Like so many young people just starting college, I was uncertain of what to major in. In my mind it was more than just what I was interested in, more than what I could earn a living at. I wanted my education to make a difference in the world. Not just to enrich me, but also make me capable of enriching others. Of all the people in the world I wanted to help, my heart reached out to children. I didn’t realize at the time that my mother’s heart was yearning to nurture even then.
I decided to pursue a degree in Family and Human Development. I planned to learn as much as I could about what children needed in order to develop into happy, healthy adults and then work to make sure all children had access to those things. I dreamed of going on to law school and then working as an advocate for children. I followed the work of Marian Wright Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund. I applied for an internship with them and hoped I would one day be living and working in Washington D.C., helping to mold policies in the government and society that would bring prosperity, safety and quality education to children everywhere.
Life didn’t go quite as I’d plotted it out, and before that dream took me too far, I met and married my husband and we began our family. As children came to our home, those yearnings to make a difference were poured into my own little ones. Sometimes I felt guilty that my vision for helping so many had shrunk to just helping my own. However, as my understanding of the family expanded, I realized I’d become exactly what I’d planned on being, an advocate for children. Only this time I was defending and making a difference in the lives of the ones I loved the most.
The Best Child Advocates
An advocate stands in the place of the one they advocate for, pleading their cause and seeking opportunities they can’t seek for themselves. Children need caring adults who seek their best interest. They need people in their lives to stand between them and the world. No one can do this better than mothers and fathers. In the process, more often than not, the lives of other children are blessed alongside with our own.
One of my first efforts at advocating for my own child was when my oldest was just a toddler. The city park in our town was a pleasant place, but the playground was dangerous for little children. The main play structure was made of rough, round logs and had no railings to protect children from falling. When my little boy wanted to play on the structure I held my breath and stayed as close as possible in case he fell from the five-foot height where the slide went down. Sometimes one of the logs would fall out leaving a hole in the top platform big enough for my little one to fall through. I wondered when “they” would do something about it.
One day as I went to pay a bill at the city office, I noticed a sign about a meeting for parks and recreation. I told a friend about it and we decided to go. We voiced our concerns and in turn we were put in charge of planning a new play structure. We researched, wrote letters, wrote grants and designed a playground that would be a safe place for our children as they grew. We had no broad vision for this project; we were just two mothers who wanted a safe place for their children to play. After all our efforts, the old log structure was removed and beautiful, new equipment was installed. It always made me smile when we’d go to the park after that and hear other mothers saying how happy they were that the city had finally done something about the play structure. “They” had done something and surprisingly I was one of them.
I have seen parents advocating for their children in the schools, providing opportunities for all the children who get their education there. I have seen them petitioning hospitals to provide services that would bless their families. I have seen them complaining to companies or institutions who promote behaviors that would harm their children. Mothers and fathers advocating for their children in large and small ways find solutions that will not only bless their own child, but other children too.
Where Professional Child Advocacy Stumbles
The focus in professional child advocacy is broad and comprehensive. It fails to see the specifics and individuality of a child and a situation like a parent can. Too often the focus is only on the child. The focus on children alone in professional advocacy almost always leads to answers outside of the family. In fact all too often the family is seen as a problem, not a solution to the troubles children face. But it is in the family unit, in the way the Lord has designed it, that children can receive the things they truly need.
To look for answers outside of the family is to cut off the source of strength that sustains children throughout their lives. Once when I was in college one of my roommates brought to our apartment a lilac branch she had cut from a bush near her family’s home. We placed it in a bucket and forced it to bloom in our apartment in the middle of winter. Tight buds unfurled to reveal tiny green leaves and perfect white blossoms. The scent of lilacs filled our apartment. Our solution for an early spring, however beautiful, was only temporary and all too soon our beautiful branch was lying in the dumpster. Looking for solutions outside of the family is the same. It looks like we are making a difference, but since we have separated the child from the source of life the results for society are only temporary.
A Sustaining Force For Good
Elder L. Tom Perry reminded us recently that, “righteous, conscientious, persistent, daily parenting is among the most powerful and sustaining forces for good in the world. The health of any society, the happiness of its people, their prosperity and their peace all find common roots in the teaching of children in the home (Ensign, May 2010).” The answers to the problems child advocates seek to remedy are found in the family. The strength and peace of society is found in strong and peaceful families. The health and happiness of children is found in the family.
In strong families children prosper. The answer to child poverty is a provider called father who watches over and provides for his children. Such a father makes sure there is food to eat, clothing to wear, and shelter from the elements no matter how humble these things may be. The answer to children living in poverty is not welfare, food stamps or other kinds of subsidies. The answer is father, protector and provider.
In these families children grow up healthy and happy. The answer for neglect is called mother, a woman who watches over and nurtures her children with tenderness and care. Such a mother makes sure she feeds her children healthy meals, provides a clean environment for them to play and live in, and teaches them patiently.
The answer to childhood neglect isn’t found in agencies or programs. It is found in the heart of the woman who bore them and who continues to put their needs ahead of her own.
Of course there are parents who neglect their duty to provide even the most basic needs for their children. There are parents who harm instead of protecting. For these children there must be protectors found outside the family, but this is the exception, not the rule. As a society we mustn’t begin to think that because horrible things happen to some children that social and governmental institutions should take over the job of protecting, educating and providing for all children. The family is still the best institution for teaching and protecting the next generation.
