Stressors

There are so many possible factors that could effect a child's biosocial development.  Being a child, learning everything from how to speak to how to socialize and play with others can be effected by your surroundings and situation.  Poverty, malnutrition, war, family chaos, and disease are just some of the factors that could negatively effect a child's upbringing, mental, and physical stability. One of the biggest stressors, in my opinion, happens after experiencing a natural disaster. 

       My parents are both from the West Indies, and both still have a ton of family that still live on quite a few of the islands. In October of 1995 there was a huge hurricane in St.Thomas (US Virgin Island).  The hurricane did so much damage that my aunt had to send all three of her children to come live with us here in NYC while her and my uncle rebuilt their house. The youngest was five, then seven, and the oldest was I believe 14. They stayed with us for almost a year, my mom had the two youngest join me at PS87 and the oldest was in high school. 

       I was eight at the time and had never even had a successful sleep over at a family members house, I could not imagine seeing my home blown away then having to leave my home without my parents, friends, school, and come to a new city to start over.  To throw salt on the wound, they all caught the chicken pox from my brother during their stay. 

    I remember them crying and missing their parents and home. Now, they will tell u it was because eight year old me was mean to them and they missed their mom because I scared them when I tried to play doctor and tell them that they could scratch off their chicken pox... But I don't remember any of that! That kind of loss takes a huge toll on everything, and as sad as they were they all worked really hard. My school even went as far as to link my third grade class with my cousins kindergarten class and made me her reading buddy! Not only that they introduced me to my seven year old cousins teacher and she allowed me and two friends to spend some lunches with her helping grade papers and she even got permission to take us out to lunch once. The school realized that my cousins needed to feel cared for and loved and I needed to feel as if I still mattered because of all of the sudden changes. It was a tough time for them, but it all worked out in the end. I even remember being upset and crying when we took them to the airport and they were so happy to leave. 

    I chose to learn more about possible stressors for children in Thailand. I had no idea they experienced so many stressful issues issues. "These include malnutrition, exclusion from education, trafficking, child labour and other forms of exploitation. Too many children have missed out on the benefits of Thailand’s development – particularly the children of ethnic minorities, migrants and the very poor" (unicef.org).  The country has been improving since the 1990s, in regards to making sure children are taken care of and educated, but some still manage to fall through the cracks.  The right to an education should be a right not a privilege, food is not made available for everyone that cannot afford to obtain food, trafficking continues to get worse, the children not in the class that automatically gets the help needed deserve a chance to excel. Which they won't be able to do if the country doesn't crack down on making sure everyone is taken care if no matter their background.

Reference-

1. Situation of children in Thailand. (n.d.). . Retrieved May 30, 2014, from http://www.unicef.org/thailand/overview_2043.html

      Something some of us in this country tend to take for granted is our access to healthy drinking water. My water, at least, has never been dirty or made me sick, to my knowledge of course. I can get relatively clean water from my tap, boil it to make it “cleaner”, then put that water through my Brita filter and feel better about drinking water from the tap. Which has been the case for my entire life. Some children grow up getting water from muddy holes in the ground and other less than sanitary options that aid to getting and keeping the sick and dehydrated. I chose this issue because it is such a huge issue in the world, and even though it doesn't directly effect me I can see the impact that the lack of healthy water is having around me.

The following 5 points of information were taken from www.water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water

and shows how many people in the world, by region are lacking clean drinking water:

1. Africa- 345 million without access to clean water
2. Latin America & the Caribbean- 32 million without access to clean water
3. South, West, Central Asia- 196 million without access to clean water
4. Southeast, East Asia, and Oceania 200 million without access to clean water
5. Developed countries- 10 million without access to drinking water

     Those numbers are scary. Hundreds of millions of people are stuck without any access to clean drinking water. Something that seems so simple that we need to survive and live healthy lives isn't available to them. It makes you wonder about everything else that they must not have access to, this situation is utterly heartbreaking.

     I've always wanted to do missionary work, through any institution that involves work with young adults. Raising awareness and jumping right in to help bring water filtration systems across the world would be an ideal next step, but on a more realistic field in regards to what I would be able to do now I am currently researching foundations that do help out to see if they accept donations or need volunteers for anything local. This issue hurts my heart, especially when I think of babies and young children that have no say in the matter and can't do better for themselves. Summer time in New York City means I will be sure to see fire hydrants openly pouring water out, sprinklers in the park spitting out water, thousands of people pouring bottles of poland spring over their heads in Central Park, without even so much as a second thought about who is not able to have a sip of clean water. I want to be apart of lowering those devastating numbers. So many children die yearly from lack of access to clean water (CDC, 2013), so many children that could have grown up to experience life, become teachers, doctors, lawyers, artists, anything, lose their chances because they end up with diseases due to lack of clean water and end up leaving this Earth earlier than necessary.

References:

1. Water.org. (n.d.) Retrieved May 17, 2014 from http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/
2. Cdc.gov. (n.d.) Retrieved May 17, 2014 http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/wash_statistics.html   

Birth!

            I don't have that much experience with childbirth, I've never seen one outside of television & I do not remember much from when my younger brother was born, aside from my dad did my hair while my mom was in the hospital and it's probably best I don't share that memory! I've asked my mom about the day I was born a few times, and the trouble she endured along the way, so I'll share that.

            I spent eight months in my mothers womb with multiple fibroids. The fibroids threatened my life daily, and caused my mother to be on bed rest for three months in the hospital. Unfortunately, due to the fibroids, my mom felt labor pains during all eight months of pregnancy. On the morning I was born, before even giving her an epidural, the doctors cut my mom open. From what I've been told, my dad was furious. This whole story makes me scared to even have children, granted that was in the eighties and hopefully doctors aren't so careless now, but still... Yikes! I was born on October 4, two hours after my mom's water broke, a month early, at six pounds. Shortly after I was found to have an extremely high fever that wouldn't go away and was placed in an incubator for 21 days in the ICU because they thought that I had meningitis. Still not sure what was wrong or causing the fevers, but the doctors told my parents that I was going to die. Almost 27 years later and here I am alive and well, clearly born with my mother's (& father's, but he didn't deliver me after being sliced open without medication so I am giving my mom a teensy bit more credit in this department) strong spirit.

           I look forward to having kids as much as the next woman, but that story is scary and often makes me consider everything but wanting to give birth myself. My birthing story is really scary. Just the thought of my mother going through that, then being told that her child was going to die, makes me wish I could take back all of my unappreciative teenage years. My goodness! The fibroids could have killed me in the womb, fighting them and losing could have effected my life and development in any number of ways, the entire situation is insanely nerve wrecking to me. And all I did was listen to the story a few times. Giving birth is such a sensitive issue, any number of things could go wrong both internally and in the hospital or space you deliver your child in.

             I chose to learn more about child birth in India. Apparently in the past, India has had issues with both maternal and child safety during labor. According to the article I read the issues in the past have been due to women not giving birth in institutions or with people qualified to take care of them during this crucial period. This is due to information and lack there of due to social class. Which is typical in most places. There are people here that have OBGYN visits every month of pregnancy and people less informed about how important checking on their health as well as the babies health is every month or even more frequently depending on the situation. I even saw a television program once about a woman who gave birth in a Mcdonald's bathroom and did not even know that she was pregnant. Leading me to believe, she did not feel the need to visit a single doctor in at least nine months. Which is very scary. From the interview, not to judge her by looks alone please don't think that I am doing that, she did not seem very well off both financially and educationally. I assumed she didn't know or care to find out simply because she did not know any better. Which is what I believe the problem with India and other countries where so many people can fall under the radar simply because they don't have the information or funds available to do better.

Reference-

1.  http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2013/safe-childbirth-india.aspx