A Stress-less Time

Over the Thanksgiving holiday drive to and from Chicago, and during dinners and down-time with family and others, I put the question of the week to a few: "What stressors did we experience as kids?" and "How did we manage it?" From siblings, I heard more than I could come up with alone. Getting good grades put a lot of stress on my brothers, because there would be lots of yelling and privileges lost if the grades were poor. Not having a wardrobe that wasn't entirely out-of-style hand-me-downs was all that I could conjure up. Not that our childhoods weren't without many unpleasant memories, just that there was no long-term chronic pressure that caused any of us to grow into less-than-equipped adults. I am quite sure that my parents felt the weight of pressure applied by the leadership of the Catholic Church not to practice birth control, resulting in a family that was larger than a man's salary could support. (But thank God for it, or we wouldn't be here!) My father worked two jobs most of my life, because one job didn't cover everything that six children and two adults needed. His career job was Police Officer in a dangerous city on a small salary; pretty stressful. My mom was a full time parent of six children; very isolating and demanding at the same time. Now they felt stress, but the children never really felt it. We lacked nothing, even if we didn't think so. My parents developed strategies that kept us well, safe, educated, and independent when adulthood came. They were hard-working tight-wads, and they did well for themselves and us even after they died, and so they were successful parents. The Thanksgiving conversation included my sister-in-law, who recalled her childhood in Mexico as the tenth of eleven children. She recalled the stress of widespread alcoholism, and blamed the common Mexican practice of youth consumption, and the customary machismo attached with drinking the vile stuff. More sad stories of how alcohol abuse split families and took lives of loved ones followed. I looked up some information about Mexico's early childhood difficulties.
Mexico's children have an overall lack of access to education of any quality, which perpetuates the cycle of poverty. Poverty is a "Which came first?" problem that includes poor nutrition, home and community environments that are void of cognitive stimulation, child abuse, gang activity, drug related social problems, and teen pregnancy. Poor educational quality in the matter of undereducated teachers contributes to the lack of preparation of children for entry into the work world, keeping them hostages of poverty. (Zurlo, 2006). Children born into this cycle seldom escape, because they cannot get one of the very few good jobs that will propel them to a better life. Advocates for Mexican children are appealing to the U.S. for help as a way to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the border states. This Win-Win strategy is the most likely to succeed in improving education first, and then the very existence of children and families in Mexico.
You see, me and most of my sisters and brothers now know that we did not suffer under these stressors as children. What we may have called " childhood stress" is really childish misconception. We were the lucky ones.
More information about the plight of undereducated children can be read in the sources listed below.

http://www.alasthemovement.org
Zurlo, Luanne. (2006, January 20). Addressing a Root Cause of Mexican Migration Pressures to the U.S. The Link Between Education and Immigration. Retrieved from http://www.worldfund.org

Child Development and Public Health

When my oldest daughter was 11, I decided that it was safe enough for her to visit her father's family in Colombia, South America. There were a number of real safety issues to consider: Her father was at the top of the list of dangers, then the U.S. Department of State warned US citizens not to travel to Colombia because of terrorist activity by drug cartels. There were a few concerns as the list went on about travel-related issues, and at  the bottom of the list of dangers was the water. We have all jokingly heard the "Don't drink the water" warning when traveling outside of the United States, and I was prepared with my mega-bottle of Pepto Bismol and an assumption that there would be plenty of water bottled to purchase. There was no bottled water to purchase, and my host family made sure that the water we used for cooking and drinking was boiled (We did not drink the water!). But even sanitized by boiling, there was some unidentified "stuff" floating in it. The house was equipped with a tank on the roof for rainwater, which was piped into the house plumbing for use when the aqueduct was closed. The aqueduct supplied the city with water from the mountains. Very often during the hot summer months, the aqueduct was closed during the day, open only at night. If there was no reserve in the tank, water could only be drawn for cleaning, cooking, showering etc, at night. My host family felt no hardship for lack of water, even though very often they had running water when most were supposed to be sleeping. They even laughed at my very large bottle of pink relief, joking with me that I didn't need to bring it. (I never told them that I did not drink the water.) My daughter and I kissed the ground in Miami, though our trip was a once in a lifetime blast, a very unusual family bonding experience for sure. I don't think that many of the conveniences that we have at a touch are appreciated by her, however. Perhaps she was too young to remember or care much about the lack of water during the day, or routine bouts of blackout when the electricity failed. Perhaps now that she is a mother, we should revisit places where clean water is scarce, and where children die from diarrhea, to better know just how our lives depend upon access to clean water and generally expected services every day.
Kenya has adopted into the Constitution of Kenya a right to sanitation: 'everyone has a right to a reasonable standard of sanitation'. (WHO. 2004) . The problems of an unavailable or unsafe drinking water supply are complex. Large bodies of water may not reach into the populated areas. Lack of rainfall may be the norm in desert climates. Clean sources of water can be polluted by human or animal waste, as plumbing and sewers are the other half of water supply. Unsanitary storage and handling of drinking water also contributes to the growth of bacteria in the supply. At its worst, the lack of clean water results in diarrhetic diseases that are responsible for the estimated 6000 deaths (worldwide) each day of children under 5 (Public Health. 2005). The transport of water from the source to the home can use up time and energy better used in schooling for children or productive work, as opposed to maintenance, for adults. (Mullen.Winter, 2005). The World Health Organization has determined that the "Investment in water and sanitation yields health and economic benefits." (WHO. 2004.). It seems like a waste of time for world leaders to prepare, meet about, and discuss reports that declare the economic advantages of bringing to its citizens clean, healthy water, the most basic need for life. Why is a cost-benefit study needed to determine that death from lack of clean water is a liability on the spread sheets of nations, not an asset?

