Children at Risk: The Precarious State of Children's Well-being in America

The desire for our children to be free from want anddanger and to be able to enjoy their youth in innocencewould seem to be universal. Conventional wisdom saysthat parents in every socio-economic level of societyshare the dream of preserving their children’s innocence.All want to provide a childhood and adolescence thatshelters and protects children from the harshness of lifeand nurtures them until they are able to withstand theonslaught of reality.One need only look at troubled areas of the world,such as Northern Ireland, parts of the Middle East, orany number of other points on the globe, to see how weakis any communion forged out of these universal desiresfor the welfare of children. Even in the United States, thecompetition of ideas and values about what represents the"good" society in which to raise our children is fierce-asare differing views about the value of innocence and evenlife itself. These differing ideas and values affect people’sactions even when they have never reflected on them, orhave never cared enough to formulate those values intoa coherent worldview.Crouse contends that without morals, children are atrisk. Moral boundaries, not moral relativism, provide asafe haven for children by preserving their innocence andprotecting them from predators and pedophiles. Whenauthentic religious faith has been quashed, children areno longer safe. When the underlying values are wrong,when there are no common values unifying a people,even the best programs and most honorable of intentionsare doomed to failure. Well-intentioned programs andpolicies inevitably fail miserably without an undergirdingmoral foundation, as is documented by an abundance ofdata and the social trends in America today.