http://allergykids.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/a-ripple-of...
A Ripple of Hope: When Courage and Conscience Collide
June 10, 2008
by Robyn O'Brien
I was raised on capitalism and the Wall Street Journal. As a child, my family celebrated the birth of Reaganomics the way one would have celebrated the birth of a child. There was prosperity to be had by all – if only we believed. My father, like so many of his era, fully supported deregulation and the notion of trickle down economics. If we loosen the regulatory purse strings that government tightly controls, we will all prosper. The system works.
In our house, the Reagans had an almost royal status – to watch them dance, with Nancy in her red dress, gave me the feeling, as a child, that I was watching some magnificent combination of Frank Sinatra and a foreign prince with his graceful companion on his arm.
I trusted my political values would serve me well – I was loyal, patriotic and supported the system.
And then one of my children got sick. With a blood condition that no one could pronounce and a pediatric mandate requiring immediate enrollment at a Children's Hospital. And I awoke.
Suddenly, everywhere I turned, there were sick children. Children with diabetes, children with cancer, children with obesity, children with asthma and children with allergies. What had happened?
As headlines in the paper warned me of environmental dangers, I began to pay attention. What was in the food? Wasn't organics a left-leaning thing? And what about the plastics and the baby bottles and the vaccines? Should I worry? Doesn't our system protect us from these dangers?
And without realizing it, an internal battle had silently begun.
I lay awake at night as I tried to reconcile the loyalty I had to my father with the loyalty I had to my children. Had a generation of grandfathers failed to recognize the health risks associated with capitalism's profits, unintentionally jeopardizing the well being of their grandchildren?
I had been raised to support the system, to believe in it, to never question it, and certainly to never speak out. Activism was something that "radicals" did, certainly not conservative soccer moms.
But I couldn't shake the internal dialogue. And armed with an MBA in finance and my four children, I began to investigate the expanding role that corporations had taken in the system in which I was raised to believe. And I was stunned.
There were insecticidal toxins engineered into crops to increase profitability for the world's largest agrichemical corporation – a company whose former employees included Donald Rumsfeld and Clarence Thomas. There were petroleum based chemicals in my children's toys and shampoos that were a product of an oil corporation that had recruited me in business school. How had this happened? Had we forsaken our physical health for financial wealth?
As I struggled with the responsibility that I felt for betraying my own children, I realized that it was now my responsibility to act. But the internal battle raged on – as the call from my conscience collided with the familiar comfort of conformity – and I was paralyzed.
But with sick children, paralysis was not an option.
I realized that I had to find the courage, on behalf of my children and others, to speak out against the very system in which I was raised.
And I reluctantly stepped forward.
With the words of another crusader in hand, I found my voice: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls." (Robert F. Kennedy).
It is with that hope, and holding the hands of my four children, that I took a stand.
Our world is changing. Our children's voices are not being heard; there is no "show of hands" to gauge their reactions to the impact that our environment is having on them.
It is our turn to engage, to help our fathers recreate the world that their grandchildren deserve. We must not be daunted by the enormity of the task at hand, nor fear political "activism". For the sake of our children, it is our political responsibility.
If you take just one step forward, it might send forth that tiny ripple of hope that will touch your daughter's life years later or your son's health in ways you might never foresee.
If we dare to dream that it is possible to affect this change for our children, we will be inspired by hope and find the courage and capacity to act. Together.
= new reply since forum marked as read
