LiveWorld Transcripts

Lifetime TV presents

Marian Wright Edelman
The Children's Defense Fund

March 24, 2000

Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund chats about the group’s efforts to help children in need.

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LifetimeTV: Welcome to Lifetime Online's live chat with Marian Wright Edelman who will be discussing her work with the Children's Defense Fund. Welcome, Marian! We're glad you're here.

Marian Wright Edelman: I just want to apologize for being late. Thank you for your patience! Traffic in New York is always complicated, but I'm very glad to be here with you!

Adina5: What do you feel are the most pressing problems facing children today?

Marian Wright Edelman: Well, I think it's the absence of enough positive adults in their lives, paying attention and being good examples. I think that reflects itself in many different ways. Many parents who want to be good parents are stressed out with work/family obligations. Child poverty is a massive problem with 13.5 million children; 74% of them live in working families who are struggling to earn enough but can't because minimum wage does not live them above poverty, who cannot find enough child care and so their children are not safe. And millions lack health care, even though their parents work. And parents are struggling with the stress of that. One of the highest priorities of the Children's Defense Fund is to end child poverty and to ensure EVERY child health care, and quality child care and enough to eat. And the second big issue is violence. We live in a culture of violence. We lose a child to gun violence every two hours. We have lost over 80,000 children to gun violence since 1979 - more than we lost in the Vietnam war. We have expressed shock about the recent incidents, but they are no fluke. When a 6-year-old shot a 6-year-old we were shocked, but the latest data showed that 84 children under 5 were killed by guns in just one year - more than police officers in the line of duty. There are over 12,000,000 guns in circulation. They're in our homes, where they endanger rather than protect us. They're everywhere, and children and criminals have access to them. None of us are safe. We MUST stop the killing of children with effective gun control, and we must deal with our culture that encourages violence as a way of resolving dispute. Children see domestic violence in their homes. Over a million children are reported abused every year. You can't turn on your TV or the Internet without seeing violence, so we must find new ways of relating to each other. There are 5 million children who come home alone, and drug and alcohol abuse and violence are more likely to occur between 3-7 in the afternoon. Many of our wealthy children are afflicted by 'affluenza' and thus sense that what's important is materialism. They need a sense of purpose, and our families and communities need to give them that again. All of our children are at risk. You don't want wealthy children to think that poor children are at risk in our nation. They are ALL affected by drugs and violence and the breakdown of family. And I won't give you long answers any more. (smile)

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