Resources:

Mullen, Rhonda. (Winter, 2005). Safer Water. Public Health. Retrieved from http://whsc.emory.edu

Mullen, Rhonda (Winter, 2005). Collaboration in Kenya. Public Health. Retrieved from http://whsc.emory.edu

World Health Organization. (2004). Investments in water and sanitation yields and economic benefits. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/

The Stories that No Mom Forgets

Birth stories are the great remnants of the art of story-telling. Story -telling as a means of entertainment and preserving tradition have given way to a multitude of more technologically advanced entertainment media. Just ask anyone if they would rather hear a good story or watch Prime Time TV and chances are the story would not get told. The great exception to this development is the magic that comes over the face of any parent, or even a grandparent, who has experienced the birth of a child, and you can't keep the story in the box. We are actually assigned to tell our birth story, as we have one. What an invitation!
I have three children and three grandchildren, and except for the youngest two grandbabies, I was there and a full participant in the exciting, painful, messy, noisy, foreign, funny, and not-so-funny events. My oldest was born at New York University hospital. My obstetrician was a close-to-retirement doctor for upper income women. I was NOT one of those women, but ended up in her office with a very good medical insurance plan offered by my employer. She was Hungarian, with a thick accent, and a lab coat thrown over her glam dress, jewelry and stiletto shoes, and she called everyone "Daahh-linck". If you remember Dr. Ruth, they could have been sisters. Everyone loved her, and so did I. She was also full of motherly advice and the wisdom that is freely given by people who no longer worry about being offensive if truth be told. The ride to the hospital when I went into labor on a Sunday morning was material worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit; a non-English-speaking taxi driver plowing frantically through NYC traffic with a very-loudly-in-labor fare in the back seat. I made it in PLENTY of time. The hospital staff was marvelous, professional, and kindly answered all of my questions about the process and the machinery used. (They all loved my doctor too, and treated her patients with special care.) "Dr. Ruth" delivered my daughter with few complications, and when the messy gloves and scrubs came off, she looked dressed for a night at the opera. Everyone was happy and glowing, including my beautiful baby girl. At almost every birthday and at baby showers for new moms, this story gets told (maybe with a few different details added here and there, as such is the story-telling tradition.).
I do not know how the stories sound in Kenya, where my church sponsors one of our clergy and his family of six. Recent articles report that Kenya has one of the highest maternal death rates in the world. Most women use a traditional birth attendant (TBA) that may be untrained and/or uncertified, but very often known to mothers. Emergency transport is less available, crime makes night-time trips dangerous in poverty-stricken slums, and the cost of maternity related medical services is much more than the majority of women can pay. A demographic health survey indicated that 57% of women give birth at home, and only 28% assisted by the TBA. (Anyangu-Amu, July 26, 2010.).  The danger of emergency travel is not limited to those who live in slums. The general infrastructure of passable roads and public services, such as ambulance and hospitals or clinics available within a close range of the population, make these services unavailable to even those who may have the money to pay. Electricity and the utilities that are readily available in the United States, so much so that we are panicked when the lights go out, are simply not available 24/7 or reliable in many areas of the world. Medicines are not always on hand. The issues of maternal health are issues of national infrastructure, not necessarily of  tradition, personal choice, income, abilities, or desire to have healthy, happy babies. In many cases, they are not even about poverty, but are about poor national leadership and distribution of national resources and aide haphazardly or irresponsibly. Beyond the birthing conditions that are reported upon in Kenya, I am willing to bet that the "When you were born..." stories retold by mothers to their children are not too much different in family lore than they are anywhere else in the world. I will be in touch with our missionary family there, when they are able, and perhaps they can fill me in on some Kenyan childhood insights.

Resources:
Anyangu-Amu, Susan.(2010, July26) Kenya: Jury Still Out on Traditional Birth Attendants. Retrieved from http://ipsnews.net

Kenya-maternity medical centers in Nairobi are death traps. (August 31, 2010)  Retrieved from http://urbanhealthupdates.wordpress.com