Advocating for children

Even if we have known our children for all their lives, there is always some part of them that remains a mystery, out of reach and unfathomable – and vice versa. We were all children once, but even for those of us who can keenly remember what that felt like, we were not our children. We are not our parents (even if sometimes we may feel that way) and the world in which our children grow is not the same as that of our youth. Even if we live in the same house, during the same times, we and our children will see things from different perspectives. This is natural, even inevitable.

But as parents, we need to find ways to bridge the gap between us even if it seems insurmountable. For those of us with children that are still minors, this is both more difficult and more essential. If we are to be their advocates, we must do more than stand up for their rights – we must make sure that they understand those rights, and make sure that we listen to their needs.

I’ve written before about how children are one of the most vulnerable sectors of society because there are so few avenues by which they can make their voices heard. While the drive to educate and mold our children often comes from a good place, there is always a danger that the focus on telling them what to do makes us deaf to important things that they, in turn, have to tell us. As children, there was nothing more frustrating than being stonewalled by our parents, our concerns or questions dismissed. As parents, we may all be guilty of that on occasion – there really are some things that require age and experience to fully understand, and there are really times when urgent action cannot wait for a child’s curiosity to be satisfied.

But because the power in our relationships with our children rests with us, taking the easy way out can become the rule rather than the exception. We often have to navigate a world filled with unreasonable demands that we cannot reject, a world where authorities or those above us in institutional hierarchies can make imposition after imposition. When we are running low on patience, it can be easy to be too curt with our children, and too dismissive, even if they are the ones we love most. After all, parents are only human.

But for the sake of our children, we have to do better. Because if we do not fight for them, if we do not listen to them, if we do not speak for them – who else will?

November is National Children’s Month in the country, and the theme this year highlights the need to not leave children behind in the so-called new normal. This is an urgent need because during the pandemic, children worldwide have been left behind in many ways, especially when it comes to vaccinations.

A few months ago, I wrote about the pressing need to make the outside world safer for children: this meant a refusal to depend solely on keeping them home, with all the attendant harm that could do in the long-term. I wrote that more must be done to expedite the study of the effect of vaccines on children, not only of the mRNA vaccines, but all vaccines proven safe and effective for adults, and that more research should be made into the effects of ventilation and masking in a school environment so that we can determine the safest way to re-open schools.

Recent developments have been promising on this front: the Philippines has begun COVID-19 vaccinations for 12- to 17-year-olds; in the United States, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been recommended for children between 5-11 years, while other vaccines are in the testing stage. Nations have slowly come around to the idea that vaccinating children can no longer take a back seat, not when variants such as Delta can develop and strike at children and either make them ill or turn them into vectors of infection.

But there needs to be a firm commitment to vaccinating children as soon as it is safe to do so. Already there are those who would press for booster shots for adults to strengthen potentially waning protection but moves to do so should not delay the vaccination of children. While I understand that there are groups that merit more protection considering the severity of the effects of COVID-19 on seniors or those with co-morbidities, or the lengthy exposure to the disease of our frontliners, no other group except for children remains almost completely without the life-saving protection of vaccines.

The longer our children are prevented from living normal lives and having the formative experiences they are meant to have at this age, the harsher the after-effects of this pandemic will be when they are finally felt. Even if they are physically spared from the disease, the pandemic is already taking a mental toll, the full extent of which won’t even be clear for years to come. In its State of the World’s Children report, UNICEF made the following findings:

• A median of 19 percent of 15- to 24-year-olds in 21 countries self-reported in the first half of 2021 that they often feel depressed or have little interest in doing things;

• Suicide is the fifth most prevalent cause of death for adolescents aged 10-19;

• Increases in stress and anxiety among children and adolescents due to the pandemic. The mental health of caregivers, especially young mothers, is also a concern.

The UNICEF report ends with a call for three things: commitment, communication and action. I submit that these are what we need to safeguard our children in the coming days as well. We need a clear commitment to making it as safe as possible for children to move into the world and not depend solely on quarantine or isolation; we need to communicate with our children and hear their wants and needs, fears and hopes, and relay to them in turn what is being done for their benefit; and finally we need concrete action, such as mass vaccinations and information drives, in order to make that safer world a reality.

We are the best, sometimes the only, advocates for our children. We cannot allow any more of their futures to be compromised by this crisis.