Someone Else's Child

Many thots tonight. I don't even know where to begin, so I will just start rambling and see where this goes.

One thing becomes increasingly clear to me as I learn more about this world I live in. Children who grow up in reasonably stable environments, with reasonably attentive parents who take a reasonable amount of interest in them, may be prepared to start dealing with the world on their own around eighteen. But expecting them to make it completely on their own, alone and unassisted by this age is not reasonable. They do not have the education, or job skills, to make a living wage and living on minimum wages without other resources is almost impossible. Automobiles cost money and insurance for males under twenty five is outrageous. Less than top notch cars require more maintenance. Gas is high. Relying on public transportation helps, but so many places do not have reliable public transport to enough places to make it work. Clothing and laundry, food and incidentals go up every day. They are lucky to break even, let alone set aside enough to continue their education and try to get a better job.

Now take children who do not start off with these reasonable parents, ones who are shuffled between angry divorced parents, or kept in households where their simple presence is an annoyance to the parents girl friends and boy friends, or worse. Kids who are compelled to run away from home and end up in camps, or detention halls, or possibly, if they are lucky, decent foster homes. Kids who run, not with the wolves, but with whatever jackals will take them in. Kids who are throw aways in a world oriented, not around them, but around the self-centered adults who hold their reins. Where do they learn what they need to know in order to live, let alone thrive?

Bringing up baby in today's world is difficult enough when things are halfway normal, but when they run towards modern day Oliver Twists, it is obscene. No child should have to grow up hungry for food or love and that needs to extend a few years beyond the "legal age" until they get their feet under them. Of course there have to be limits and enforcing these can be tough as they grow older, but with enough love it is possible.

So here's to the hero who reaches out to these kids when their biological families are not there for them, the person who takes the time and trouble to offer a steady hand to try and keep them from sinking before they've even had a chance to really swim. It takes patience and money, but mostly it takes a lot of caring and time we don't seem to want to invest in someone else's child.