Reflection N° 114 - The Children

Many already think: The best thing is not to have children. A simple look at the world around us in the place where we live makes us understand that procreating is condemning the child to hell with very little chance of dignified survival, whatever class he belongs to, high, medium, low, or lumpen. The terrestrial globe is globalized and what happens somewhere happens everywhere. Let us make a brief summary of the last century of Western Civilization, dividing it by generations of 25 years each:

1900-1925: The beautiful era. Paris was the world capital. Family traditions continued; differences were few. The automobile, movies, the telephone, the aviation began and having children was a gratifying hope.

1925-1950: End of World War II. Expansion of communications, science, new countries, travels, state totalitarianism. Society became dangerous and repressive. To go out, you had to carry identification documents claimed by the police.

1950-1975: Vietnam War. The two superpowers threaten each other. Atomic power proliferation. Disorder in big cities. Growing poverty. Drug addiction. Sexual liberation. State terror.

1975-2000: End of the Teutonic Era. Massive drug addiction, sexual degeneration and child abuse, violence, disintegration of the Soviet Union, US military aggressiveness in weak countries. Fear, unsafety, proliferation of destitution and the slums around the world.

2000-2025: Collapse of the economy in the United States and Europe. Disgusting moral vices grow, drug addiction in minors, the atomic threat is permanent, increasing natural catastrophes, global warming. Global population with more than 7 billion people. Nostradamus' prophecies point to 2025 as the end of civilization.

For a century we have witnessed two divergent universal movements. Upwards, the astonishing advancement of science, technology and communications. Conquest of outer space and the most extraordinary creations of genetic engineering in plants, animals and humans. Conversely, downwards with equal symmetrical speed, the inevitable precipitation of men into the abyss with the irreversible degradation of the human condition, negative change of values of life and coexistence in the highest spheres of societies and corruption in the financial organizations that rule the world economy. Between wonderful technology and disoriented society there is no communication bridge. Each one by his side, they descend downhill towards the precipice. Technology with its conquests falls mortally subordinate to the greed of businessmen and rulers, and Humanity is consequently the propitiatory victim.

Why bring children and condemn them to survive on this scenario? We are not going to consider this matter with generalities that say nothing. Stalin wrote: “The death of a man is a tragedy; the death of a thousand men is a statistic.“We’re not going to look at national reports, nor Unicef’s reports on child hunger and mortality in the poorest regions of the planet. We want to communicate something very important to the protagonists of the future, because that future is brewing now, on parents responsibility. We will be located in the place where I’m living and participate: Mendoza city. It has a million inhabitants, with industries, commerce, agriculture, Universities and all social classes: high with good incomes, middle one with trade, professions and agriculture and low with workers, municipal laborers and retirees. Además, un creciente cinturón de villas de emergencia sin servicios urbanos, con la mayoría de sus poblaciones sin educación ni trabajo, Also, a growing belt of slums without urban services, with most of its populations without education or work, surviving in crime, violence and drugs.

The upper class, which controls the provincial government and the economy, is not very numerous, inhabits fortified neighborhoods closed by high walls and private security; the houses, side by side on small land with almost no gardens or relationships between neighbors, as in the downtown departments; the richest have mansions in privileged places with large custody; in other more open neighborhoods, security carries advanced weapons with night vision and all-terrain vehicles. Nobody goes out at night there, in the city or in the villages. Fear reigns in the dark. Children and boys of this class are educated in private schools, take place in cars or school transports with custody, they learn very well English and computing. Many, when they finish high school or college, go to American or European universities for Master’s degrees in Economics and businesses that enable them to work as executives in family businesses. Young people from Mendoza are not interested in concerts or literature; they just want to have fun at any age in dance clubs of their level. They are like tourists vacationing in their own city.

The middle class is numerous and has a greater presence on the streets; traders, professionals, public employees, office workers, farmers of neighboring states, vineyard contractors, et cetera. Their children are educated in public schools and some private schools, with generally mediocre official programs. Just some of them finish high school and then attend state and private universities, generally pursuing short careers with quick access to jobs. Youngs are like all minors in mass society and they protect themselves by forming groups of their level to play football, entertain themselves on the Internet, meet at nightclubs and watch TV several hours a day.

Low-class kids are the same, albeit with less resources. Quickly enter the job market to support the family, or become independent. But they are all immersed in the same idiosyncrasies dominated by material greed. The inhabitants of the slums, increasingly numerous, have nothing, nor the possibility of ascending on the social scale. On the contrary, the economy, corruption, competition, the lack of an educational policy push them down. Not only in Mendoza but everywhere. Even in the United States, which had a good standard of living, villas with their typical settlers have appeared like mushrooms: second-hand trailers, motels, tents under bridges, et cetera.

But the threat to unborn children is not in poverty, but in moral, cultural and social misery. Family. Universities. Churchs. Everyone participates in the same mass culture, from the country’s president to the inhabitant of the tin slum with his DirecTV antenna. If a boy is lucky enough to be born normal and then not get high or become sexually deformed, he can fall into the media culture with engaging messages and images that corrupt their mind day and night. There’s no way to escape. Nowadays children have Internet and TV in their bedrooms, without control. And communicators are specialists trained to stimulate consumption, greed, corruption and sex.

There is a type of people, a few, who remain outside the dramatic scenario that we have presented; they are the shepherds living in isolated regions. In Mendoza they are in Malargüe, General Alvear, the sandy desert of Lavalle. They take care of goats, some horses and cows, a life sharing nature, very humble and lonely, without pollution. Nobody knows the fate of souls until the time of death and on children even less. The predestined appear anywhere: Jesus was a carpenter’s son and Sidarta was born as a prince. Only the Holy Masters know and prepare the new Aquarians, and they will succeed or lose in their future missions according to Providence.

This Reflection is not aimed at children, but at their parents, those who can still do something to protect those who are already there, and those who will come. A being’s life is decided in childhood and when he turns fourteen and acts independently, he must possess the basic qualities and training to live properly, master of himself. Until the age of seven, the child depends on the mother; from there to the age of fourteen learns from the father. In those years parents have full responsibility for their child’s future. If the child reaches puberty with clear ideas, strong will, with a mind of his own and not a collective one, far from the general mediocrity of today’s culture, parents can be sure that they have fulfilled their duty. From then on, the boy is responsible for what he does and is. Children are born and will continue to be born in every household, with great resources or with many needs. The opportunity to live is for all levels and history shows that progress builders have been born in the most diverse conditions. But the responsibility of the parents is inexcusable, whether they live in a slum, in a vineyard, or in a fortified enclosed neighborhood. Saints and criminals are born and raised at all levels.

Reader: I understand that this is a very delicate and difficult matter that touches the most intimate feelings of men and women. I know couples who have decided not to have children and don’t have them. There are others who have several and are satisfied with their children and with themselves. There are many who always complain about the children they have. In Mendoza there are homes that receive abandoned children from the state and care for them until they have eighteen years. The whole range of possibilities are in modern society and it depends on the parents that the child is formed in the best conditions, those that promote the exaltation of life and human quality. The child can’t choose, but parents can. Where are we going to form a home? In the dangerous chaos of the city, in a vineyard, on the mountain, even further? Does he need to go to school, or will we educate him at home? Will we get rid of television, electronic games, the Internet? Will learn a college career, or a noble craft? Einstein said he would have liked to be a plumber, not a physicist. To live happily is it necessary to have many things, or only the necessary ones? How to decide?

Children’s situation in modern society raises questions and more questions, which can only be satisfied in the intimacy of the heart of each parent.

José González Muñoz
Julio de 2010