Electing Leaders Who Are All-in for Kids

Often conversations about child and family policy focus on children’s future value – as members of the workforce, or as leaders solving the social and environmental crises they’ve inherited. But in most of the world children are recognized as having intrinsic value, and the protection and care of children is understood to be a shared public responsibility. In 1989, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) brought together world leaders to recognize that childhood is “a special, protected time, in which children must be allowed to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity.” Nearly 200 countries signed onto the declaration; the United States did not.

This is more than a symbolic omission. Our disregard for children is apparent in measures of child and family well-being. Among nations with similar economic and governmental structures, the US routinely reports among the highest rates of poverty, income inequality, and infant mortality. Outcomes for Black, Brown and Indigenous children are substantially worse, stemming from centuries of economic, legal and social exploitation. Our children are growing up in a pervasive, damaging climate of racial, environmental, economic and gender-based violence - as well as increasing gun violence. At the national level in particular, elected leaders seem unable to advance substantive policy change.

Vermont does relatively better on these measures, but in absolute terms there is so much that remains to be done. As a small state with growing racial and ethnic diversity, the impacts of white supremacy are still sometimes obscured in our statewide data. But make no mistake, Black, Brown and Indigenous residents are living with these cumulative disparities every day, and our individual and collective well-being suffers for it.

Vermont has enacted policies that are more child and family friendly than other parts of the country. This foundation positions us well to take additional steps to ensure that children and families have what they need to achieve economic security and wellness.

Now is the time to push the needs of the over 120,000 children and youth who call Vermont home—but currently lack a vote—to the forefront of every candidate’s agenda.