Recently, another adventuresome daredevil walked over a deep canyon, on a tightly stretched wire about 2 inches wide.  Using a balancing pole, he  crossed the canyon, in very windy conditions, with no nets below to catch him if he did slip. One slight miss-step and….

While most of us don’t need his level of skill and precision with balance in our own physical activities,  balance in other areas of our lives always needs more attention than it gets.

Many things are out of balance in our country right now.  One of the most pressing issues is the unsustainable percentage of our population that need financial support.  We must somehow increase the percentage of people who are actively and productively engaged in our economy.

How do we do this?

We already do a lot of blaming, and finger-pointing, and moralizing, and getting nowhere.

Americans love a good “rags to riches” story, and celebrate our opportunities for anyone to rise up out of their current circumstances into the good life.  Exceptional people can achieve any goal they work at in our country. Where this American ideal loses its balance is in defining exceptional.

Exceptional means not average, not normal.  Exceptional means the few, not the most.  Most of us are not exceptional.  Our growing gap between wealthy and average people changes the balance of opportunities, with more going to the already wealthy at the expense of the rest.  Our standard of living is sliding downward for the many, and rising for the few.

How did we end up thinking that only exceptional people are entitled to a decent standard of living?

Our current political attitudes and policies are lop-sidedly pro big-business and profit-only oriented.  We need to balance these with the needs of ” main street” and the external costs of products and lifestyles that cause damage.

Economic policies based on ever-increasing population growth, rather than on increasing the percentage of the population productively engaged in the economy, are short-sighted.  Combining these policies with vindictive social attitudes are cutting the throat on our future.

We need more balance between “personal responsibility” and community values.  I can chant “personal responsibility” all day long at my friend’s severely autistic child, but I will never succeed in getting her a job that will pay all of her bills, buy health insurance, and leave some savings for retirement. There will always be people that need the community’s financial support. Let us build stable support systems into our economic system.

One concept missing from the “personal responsibility” chatter is that parenting matters.  People learn most of their attitudes and life skills from their parents. When children are not taught good nutrition, financial management, civility skills and work habits at home,  there is a ripple effect in the community.  This is neither fair to the children who have been  raised inadequately, nor to the communities who end up helping them.  We continually evade this issue by claiming that all parents figure it out eventually, or “they are doing their best.”  We have too many people raising children whose “best” is never going to be adequate.  Why do we value children so little? Why do we not stress to the next generation that we need to value children enough to prepare ahead of time as much as humanly possible?

Procreating like rabbits is not “honoring” the God who gave us both brains, and the task of caring for his creation.

This past week, our national lawmakers chose vindictiveness over balance.  They chose to chant “personal responsibility” at hungry children, fully aware that most of these children won’t end up being exceptional enough to overcome their upbringing and improve their own parenting skills, contributing to another, larger generation of children needing community help.

It is time to consider new attitudes towards defining families and their role in society.  They truly are the “building blocks” of any community, and at the same time,  they can be our most destructive wrecking balls.

Parenting matters. It is time to stop pretending that everyone will be good enough at it.  It is time to acknowledge that some people have better gifts to give the community than additional children. Time to say that all children deserve prepared and committed parents. Time to acknowledge that people can be valuable members of their community without holding the title of mother or father.

Balancing our society’s needs in a sustainable future is going to shake a lot of us out of our current comfort zones.  Better that than the path we are on, with a dangerously unbalanced economy.

When we start treating child rearing as a responsibility worthy of prior thought and preparation, mindful of our children’s impact on the rest of the community, maybe then we can reduce the percentage of our population needing assistance.

Laura Twing lives in Cedar county, with her husband and various animal companions.