her life is there now. She finished her first year, last week. Her second year begins in a few days. She will intern at Presbyterian Hospital, this term.

We had a Zoom call, this morning – a surprise Zoom birthday party for my 25-year-old baby.

The call was her mother’s idea. Not all of la familia could get on the call. But I and her mother and her siblings and aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and stepfamily all joined at 8:30 a.m. PST.

Protect was my word.

We wanted the surprise Zoom birthday party to actually be a surprise. We all dial-in. Then it dawns on us that nobody told Bree about the call.

We laughed. Would she be available? She could be taking a shower, be on a walk, her phone could be dead. 

Planning isn’t my specialty.

I text her. 

No response. 

I text again and again and again and finally she replies: “hi.”

Told her I wanted to Zoom with her. Suspiciousness must have been in her; we have never Zoomed. We use FaceTime.

Anyway, she gets on a few seconds later and her face beams.

Our family is very close. 

After a few minutes of catching up and laughing, her mother suggested that each of us say a word or words describe Bree.

Her mother and siblings and aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and stepfamily all joined and revealed their words with an explanation. Their words were radiant, fun, loving, music, joy, intellect, sweet, peacekeeper, lovely, caring, intelligent, diligent, fun, caring, brilliant, dance and funny stories.

It was my turn. 

I said something like this:

Protect is my word. Because 25 years ago, at about this exact time, you came into this world. And I hadn’t known what love was until that moment. Then the nurse said she was going to take you and clean you. I told her I would accompany her. And she took you into this room and she placed you on a small bed under this warm light. And she stepped away to gather the cleaning materials. And you lay there, exposed, without touch, crying. And I put my two hands on you and whispered into your ear and told you that I would always protect you, until the time I breathe my last breath.

I’m thousands of miles away from her today. And if I saw her now, I’d, for the first time, kiss her 25 times on the forehead. (Whenever I see her, I kiss her years on her forehead.) 

I’ll see her soon enough.

I’ve been thinking of my 25-year-old baby all day today. 

But I couldn’t not think of the 125,000 children in American whose parental rights have been terminated. That means they live in the foster care system and have nobody — neither father nor mother nor sibling nor sister nor aunt nor uncle nor grandparent nor cousin nor stepfamily — to protect them.

Protect is my word. 

Girls Not Brides: Day 17

By in Foster Children, News, Parenting, Politics, Religion Tags: , ,

Girls Not Brides. Another international organization working to protect children.

It’s the 17th of May, National Foster Care Awareness Month. Because of the horrors I was hearing about daily in my work, I committed to writing every day, to raise awareness.

It became too hard.

I missed a few days.

Fought off some depression.

And I don’t want to be a downer to my friends on social media.

But I can’t not speak out.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: COVID-19 affects all of us. But, COVID-19 hurts children most. The fallout amongst the health experts I speak to weekly in Washington DC is unknown. I wake up daily to news articles on spikes in calls to rape hotlines, child deaths, you name it. 

It will take years to recover.

Never in the history of U.S social services have children been kept from mandated reports. Never in the history of social services have children been locked-up with their abusers, with no end in sight. 

According to Girls Not Brides: “We know that girls and women – particularly amongst the poorest and socially marginalised groups – will likely be most affected by the pandemic.”

It’s always the weakest and most vulnerable that get hit hardest. The people Jesus stood for, advocated for, died for. 

COVID-19 hurts children most

Seeing countless people protest because they can’t go to the beach or party at their favorite bar or who believe guilds of tens of thousands of our finest medical doctors and researchers (in the (WHO, CDC, NIH) are conspiring…we live in a bizarre world and ignorance is our biggest killer.

I digress.

United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article Four: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”

COVID-19 hurts children most. If you can, consider a gift to an organization that helps these children. RFK. Girls Not Brides… 

For the children,

Paul

Writing Campaigns: Day Nine

By in Foster Children, Parenting, Spirituality Tags: , ,

I don’t know much about plumbing or civil engineering or heart surgery or geology. 

But I know a thing or two about children of neglect, abuse, and abandonment. 

I’m living during a time when I sometimes wish that I didn’t. 

All over the country, states and counties are scrambling about what to do, given COVID-19. 

I sometimes can’t find the words to describe the severity of this crisis. But many are with “writing campaigns.”

Friends, we are talking about children. Three-year olds and seven-year olds and 12-year olds. We don’t know how many, but we do know that close to 500,000 live in the foster care system. Because of neglect, abuse, and abandonment, the circumstances were so dire, that the government had to take them.

Countless have not been reported and are living with their abusers. And given COVID-19 and schools being closed, the reports are harrowing. 

Children are dying of child abuse at unprecedented rates. It can be exhausting at times, and very sad. I wrote about it here.

Local and state newspapers are begging for people to become foster parents.

Ironically, this tremendous need was pronounced mostly in the month of May, National Foster Care Awareness Month. 

A recent article in The Gainesville Sun titled How You Can Help A Child In Need, the need was stated simply: “Florida needs foster families, and Florida needs them now. Florida needs you.”

I commend the authors for their advocacy. As the President of an international foster care agency, I’d add one line.

Not everybody could be a foster parent, but everybody could make a difference. 

Thousands of RFK volunteers around the country and world, are doing just that with “writing campaigns.” Here’s a letter that was recently written by a counselor “Grandma” (many of the children don’t have grandparents). It was delivered to the child who lives in western Massachusetts.

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