From Love to Negligence, it’s a Crap Shoot

I fly back and forth. Then back and forth.

"The OC," where I live. And Northern New Mexico, where I also live.

The OC part is the watery part, by the beach. The “classic” TV show too close to home, famous for the pretense, and more.

The New Mexico part sits unnoticed between one of the fine arts capitals of the world, Santa Fe, and one of the natural arts capitals of the world, Abiquiu -- the vast oasis that gripped the artist Georgia O'Keeffe so deeply that she visited once and never looked back.

The unnoticed part is called Española. A city of 10,000. I'm not sure city is the right word. It's more of a place, just a place.

What kind? Recently the LA Times — think of that, a national media outlet writing about an indisriminate community 1,000 miles away — titled the piece Can this town save itself from fentanyl addiction? The race to turn around a threatened community.

I am sure they are onto something. I work here now. I know.

I mostly think about the children. I teach them, in their public schools.

Children. The paradox.

Wanted or not wanted. Often adored, too often rejected. Provisioned and coddled and protected, or forced to fend for themselves and their victim siblings.

Nurtured with all the best of everything, or treated violently.

Challenged or cajoled or cared for with the best education available, or pressured to become truants or addicts.

Two weeks ago, I learned of parents who give their children heroine because it's "cultural" and it "mellows them out."

From love to negligence, it's a crap shoot.

And sometimes the neglect turns dark, then abuse and abandonment follows.

You don't see much of that in The OC. Other things, but not much of this.

In the United States of America today, millions and millions of children are victims of violence, by their parents, and others.

And there seems to be a general ambivalence about it. At Child Rights Foundation, we strive to do more.

We must.