Does the United States Disregard the Health of Its Children?

ENSURING THAT EVERY child can realize their full potential is a civic and faith imperative. Yet millions of children in the United States are having their futures sabotaged due to a lack of care, stimulation, and nutrition between birth and age 3. These three years, often referred to as the period of early child development, or ECD, are the most fragile and formative because most of a child’s brain is developed during this period. During the first few years of life, a child’s brain forms more than a million neural pathways every second and grows to 90 percent of the size of an adult’s brain by age 6. As a result, this period can determine whether a child realizes their full potential. The things young children learn, the experiences they have (and the amount of damaging stress to the brain they suffer), and the love and care (or lack thereof) they receive can all have an outsized impact on their lifelong mental, emotional, and physical health.

During my time working at World Vision and the World Bank, I became passionate about the crisis of ECD in low- and middle-income countries, a cause that remains urgent. However, I have become increasingly convicted about the imperative to also address the child development crisis in the U.S. Tragically, the U.S. is not doing well by its youngest generation, especially when compared to similarly wealthy nations. More than 9 million children in the U.S. face food insecurity, which hampers their healthy brain development, and in the last year, 1 in 7 children experienced child abuse or neglect. Without affordable child care, millions of children become at risk for “adverse childhood experiences” that could lead to debilitating impacts on their health and well-being.

For me, becoming a father cemented the importance of early childhood development. My wife and I both needed to work full time, and our astronomical monthly bill for child care drove home how difficult it is for many families to afford quality care for their young children. It’s unjust and counterproductive that our country has such uneven access to affordable child care for children during their most formative years. And it is shameful that the U.S. remains the only wealthy country with no mandatory paid family leave for new parents.

Issues related to early childhood development were elevated to the national stage last year during the political debate on the expanded child tax credit, universal pre-K, maternal care, mandatory paid family leave, and other elements of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Lamentably, these pro-family and pro-common good policies failed to become law due to Republican opposition and a lack of political will. Despite this legislative setback, the good news is that the church could be the game changer in ensuring that every child in the U.S. is able to get the best start in life. By educating parents and caregivers about the critical importance of early childhood development, strengthening services that serve the youngest and most vulnerable kids, and advocating for pro-ECD policies at every level, we can help ensure that every child realizes their full potential.