It has been said that the two most important days of anyone’s life is the day that they are born and the day that they discover why. Recognizing that your life and the living of that life must have a purpose, a reason for being is possibly, the most important recognition that an individual person can make. When a child is born, there are those precious few moments where “ALL Things Are Possible.” Why? Because the circumstances of the birth, the place where the birth happens or times or “season” in which the birth has occurred have not yet been considered. All we are focused on is the actual miracle of the birth itself, the awesomeness of exactly how life begins and the power of life itself. As the moments of that life continue to move forward, the circumstances of that birth begin to weigh heavy upon the potential success of that child and the possibilities, opportunities and viability of that particular child’s prospects in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. If “All men are created equal…. and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…” what happens to that equality and those “rights” once that individual child begins to actually live the life that they have been born into?
Right now, in the United States of America, there are children being born into circumstances that are far from equal or just. Poverty and lack of adequate or affordable health care are huge factors in mitigating the level of success or failure that these children experience even being born in what has been touted as the “greatest country on earth.” Actually, what zip code a child is born into often determines whether or not there is basic access to healthy fresh food, or safety and security within their community or the ability to get a good education. Seconds after we are born, the “circumstances” into which we are born begin to have a profound and, in many cases, insurmountable impact on our lives and our future.
The thousands of children being held in detention centers, internment camps and child prisons by order of the U.S. Government and the Department of Homeland Security are currently suffering the traumatic effects of the U.S. Family Separation Policy and our broken immigration system. Our government is literally taking young children away from their parents and incarcerating them in cages, giving them Mylar blankets to keep them warm and implementing a policy that does not allow them to be held or given comfort by staff members. This is state sanctioned child abuse. It is not only inhumane, but is most probably causing irreparable psychological, emotional and physical damage to these children, affecting both their lives and their destiny.
In the years to come, we will recognize how much what we did or did not do in defense of these children will directly affect the quality of life we have a right to expect. At some point, if we live out our lives, we will get old and be dependent upon those who were once children to lead us, to make laws and to govern us. Will we feel secure that we have given them an example of leadership and humanity that they can follow? I think not. Not if we continue to show them that putting kids in cages is a policy we can condone.
