If Children Mattered, the System Would Look Different

We live in a country that forces people to give birth but won’t provide formula, child care, or parental leave. We live in a country where politicians praise “the sanctity of life” but cut school funding, allow lead in water, and make bulletproof backpacks a back-to-school trend. We say children are the future but here is the truth:

if children truly mattered, the system would look different.

daycare would be free- or at least affordable. Mothers and fathers wouldn’t be punished for staying home. Mental health support would start young- before the trauma calcifies. Schools wouldn’t feel like prisons. And kids wouldn’t have to grow up so fast just to survive. We don’t lack resources. We lack political will and collective protection. And the worst part is, we normalized it. We’ve learned to accept it when a system, shrinks children down into data points, when it treats their needs like luxuries, when it shames their caregivers into silence. But I won’t be silent. Because when you care about children, you care about the world they grow into. You care about clean air, emotional safety, public parks, affordable care, education, equity, joy. You care about the mother crying in her car. You care about the child who flinches when they hear yelling. You care about the ones who never even made it to kindergarten. This system doesn’t impact children it uses them. So let this post be rupture: I will not raise my child in silence. I will not pretend he is lucky just to survive. I want more than survival for him. I want wholeness. And that means we cannot keep calling this “normal.”