Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion on Children

Dear Friends,

     In the year 1800 the child mortality rate in the United States, children five and under was 462.9 per thousand births or over 46% did not reach the age of five. Jump ahead to 2020 and the numbers change dramatically to seven per thousand births. Think about these numbers and now add this statistic; the average life expectancy in 1860 was 39.4 years, in 2020 it has risen to 78.9. In 1860 a couple married, built a house, managed to make a living, and have children, and die, in a forty year time span. Babies died with such frequency that little girls “doll babies” often came with a baby bottle, maybe a change of clothes, and a casket. The life of a child was so precious and the death rate so scary that young girls had to be prepared for the possibility of child mortality. How blessed are we that today we live much longer, we live to see our children grow and start a family making us grandparents, often living long enough to be great grandparents. What a reason to rejoice. I was blessed to see my son born, I was active in the raising of two sons I am very proud of, and I am so proud to say I have a grandson whom I am proud of. How about you? What do you feel when you look at, hold, play with your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren? I use the word love.

      How do you feel when politicians sign bills and laws that permit a child to be torn from a mother’s body, aborted because it is her body, her choice? What in the name of humanity has happened to us, to feel no remorse in taking the life of an unborn child and end it with all the give a care removing a wart? Can you imagine our ancestors in the 1800’s reaction to a doctor telling them that they don’t have to give birth to this child, simply have it removed? When did life become so expendable? I cannot imagine never having been able to sing to my sons before carrying them to bed, or not reading bedtime stories to them. I look back at the nights I sat next to their beds watching over them because they were sick. The way I felt when they needed stitches, a cast until a broken forearm healed. The pride in watching them grow to manhood, what has happened to us as human beings? How hard was it to grow to into an adult, find a way of making a living, starting a family and raising children in forty years? We have twice as long, has this made life less precious, more expendable? Or are we just becoming a society of ME? Has it really become my enjoyment, my possessions, and my rights to the happiness that money can buy? What happened to sacrifice for the sake of my family and a better life to come, wanting our children to have a better life than we had? What happened to working for a living and the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling of being a part of a neighborhood, a community, and family pride? Sadly we no longer ask what we can do to make our community a safe place, our schools better, instead we are a ME society, ME = my enjoyment. So play your video games, watch your sports, smoke your recreational marijuana, after all you deserve it.