Disaster, Chaos, FEAR, Anxiety and Pain (Are on the Decrease)

From Time Magazine, July 26, 2004)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040726-665068,00.html

According to a sweeping U.S. government study conducted by 20 federal departments and agencies and released last week, the kids are actually doing just fine. By almost any important measure, the report was bursting with good news:

teen birthrates are at record lows;
teen crime rates are plummeting;
kids are swearing off cigarettes
(the smoking rate for high school seniors is the lowest it has been in 29 years),

staying in school (87% of young Americans now earn high school diplomas)

getting much of the basic health care they need (immunization rates are high, for example, with 90% of kids getting vaccinated against hepatitis B and a record 81% against chicken pox).

"There are a lot of favorable developments," says Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which contributed to the report. The survey used 25 health and social indicators to evaluate the approximately 73 million under-18 Americans, and on the whole, the investigators declared themselves exceedingly pleased.

For all the heat generated by the number of Americans without health insurance, fully 88% of kids do have coverage. What's more, 83% of children are considered in good or excellent health, and 81% of kids under 7 live in homes in which no one regularly smokes anymore.

Domestic life is becoming more stable too. Currently, 68% of children live with two married parents. While that's down from 77% a generation ago, it's a figure that has at least stayed steady for nearly a decade, suggesting that the long demographic decline of the two-parent household may have been arrested.

in 89% of those two-parent households at least one parent is working full time.

In addition, kids have been doing a better job of staying out of trouble. The number of violent crimes committed by teenagers plummeted 78% from 1993 to 2002--and the number of teen victims fell commensurately. "Over the last decade, 4.2 million serious crimes against youth did not occur that would have [otherwise] occurred," says Lawrence Greenfeld of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Gloom, doom, despair and fear are giving way to faith, hope and love.

FEAR =
False
Evidence
Appearing
Real

Take heart. God is at work among us.

Write your response to me at gsweeten@lifewaycenters.com