The benefits of decent nutrition for ALL our children go without saying.

But it would also be a direct and immediate economic stimulus in that it would free up money from the food budget — as well as saving a lot of time getting lunches ready every day!

Hence, education in California has less support than 40 other states. Districts are being asked to make MID-YEAR CUTS: Who needs English teachers, huh? What about classes of 40 for English language learners? elimination of advanced Spanish and French?

Nail on the head. One of the major benefits of these types of programs is the cost avoidance of the problems that they help prevent. For all of the warm, fuzzy benefits of Head Start, etc., they really do have a major impact on “bottom line” by lowering the cost of addressing later educational intervention, crime, health care, and other “externalities”.

What the social conservatives don’t like about Head Start and similar early intervention programs that it threatens their screed on “self-reliance” and “personal responsibility.”

Thank you for your hard work and caring. Missy is lucky to have you in her life.

“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”–Voltaire, Candide

Investing in these programs is cultivating the garden of our future.

My grandniece, who I am raising, was just accepted to our local Head Start program. I am raising her in poverty, she is three and her parents are on the street. She was born a child of color, HIV and Hep C exposed, mother and father on drugs. Her “introduction” to this world was months of excruciating treatments and testing that often left me in tears as I watched her suffer through them. There is nothing like watching a 6 month old baby being held down on an examination table while they take 8 vials of blood and give treatments. Treatments that some doctors say could have killed her as they have with babies in South Africa. Missy is now considered HIV and Hep-C negative, and with a great deal of love and caring, my little “Missy” has grown into a funny, lively, smart little girl.

However, I am now living the nightmare of wondering if I should tell her school officials of her beginnings, because since we do not have a complete generation with these treatments, we do not know if these treatments “stick.” I would DIE if someone treating a scrape this little one got on the playground, was infected because I trusted that she was not considered HIV positive now. Still the child protective services, not wanting Missy to be “labeled,” told me not to say anything and I understand why …

But when I applied for Head Start for her, initially they had to turn Missy away because the district where we live had to give 4 year olds the spaces, for good reason. See, many of these 4 years olds had had *no* exposure to school and needed to get prepared for kindergarten, as most other upper income kids their age already have gotten. This would have put these lower income kids behind from the get-go.

I am adopting this little one but looming in the background is the disadvantage this little one has had from birth and while I know that love goes a long way, I also know that raising kids in poverty, no matter how hard you work, is also setting this child at a disadvantage. I am an older “mom” now and I will give her my all, which as a struggling single mom who worked at what I call “McJobs,” I could never give to my other kids.

I now know from experience that parenting is the most important job you can do. After all raising kids is about making a future for this country. It should be counted as “work” and “dependency on welfare” is an oxymoron when kids are growing up without any direction or parental influences because Mom (and Dad) are off trying to work to get enough to pay the rent and do not have the energy or the time to give to the ones languishing at home (if they can afford a home).

Right now parenting is treated as if it is a “recreation” not an important job. When anyone says, “Why should I support raising other people’s kids?” I tell them that with their thinking lets take this a little further. I ask them, “Then who do you think is going to pay your Social Security? Who is going to care for this country when your time is past? Who is going to fight in our wars? ‘Those people’s’ kids, that’s who!”

If we do not support these kids and their parents now, all you can ask for is a generation of kids who think they have no future and do not matter because, after all, they are treated as a burden, they are not considered important enough and worth our time and support.

How about seeing these kids as the future we want for our country instead? How about realizing that there are people out there who need support in order to raise their kids in a way that gives them and our country a future, not punish them for being born?

My 2 cents,

Cat in Seattle

Parenting IS “work” and furthermore, low income families are contributing to our society. Low income people pay more taxes than the rich or corporations, yet it is the corporations at this time that “merit” our tax support without so much as even having to tell us how they are spending our money. http://www.itepnet.org/ (see the pdf’s on the left side of this page which will show you who is paying taxes and who is not as well as who are paying less).

I am an activist trying to spread the truth about low income Americans. We do work hard and we do give back!

Cat In Seattle