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September 11, 2006
She stands with
her arms folded resolutely across her chest. In the background of the
photo, you can see playground equipment. She is the mom protecting
our children in this lead magazine article about the dangers of pest
control spraying in the nation’s schools.
On the Internet,
a website tracks reports of school pesticide exposure incidents. In
1995, case #94415050501, records parents’ complaints that their
children had been exposed to pesticides on the school playground. One
child in 5th grade broke out in hives. However, medical
reports did not substantiate any claim that the child’s hives were due
to pesticide exposure at school. Investigators also documented
chemical applications on a neighboring farm the day before.
Another website
links dangers from pesticides to “hazardous environmental exposures”
in general. Their “Guiding Principles for Children’s Environmental
Health” is a model of militant insistence on the right of children and
adults “to know about proven and potential hazards to their
environmental health and safety.”
This type of
advocacy related to health issues, especially where children are
concerned, has become commonplace. In the 1950s no cigarette smoker
could have envisioned a complete city-wide ban for smokers in public
buildings and restaurants.
Food police are
building campaigns to crack down on fast food establishments…in spite
of the fact that no one is dragged through a drive-in against their
will and forced to order a fat-laden super-sized order of fries. If
groceries go the way of cigarettes, one day we might be buying cookies
with bold warnings from the Surgeon General printed on the side.
Thus, it is no
surprise to read a top story this morning about a group of renowned
psychologists, academics, teachers’ leaders and authors who say that
“action is needed now in order to prevent the death of childhood.”
The 110-strong
lobby group has written a letter to the Daily Telegraph asking
that the Government intervene. Without immediate action, children
will “suffer irretrievable psychological and physical damage.”
The letter
insists that children “still need what developing human beings have
always needed, including real food (as opposed to processed ‘junk’),
real play (as opposed to sedentary screen-based entertainment),
first-hand experience of the world they live in and regular
interaction with the real-life significant adults in their lives.”
It is no
surprise that they point their fingers at marketing forces for making
children “act and dress like mini-adults.” Sue Palmer, former head
teacher and author of Toxic Childhood passed the letter. “I
think it is shocking,” she said. “We must make a public statement.”
The news story
headline pounds in the message…”Poisoning Childhood.” It is
reassuring to see the experts calling adults to account for the
welfare of children. Then, again…
With health at
the top of every agenda in public policy and the media, one must
wonder why there is one health epidemic that is being shoved under the
rug as part of a campaign of political correctness.
A child chooses
a snack food laced with trans fats, and we call for the jailing of
corporate executives. A child chooses to have sex, with or without a
condom, and we herald her as a “responsible” and “mature” person who
is “finding her sexual identity.”
We pinch out
cigarettes across the room because we don’t want junior to be brain
damaged by second-hand smoke. Then, at school, as part of a liberated
sex education program, we hand out the address to the local abortion
clinic where kids can get tested for one of the 25 rampant sexually
transmitted diseases, some of them fatal…all under the shield of
confidentiality…out of the purview of parents.
Go figure.
Poisoning childhood? Maybe if someone could link trans fats to sexual
dysfunction, our children might have a fighting chance at entering
adulthood with their health and well-being in tact.
On the other
hand, perhaps it is time for adults to attend to teen sex with the
same intensity they give to cigarettes in the next room. We are
poisoning childhood, and it is time to stop.
Copyright © 2006 Jane Jimenez
July 10, 2006
How Young Is Too Young?
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