Childhood's End

   Things our teens deserve to know

... conform, non-conform

1. You don't have to live the way your friends expect you to. 

2. You choose your path, or circumstance will choose for you.

The cultural tension between conformity and nonconformity surfaces in every generation as young people labor to establish their own identities and prioritize their own values. 

There is substance on both sides of the discussion regarding conformity, of course.  Teens must learn how to hold on to the good parts, challenge the pointless parts, establish a larger perspective, reach higher, take risks, dig for truth.  They'll learn from us.

The important element, as Kipling suggests, is not the challenging of established norms but the informed choice involved. If we haven't thoughtfully labored through that foundation laying, the structure we build will be lightly reinforced and unable to endure the first strong wind.

It's difficult to encourage a teen in the midst of that particular developmental upheaval, but it is among the critical change points that will establish who they will be.  If we're wise, we'll help them lay a foundation long before that particular wind blows.

Historical Note:  From the Old Testament, the encouragement to instruct our children should perhaps be understood in the context in which it was given.  A child's transition to adult responsibility is understood to have begun around age 12.  Might that affect our thinking and practise?

~ Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.  (How old?)

~ And you who are younger, listen those older than you. And all of you, leaders and followers alike, are to be down to earth with each other. (God has had it with the proud, but he really enjoys plain, genuine people.)

Western culture tends to hold on to teens and control them ever more stringently until suddenly turning them loose around 18, as though everything were complete at that point.  

Does it help if we view a child's progress as periods of transition and continuous change, like:

Age 0-6:  we do everything for them, make all the choices, and they do everything our way.

Age 6-12:  they do everything as they're taught; we teach them how and why ... and how to choose.

Age 12- ? :  they do everything and we mostly coach from the sidelines.  They participate in our decisions.

'Continuous change' describes the passing years best, perhaps.

If we encourage them along the way, compliment their thinking when they grasp the whys of choice, back them up while they labor through their list of important things, include them in our discussions and decisions ....

By the way, where was that transition to adulthood?  It's probably continuous, beginning in the preteen years.

Interestingly, on the development of adult thinking and choosing, we now know those processes continue for decades.  

Shall we go?

There's is another way, another opportunity, another chance, is there not?  Shall we go, then, while we can?


At some point, we might find ourselves on a path moving away from our goal.  Whether career or relationship or life, it's not uncommon to be overwhelmed by details, by demands, and the daily drudgery.  You look around, and all you see is the rut in which you find yourself.

Time for change!  Grab your partner's hand and run for your life.  

Everything will consume your life and years unless you choose otherwise.  Work will. Culture will. Media will. The expectations of others will. Even every narrow rabbit trail will.  That's just the way it works, unless you choose otherwise.

Do you remember your goals?  
   Are they good ones?  
      Time to go?

Pretty much everybody loves change and hates changing,
      just in case you were wondering if anybody besides you
             was stuck in a rut.

Ponzi Population

Exponential growth, often expressed in terms of "doubling time", is what we see the bacteria doing in the petri dish pictured here.

On a chessboard, if you put a grain of rice on the first square, doubling to two on the second, four on the third, and so on until you completed the 64 squares, you'd have piled up all the rice in the world and then some. Doubling.  Pretty impressive.


'Linear growth' is perhaps like a tree that grows at a semi-steady rate, year after year.

'Exponential growth' can describe things like population growth and the associated consumption trends.

Microorganisms increase in number exponentially. The first will split into two, then two into four, and so on until some essential survival element is exhausted. Maybe it's food or perhaps the size of the environment.

Ponzi schemes (and pyramid schemes) show this kind of growth, providing good returns for a few early on, and losses for the rest down the timeline.

Meroe, between the Nile and Atbara rivers, was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush, a major
power for a thousand years beginning in the 8th century B.C.  Meroe was the seat of rulers 
who occupied Egypt.  They built pyramids, temples and major installations for water 
management. Their empire extended from the Mediterranean to central Africa.  Meroe
was magnificent until the forests were gone, harvested for charcoal and the iron smelting
industry.  Erosion and agricultural failure followed.

Human population grows exponentially. With occasional variations caused by large-impact factors like famine and disease, we follow the accelerating curve.

Some informative failures do occur such as in the Kingdom of Kush and it's capital, Meroë. The kingdom grew and thrived for 1000 years, then disappeared, having exhausted the local resources of land and wood. No forests, no charcoal, no smelting, no trade, no economy.  No arable land, no food, no cattle, no people.  No kidding.






Here's what human population growth looks like on a timeline.  When a bacterium does that, it increases in number until some tip over point; then it dies in its own waste and decay.

That's the one of the many difficulties we face but not necessarily the result we'll get, provided we do something other than just mindlessly consuming everything we can.  Like the bacteria.


Plenty of options still available, right?

Thanks and a hat tip (for being a thought-provoking fellow) to Dr. Bob Cahalan, Chief of NASA-Goddard’s Climate and Radiation Laboratory, Director of the Sun-Earth Research Center at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, and President of the International Radiation Commission, and Co-Grandfather to Her Royal Highness Princess Ruby Marie, our precious granddaughter.
. 

What does food cost?

If you have tomatoes and beans in your backyard garden, you probably don't care about the calories in vs. calories out numbers. You'll spend perhaps a calorie or two for 10 calories in return, but nobody is really keeping score.

Historically, early farmers spent about 1 calorie for every 10 they harvested, more or less.

ONE IN >>> TEN OUT.  That's approximately where we started with the early crop cultivation.  Not a bad return for manual labor.

Since then, of course, we've made dramatic advances in science and technology.  You'd expect maybe ONE IN >>> ONE THOUSAND OUT????  Waaaay wrong.  How about TEN THOUSAND????  Nope, still way off.

Today we spend about 10 calories for every 1 calorie we harvest, and that's just for fuel.  It costs more to farm these days than we get in return.

That's TEN IN >>> ONE OUT.

The 10 calorie input is just the fuel we use.  Fuel for the tractors and trucks.

It doesn't count the cost of fertilizers, of irrigation, of seeds, and of labor.
Then there's the impact of soil leaching, forest area loss and impact on water management, chemical runoff, ground water contamination.  Then add the post-harvest processing that virtually all our products suffer, and transportation to the store, all of which adds to the ratio.

It's not news.  We've known for awhile that the real cost for our food was going up. We're getting away with it for now.

We're consuming resources that are becoming progressively more expensive and that won't be replaced, and we're fostering a consumption rate that's increasing exponentially. It's not the first time it has happened, of course.

A disturbing illustration of how it works is the classic bacteria and petri dish.  The bacteria will multiply because there's room and food, right up to the point where they poison themselves in their own deadly waste and die.

Tree huggers have warned us about this stuff.

Now there are dirt huggers doing the same.

Time for change?

Toy Stories

Naya - Managua, Nicaragua

Naya has a few small cook tools but she never
gets bored to play with them. She uses mud and
grass from the garden to pretend to cook some
cakes for her older sister. She says that in the
future she will manage a restaurant and she’s sure
that tourists will love it!
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In our pursuit of perspective, lets take a moment for children and their toys.

Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti spent 18 months traveling around the world and photographing children with their favorite toys for his ‘Toy Stories’ series.

Gabriele says it was surprising how much toys can tell about the family of the child, and even though all kids just want to play, they do it in very different ways: “The richest children were more possessive. In poor countries, it was much easier. In Africa, the kids would mostly play with their friends outside.”

Go to his website for the whole series: gabrielegalimberti.com

Chiwa – Mchinji, Malawi

Chiwa lives in a small hut with her mother, father and
sister.  They don’t have electricity and running water.
Chiwa helps her mother to carry water to their home
from the river.  In the village there are other 50 children
(more or less) and they always play all together outside.
Chiwa has just 3 toys that some volunteers of an NGO
gave to her when she was born. Her favorite is the
dinosaurs because she says that he can protect her from
the dangerous animals.




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Galimberti talks about meeting a six-year-old boy in Texas and a four-year-old girl in Malawi who both maintained their plastic dinosaurs would protect them from the dangers they believed waited for them at night – from kidnappers and poisonous animals respectively.

Children reflect their culture and circumstances in so many ways.  Good and not-so-good are written on their faces and in their lives.  It perhaps requires a bit of us to thoughtfully consider what we see here.  The photos are done well and artistically composed.  Underneath, we can see the issues of income inequality, the gap between rich and poor, and how it affects individuals. 




If we knew these children and their families; if they were friends of ours, would we think differently?  Would our children think differently?

If we can, we should go find out.

Jaqueline – Manila, Philippines

Jaqueline has a lot of different toys but her favorite is for
sure Tinker Bell, the little green fairy that her best friend
gave her. Her father is a fashion photographer and almost
every day takes photos of her too. Jaqueline says that she
will be a model in the future.




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When photographer Gabriele Galimberti decided to travel around the world and capture snapshot moments of children with their toys, what he ended up learning was much greater than child's play -- he also gained greater insight into different cultures, parenting styles and social attitudes. Galimberti is a commercial photographer trying his hand at documentary and travel photography. On a recent 18-month trip around the globe, he photographed children from various locales, from Boulder, Colorado to Bail, Indonesia, all posing with their most beloved toys. His simply styled photograph series titled Toy Stories speaks volumes about the varying cultural attitudes children have toward their toys, while also highlighting the universal language of good old fashioned playtime that every child enjoys. - See more at: http://www.inhabitots.com/photographer-gabriele-galimbertis-toy-stories-shows-children-around-the-world-with-their-favorite-toys/#sthash.iUiRa2eU.dpuf

Tangawizi – Keekorok, Kenya

Tangwizi was born in a Maasai village in the south of Kenya
in a small hut made of dung and straw. His bed is made of a
few rags on the ground. He always plays outside with all the
other children of the village but every night he sleeps together
with his unique toy: a little pelouche monkey.




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Julia – Tirana, Albania

Julia was born in Tirana where she lives with her parents
in a small apartment in the center of the city. Her father
works in a gas station and her mother is a housewife.
Both of the parents speak a good Italian because they
learned from the Italian TV, probably the main one in
Albania! They are sure that their child Julia will learn
Italian soon too. She loves dolls and especially Barbie 
but her father recently gave her a small guitar because
he would love her to be a musician.




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Botlhe – Maun, Botswana

Botlhe has a lot of friends, and all of them live really close
by to the small house where she lives with her family in a
residential complex. In the complex, there is one toilet for
every four families. Botlhe has only one toy, the monkey,
but she almost never plays with it because she prefers to
go out with friends and play with them.




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Allenah – El Nido, Philippines

Allenah Lajallab was born and raised in El Nido, a small town north
of Palawan in the Philippines. In El Nido there weren't hospitals and
she was born at home. She has a lot of stuffed animals, and her favorite
is the orange one because she loves the color. She doesn't like the
white stuffed animal as much, because it gets dirty too easily.




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Cun Zi Yi - Chongqing, China

Cun Zi Yi just turned 3, and received a lot of gifts for her birthday.
She plays with everything and can’t choose her favorite toy. Her
parents say that she’s really good at painting, and will be an artist
when she grows up.




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Arafa & Aisha – Bububu, Zanzibar

Arafa and Aisha are twins. They sleep in the same bed,
have the same clothes, go to school together and share
the same toys. They live in a two-room house in which
both of the rooms are bedrooms, and the kitchen and
restroom are outside. The big photo above the closet
is a portrait of the former president of Zanzibar.




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Bethsaida – Port au Prince, Haiti

Bethsaida was born in Port-au-Prince where she had always
lived in a house with her family until, almost 2 years ago, a big
earthquake destroyed it. Her parents are both deaf but fortunately
she’s not. Now they live in a camp site out of the city. The camp
was built by an American NGO which works with deaf, so in
the camps almost 90% of the people can’t hear and talk. All the
toys that Bethsaida has are donated from the NGO. She wants to
be a hairdresser and loves combing her doll to practice, but
unfortunately her brother has cut off half of the hair of the doll.





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Taha – Beirut, Lebanon

Taha was born in Palestine, but now he lives in Beirut where
he's a refugee together with his family. They live in a sort
of shantytown together with a few thousand other people.
Everybody there is from Palestine. To get water and electricity
they need to illegally connect their house to the public service.
Taha has just one toy, the car, and he didn't have any doubt
when I asked him to show me his favorite toy.




