ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602280006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
IN 1992, president-to-be Bill Clinton recommended that we ``invest in children.'' If children were stock shares and Wall Street were tracking their performance, perhaps we'd be showing more concern for our investment.
Right now, America's portfolio isn't looking very healthy. Indeed, the latest index shows children's stock continuing to plummet even in relatively good economic times.
Recent reports by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Children's Defense Fund show the fortunes of children becoming measurably worse each year. Among the findings:
* Nearly 16 million children - 23 percent of all American kids - now live below the poverty line. More than one in every four preschoolers is poor. (In contrast, 14 percent of all American children were poor in 1969.) Nearly 44 percent of African-American children live in poverty, compared with 17 percent of white children.
* In 1993, the latest year for which statistics are available, there were 2.9 million reported cases of child abuse and neglect, compared with 1.7 million cases reported ten years earlier.
* Some 10 million American children have no health insurance. This number has been inching up in recent years.
* Nearly 300,000 babies had a low birth-weight in 1993, the highest rate since 1976 for this indicator of health problems and potential death in early childhood. Nearly 35,000 American babies died before their first birthday in 1992 - a rate of 8.5 per 1,000, which isn't much better than the rate in some of the world's poorest countries.
Add to this misery index what we know to be other factors depleting children's prospects: unwed mothers, absent fathers, drugs, violence, inadequate education. The list is long and grim, and solutions aren't yet in sight. Government-financed and other social-service efforts can help, and need more support. But they can't do it all.
The best answer is still a better stock of parents. Yes, parents sometimes need help. But they also should understand before they bring children into the world that an entire village can't do for their kid what they are unable, unwilling or uncaring enough to do themselves.
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB