Sorry for the gap in blogs
Sorry for the gap in blogs… court cases… summer… and my own family have really kept me busy…
… a Google search reveals that in 2003, 2.8 billion pounds of coffee were imported into the United States with 18.7 million pounds being classified as fair trade coffee.
Enlightening, huh?
In 2000, there were 133.6 million registered cars, 7 million buses and 87.0 million trucks.
The United States uses 385 million gallons of gasoline each day. Wow!
The number of saw-whet owls migrating through Pennsylvania was 250 during the most recent survey. Interesting?
How many children have a neuropsychological or psychological disorder? Ummm.
How many children have depression? anxiety disorders? post-traumatic stress disorder? autism? receptive language disorders?
Google them!
The answer… no one knows!
We can track down financial minutia (the prospectus for my 401K plan is 47 pages long), but we don’t know the prevalence of autism in children? We have daily television programs devoted to financial matters, home improvement/repairs (financial matters), gardening (financial matters), courtroom dramas… we are fed 50+ soap operas each week and how much time is devoted to our children?
We have five full-time 24-7 television stations devoted to sports and we can chart A-Rod’s batting average by week or month during the past four years but we do not know the number of children who will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder this year!
Appalled? Try a little closer to home. How much did you spend on your last pair of athletic shoes? How much did you spend on your child’s athletic shoes? Now, how many hours did you spend with your children last year in athletic activities?
If your total cost (average parent plus child combined athletic shoe cost = $100+) exceeds the number of hours you spent with your child in those activities during the past year, put down the coffee cup, get out of the car, shut off the television and find your child. Spending time with your child or children is like putting love and life energy into your child’s “bank”. And for parents who are willing to make the investment, the benefit is that these same parents are in a position to make “withdrawals” in the form of making requests of their children to contribute to the home, to do chores… to obey the rules… to be good citizens in the family.
Our communities… our politicians… billboards… newspaper articles all broadcast our intense interest in and support for our children… “our children are our future”… “it takes a whole village to raise a child”… “the year (month, week, day, etc.) of the child”… but is it true???
Want to see what people think is important? … follow the dollars (recall “Show me the money!!”) Money is a symbol of our life energy and effort (we exchange our life energy/effort for money)… so where people put their money is where they invest their life energy. Purchases serve as our votes on how we are choosing to live our lives and what is important. What is in your budget? What is in the Budget for your state or the United States? Not children!!! Especially our poorest children who have the highest risk factors, who have Medical Assistance (MA), who provides the poorest reimbursement for services (we lose $10.00 per hour on MA), who professionals often avoid seeing because of the lack of reimbursement.
