Daddy, what’s a deficit?
Parents, we have a problem. 
You care so much for your kids. But, as you read today’s headlines, do you get that sinking feeling that their future may not be what you were expecting? Are you a bit fearful that, just as they are walking into their future, their country teeters on the brink of bankruptcy? Maybe you, like most of us, are hanging onto the hope that, with some miracle, this is all just going to turn around, and everything will get back to “normal.” I mean, this is America, right?
FYI: Unlike other 1st world nations, our politicians and pundits consider the well-being of our children to be a “soft issue.” National defense, the economy, our escalating health care budgets, crime? Well, those are the really important “hard issues.”
I experienced this reality in March, 2001, when I was invited to Washington D.C. by a member of Congress to speak to our national leadership about children, families, and the growing social concerns that were trending our children’s futures towards disaster. That presentation, scheduled for the last week of August, 2001, was canceled “Due to lack of interest… No one in Washington is talking about children and families these days.” Two weeks later, we all woke to the horror of 9/11. Any hope that our leaders would reconsider the folly of leaving our children to chance died in the dust of the Twin Towers.
In 2001, as ignored as our “soft” issues were, who could have imagined our “Band Aid” budget to pay for them would grow so huge that in 2011 we would cut days off of your kids’ school year, overcrowd their classrooms, cancel athletics, drama and music, school nurses, counselors, librarians, and special education programs. While every middle and high school campus confronts drugs, knifes, and guns hidden in backpacks and jean pockets, school police are given their pink slips. We release inmates into our communities, then shred our social safety net…. you know, the services that protect your kids and communities…. with first responders now a “take a number” option.
“Experts” blame our escalating budget meltdown on the crisis in the housing market; others blame it on the crisis in the middle east. Research and common sense blame it on the crisis in our homes.
Consider this.
In the last ten years:
Ø Violent crime by our children has quadrupled
Ø Suicide for children ages 10 to 14 has tripled
Ø Aggravated assault by our teens has jumped 64%
Ø Serious mental health services for children has tripled
Ø 400 of our children have been murdered by their classmates
Ø STDs for 15-24 year olds have increased 28%
Ø 1 in 3 adolescent and teen girls become single mothers
Ø Our educational rankings rank in the bottom of the civilized world
Ø Every 9 seconds a student drops out of school
Ø Organized gangs have increased 28% & now operate in 250 of our cities
Ø Adolescent substance abuse is now America’s #1 public health problem
Perhaps, as our children are checking out, it’s time we adults check in on
the HARD FACTS of our soft issues.
You decide:
A decade of the War Abroad: $1 Trillion * Hard issue?
A year of the War at Home: $1 Trillion + ** Soft issue?
We have a choice:
1. Continue to raise fees, taxes, and our debt ceiling – Nonsense
OR
2. Raise our children well – Common Sense
Remember that miracle you are hoping for? It’s called conscious parenting.
The AMERICA’S ANGEL Campaign is a citizen’s call to make conscious parenting our national norm, because we are only as ethical, compassionate, and hopeful as the children we raise.
Prevention starts with Parents. And, with 4000 newborns every day, the time for prevention starts now!
If your concerns are growing, your hope fading, if your budget is breaking, with the future of your children on the line, if you’re ready to take action, then add your voice to ours!
The AMERICA’S ANGEL Campaign ~ Raising the Bar on Raising America
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Here are actions you can take today to create the change your children can believe in.
- Be the example of a joy-based family http://www.americasangel.org/research/play/
- Meet the developmental need of your kids for PLAY http://www.americasangel.org/research/developmental-stages/erikson-developmental-stages/ http://www.americasangel.org/research/play
- Share the AMERICA’S ANGEL mission, website and face book page with your friends, family, colleagues, PTA, and networks. http://www.americasangel.org http://facebook.com/americasangel
- Organize a local community chapter of the America’s Angel Campaign. We’ll help you! Email outreach@americasangel.org
- Sign up for the Campaign newsletter on the site homepage http://www.americasangel.org
- Help us help you: DONATE…. because it takes more than wings to support this ANGEL https://npo.networkforgood.org/Donate/Donate.aspx?npoSubscriptionId=1002291#
- Tell Washington how to really fix the deficit. http://www.americasangel.org/call-to-action/wake-up-washington/
- Put the “I raise America’s Future and I Vote” decal on your car window
Contact the Campaign’s public relations office pr@americasangel.org if you have contacts to:
Conscious celebrity parents
National organizations aligned with this mission
Corporations interested in cause-marketing the well-being of America’s children.
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- Fear-based families fuel your rising taxes for city, county, state, and federal juvenile and adult criminal justice systems, child protective services, foster care agencies, special educational programs and services, epidemics of child abuse, pornography, sexual exploitation, cyber attacks, white collar crime, identity theft, gang violence, school violence, community violence, drug addictions, and family violence. We pay for the hospitalizations and physical and mental health care resulting from all of the above. Your tax dollars pay for the escalating costs and recycling issues of pregnant teens, premature infants, birth defects, mothers on meth, sexually transmitted diseases, alcohol and drug addictions, drunk driving, road rage, suicide, poverty, homelessness, mental disorders, school drop outs, etc.
- Every time we incarcerate a person, you and I assume the role of “adoptive parent,” for we are responsible to pay for their housing, food, medical care, psychiatric care, clothing, educational opportunities, and protection within the confines of prison walls.
- ** Source Samplings: Costs of the War at Home
* War Abroad:
Source Sampling
CIA budget unavailable to the general public
** War at Home:
Source Sampling of relevant Federal Budgets:
Note: A comprehensive, but incalcuable accounting would include the human,
economic, social, patriotic, and lost potential and promise of our children and future.
http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/the-fbi-budget-for-fiscal-year-2011
http://www.justice.gov/jmd/2011factsheets/
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/policy/12budget/fy12Highlight.pdf
http://dhhs.gov/asfr/ob/docbudget
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/policymakers/PDF/Overview_FedFundingStreams.pdf
http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/assistance/index.html.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/fysb/content/programs/tpp.htm
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/fysb/content/programs/tpp.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/TeenPregnancy/PreventTeenPreg.htm
www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/prevention/grantees/research_2010_projects.html
http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/prevention/grantees/models_2010_programs.html
http://www.chcf.org/~/media/Files/PDF/H/PDF%20HealthCareCosts10.pdf
www.hhs.gov/asfr/ob/docbudget/2011budgetinbrief.pdf
www.hhs.gov/about/hhsbudget.html
Research-based evidence demonstrating the causal factor of the War at Home to our unsustainable, escalating US Health Care Budget:
Health care costs have been rising for several years. Expenditures in the United States on health care surpassed $2.3 trillion in 2008, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980. Stemming this growth has become a major policy priority, as the government, employers, and consumers increasingly struggle to keep up with health care costs. [1] http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/us-healthcare-costs-approach-3t-16763
From the findings of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study it is estimated that approximately 60% of US adult disease pandemics result from the compromised immune systems developed from fear-based experiences in childhood.
http://www.cdc.gov/ace/index.htm
The AMERICA’S ANGEL Campaign ~ Raising the Bar on Raising America
It’s what your children want. Get Involved!
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