John Whitehead's Commentary
Missing in Action: America's Lost Youth
The tragic case of seven-year-old Danielle Van Dam, whose corpse was recently uncovered after the child had been missing for close to a month, has brought home to parents once again the tenuous nature of keeping our children safe. That a child could be snatched from under her own roof, with her parents at home, is enough to put an end to a parent's meager moments of peaceful sleep.
So for a little while, we start paying closer attention to the pictures on milk cartons and postcards--the faces of more than 750,000 kids who are reported missing every year. Broken down, this adds up to nearly 2,100 kids who disappear every day. In all probability, however, the actual number of lost young people is far greater than those reported missing due to abduction by strangers, parental abduction, runaways or throwaways.
And while the sad end to the search for Danielle Van Dam temporarily focused the national spotlight on the issue of missing children, we cannot ignore the fact that too many of our young people are missing even when they're still at home, lost in a world they do not understand and unsure how to get back to safer ground.
The dangers that threaten young people today include rape, abduction, drugs, prostitution, cults, molestation, pornography, teen violence, suicide and pregnancy. Add poverty to that mix--one out of every five American children lives in poverty--and the picture becomes even bleaker.
But as simplistic as it may sound, the problem can, at times, be boiled down to something as basic as parents not sitting down to eat with their kids often enough. In other words, when parents don't make time for their children, the young people suffer.
According to a report by the Council of Economic Advisors, the majority of teenagers who engage in unhealthy activities--such as smoking, drug use, drinking, suicidal thoughts or attempts on their lives--either don't eat dinner with their parents regularly or do not feel close to their parents. What this tells us is that too many parents, for whatever reason, are finding themselves with too much to do and too little time left for their children.
But kids have all the time in the world. One children's group reports that school occupies only 20% of an average American child's waking hours; how children spend the remaining 80% of their time depends largely on the resources available to them. Unfortunately, with easy access to unsupervised television, video games and the Internet and with drugs in the schools and the oftentimes-harmful peer activities and relationships, too many young people are staying busy in all the wrong ways.
Little wonder, then, that juvenile crime rates triple during the afternoon hours, when many unsupervised youngsters experiment with tobacco, alcohol, drugs and sex. Or that youth between the ages of 12 and 17 are most at risk of committing violent acts and being victims between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Or that teenagers can fly stolen planes into buildings or go on shooting rampages with no one having suspected that anything was wrong.
Over time, the lack of investment in our young people takes a toll on their adult lives. That's why, when a 19-year-old Wisconsin student dies after giving birth in a dormitory bathroom stall, without anyone knowing she was pregnant or in need, we are baffled by what went wrong.
Considering the breakdown of the traditional family--and the economic necessity of two parents working outside the home--it is little wonder that our children seem trapped in a web of uncertainty and anxiety not of their own making.
Certainly, there are a number of factors that contribute to this youth crisis we're witnessing, but the most critical remains the role of parents in their child's life. If we are to provide the leaders of tomorrow with a less turbulent future, we must realize that young people need hope--they need guidance--and, most importantly, they need our time.
So how do we save our lost children?
In the words of General Colin Powell, "We can't go forward unless everybody moves forward. We can't believe in the next century until every child believes he or she has a future in the next century. We will either work to build our children, or we can continue to build more jails. We must build our nation's youth."
Many years ago, in an effort to raise public awareness about the issue of missing children and the need to address this national problem, President Reagan named May 25 as Missing Children's Day. But it's not just the missing children who are the problem--it's the families missing in action from too many children's lives.
So before we lay the foundations for another memorial to past tragedies, I hope we will invest in the future by making our children's welfare a top priority in our lives. The time we spend with them--leading, guiding and teaching by word and example--will make all the difference in both their world and their children's future.
So for a little while, we start paying closer attention to the pictures on milk cartons and postcards--the faces of more than 750,000 kids who are reported missing every year. Broken down, this adds up to nearly 2,100 kids who disappear every day. In all probability, however, the actual number of lost young people is far greater than those reported missing due to abduction by strangers, parental abduction, runaways or throwaways.
And while the sad end to the search for Danielle Van Dam temporarily focused the national spotlight on the issue of missing children, we cannot ignore the fact that too many of our young people are missing even when they're still at home, lost in a world they do not understand and unsure how to get back to safer ground.
The dangers that threaten young people today include rape, abduction, drugs, prostitution, cults, molestation, pornography, teen violence, suicide and pregnancy. Add poverty to that mix--one out of every five American children lives in poverty--and the picture becomes even bleaker.
But as simplistic as it may sound, the problem can, at times, be boiled down to something as basic as parents not sitting down to eat with their kids often enough. In other words, when parents don't make time for their children, the young people suffer.
According to a report by the Council of Economic Advisors, the majority of teenagers who engage in unhealthy activities--such as smoking, drug use, drinking, suicidal thoughts or attempts on their lives--either don't eat dinner with their parents regularly or do not feel close to their parents. What this tells us is that too many parents, for whatever reason, are finding themselves with too much to do and too little time left for their children.
But kids have all the time in the world. One children's group reports that school occupies only 20% of an average American child's waking hours; how children spend the remaining 80% of their time depends largely on the resources available to them. Unfortunately, with easy access to unsupervised television, video games and the Internet and with drugs in the schools and the oftentimes-harmful peer activities and relationships, too many young people are staying busy in all the wrong ways.
Little wonder, then, that juvenile crime rates triple during the afternoon hours, when many unsupervised youngsters experiment with tobacco, alcohol, drugs and sex. Or that youth between the ages of 12 and 17 are most at risk of committing violent acts and being victims between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Or that teenagers can fly stolen planes into buildings or go on shooting rampages with no one having suspected that anything was wrong.
Over time, the lack of investment in our young people takes a toll on their adult lives. That's why, when a 19-year-old Wisconsin student dies after giving birth in a dormitory bathroom stall, without anyone knowing she was pregnant or in need, we are baffled by what went wrong.
Considering the breakdown of the traditional family--and the economic necessity of two parents working outside the home--it is little wonder that our children seem trapped in a web of uncertainty and anxiety not of their own making.
Certainly, there are a number of factors that contribute to this youth crisis we're witnessing, but the most critical remains the role of parents in their child's life. If we are to provide the leaders of tomorrow with a less turbulent future, we must realize that young people need hope--they need guidance--and, most importantly, they need our time.
So how do we save our lost children?
In the words of General Colin Powell, "We can't go forward unless everybody moves forward. We can't believe in the next century until every child believes he or she has a future in the next century. We will either work to build our children, or we can continue to build more jails. We must build our nation's youth."
Many years ago, in an effort to raise public awareness about the issue of missing children and the need to address this national problem, President Reagan named May 25 as Missing Children's Day. But it's not just the missing children who are the problem--it's the families missing in action from too many children's lives.
So before we lay the foundations for another memorial to past tragedies, I hope we will invest in the future by making our children's welfare a top priority in our lives. The time we spend with them--leading, guiding and teaching by word and example--will make all the difference in both their world and their children's future.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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