What's Really Important

Boy, Indiana is just making it into a lot of the top statistics lately. The latest one is pretty sad, though. This article declares our state the one with "the worst fatality rate for child abuse in the nation". What are we doing (or not doing might be more accurate) to earn a statistic like this one?

Well, first of all - in order to have the worst fatality rate for child abuse, that must mean we have a pretty bad rate for child abuse as well. Hmm... are there just a lot of really bad parents in Indiana, or what? I guess that's the first thing to think about. What kind of people harm their children like that? Stuff like this is apparently happening all around us, and we're not even aware. Or maybe those that are aware aren't doing enough about it.

People aren't islands. I know that parents can hide what's happening in their home, but why is it like this? Why do we let people become so sequestered (as well as retreating ourselves) that we wouldn't realize or notice that a child is being abused? Why isn't there more of a sense of community where familes at least integrated enough with other families that someone would at least have an idea that a child is being mistreated? And yes - it's a sticky situation. Who wants to be the one to report a parent when they find out they're abusing their child. And what if you're not sure? What then? I don't have all the answers, obviously - but I think it would at least be an improvement if our society wasn't so private.

What about those of us that don't always see or know when stuff like this is going on? What happens when we find out? There's got to be a way to stop this before an abuse turns into a fatality. Indiana at least seems to be trying to do something about it. As read in the above-mentioned article, "last year the Republican-controlled General Assembly, even in a tight budget cycle, approved hiring hundreds of additional caseworkers. A newly elected governor made it a priority to reorganize child welfare, creating a separate department with new leaders and a fresh approach to protecting abused kids." Sounds like we might at least be on the right track.

Stuff like this should be one of the more major issues when electing government officials. What are they going to do about this? We debate things like abortion (which is an important issue, I agree), but what about the children that we already have? Isn't taking care of them just as important? To me, this is just another indicator of how politics needs to change. We need to stop making it about left vs. right and make it more about taking care of what's important, like our children - before it's too late and those children aren't there to take care of anymore.