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The GAP - Part I - we cannot have both

I work and they get richer. 
You work and they get richer.
We all work harder and the few get richer.
Average income has been flat for decades; the income of the wealthy has increased radically.  (The wealthiest 1% captured 95% of post-financial crisis growth since 2009 while the bottom 90% became poorer.)
We all work harder so they can get richer.
Is that actually what is happening?

In the US, the richest 10% of Americans currently account for about half the nation's wealth.

In 1988, the income of an average American taxpayer was $33,400, adjusted for inflation. Fast forward 20 years, and not much had changed: The average income was still just $33,000 in 2008, according to IRS data. Keep in mind that that's an average, and the rich are getting richer at a tremendous rate during that period.

"In many countries, extreme economic inequality is worrying because of the pernicious impact that wealth concentrations can have on equal political representation. When wealth captures government policymaking, the rules bend to favor the rich, often to the detriment of everyone else. The consequences include the erosion of democratic governance, the pulling apart of social cohesion, and the vanishing of equal opportunities for all. Unless bold political solutions are instituted to curb the influence of wealth on politics, governments will work for the interests of the rich, while economic and political inequalities continue to rise. As US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, ‘We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we cannot have both.’"

OXFAM: Working for the Few 

A few minutes with this particular chart may trigger a turning point in your thinking.  This is TMI for
many folks, and deeply unsettling, particularly if you visualize the people and families.  TMI, meaning
we're inclined to shake it off rather than assimilate and understand.

The subject is called economic inequality or the gap between rich and poor.  There are opinions, but in general, the greater the gap, the greater the nation's difficulty with economic growth, governmental and marketplace corruption, foreign investment, and foreign debt.  The byproduct of the gap can also be measured in human distress and the struggle for survival. 

Source: F. Alvaredo, A. B. Atkinson, T. Piketty and E. Saez,

(2013)  The World Top IncomesDatabase

http://topincomes.gmond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/

Only includes countries with datain 1980 and later than 2008

Note in the table (right) that the percentage of income going to the rich has increased, but it varies among nations.  It suggests the income available to share among the rest is reduced, again with variations. 

The bigger the gap ... so what?  Does it change things?  There are differing opinions among economists regarding the cause and effect analysis.

A summary, "The U.S. economic and social model is associated with substantial levels of social exclusion, including high levels of income inequality, high relative and absolute poverty rates, poor and unequal educational outcomes, poor health outcomes, and high rates of crime and incarceration. At the same time, the available evidence provides little support for the view that U.S.-style labor-market flexibility dramatically improves labor-market outcomes. Despite popular prejudices to the contrary, the U.S. economy consistently affords a lower level of economic mobility than all the continental European countries for which data is available."^[REF]

Income inequality and mortality in 282 metropolitan
areas of the United States.  Mortality is strongly
associated with higher income inequality, but, within
levels of income inequality, not with per capita income.

The bottom line?  When the rich get richer, it has to come from somewhere.

In the short view, wealth comes from labor, innovation, creativity, cooperation, collaboration, risk-taking ...  but as the gap widens, those things become progressively less significant.  The wealthy are disproportionately represented in government policies and marketplace advantages.

I sat with friends (who work much harder than I do) around a home fire on home-made stools in a western African village while they explained to me all the things they were doing, hoping to provide for their families.  They aggressively pursue every opportunity to "do a little business".  In a very good year, they generate around $1500 for their household.  Normally, it's less.  The impediments to their progress, an exclusive upper class and a government that's crooked as a dog's hind leg.

(It's different here in the developed world, of course. 

Isn't it? Of course it is. It must be. It must.)

See The GAP - Part II

It's particularly troubling when the widening gap points to differences in mortality, available nutrition, access to education, to basic healthcare and safe neighborhoods. Historically, such a gap often precedes significant upheaval, both national and international.  At some point, the laborer will no longer work and sacrifice his life and the lives of his children for the benefit of another's opulence and privilege.

Thoughts?  

The top of the economic pyramid is not the moral high ground.  The only way for a small group of people to become obscenely rich is for huge masses of others to be kept quite poor.