Birth: Precious and Precarious Lives

With each birth something uniquely new comes into the world.  With respect to this somebody who is unique it can be truly said that nobody was there before.  (Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition)

I was reminded again today about how precious and how fragile life is. This morning I was walking along the canal near my home and came across a mother duck sheltering her newly born ducklings under her body.  She was protecting them from any predators as well as giving them the warmth and nurture that they need to begin their lives.  I’ve also recently come across a series of YouTube videos online of different species of mother animals nurturing and caring for their young.  These videos are heart-warming and inspiring.

Nurture, protection, warmth, and care are beautiful words.   We need to reclaim those words and prioritise the nurture, warmth and care of ourselves and our fellow human beings at all phases of life, from cradle to grave.   Too often, in a materialistic, profit driven society, care is marginalised.  Carers are underpaid, under-valued and do not have much social status in a society where football players, movie stars and billionaire entrepreneurs are our idols.

Yesterday, I was at a seminar where fragile new human beings were not welcomed warmly into the world, not cared for, not nurtured or protected.  The lecture was on the prevalence of child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom.  A conservative figure of the number of children sexually abused in the UK is 600,000 but estimates are even higher, up to 2 million out of 12 million children in the UK.  This is astonishing and disheartening.  The lecturer went on to say that these children are mostly sexually abused by family members and people known to their immediate family, not by strangers.  While there has been a lot of focus recently, and rightly so, about child exploitation in Rotherham and Oxfordshire where young girls were groomed and sexually abused, mostly by Asian men, an even greater tragedy goes unnoticed.  If a child is not safe in their own home with their own parents, where can they be safe?

This abuse can result in serious mental health issues for these children and young people that plague them throughout their lives.   While not all people who are sexually abused as children and young people develop mental health issues, a large proportion of those who suffer serious mental illness as adults have been sexually abused as children.  Prisons and care homes are full of young people who’ve been sexually abused as children and have subsequently developed mental health issues.

This week is mental health awareness week in the UK and there have been many campaigns recently focusing on the importance of providing mental health for children and young people.   Statistics are horrific in terms of the number of children who are depressed or in need of some form of therapy.  According to YoungMinds website, a mental health charity that treats young people, the stats for the UK alone are as follows:

• 1 in 10 children and young people aged 5 – 16 suffer from a diagnosable mental health disorder – that is around three children in every class
• Between 1 in every 12 and 1 in 15 children and young people deliberately self-harm ⁽
• There has been a big increase in the number of young people being admitted to hospital because of self harm. Over the last ten years this figure has increased by 68%
• More than half of all adults with mental health problems were diagnosed in childhood. Less than half were treated appropriately at the time.
• Nearly 80,000 children and young people suffer from severe depression.
• Over 8,000 children aged under 10 years old suffer from severe depression.
• 72% of children in care have behavioural or emotional problems – these are some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
• 95% of imprisoned young offenders have a mental health disorder. Many of them are struggling with more than one disorder.
• The number of young people aged 15-16 with depression nearly doubled between the 1980s and the 2000s.
• The proportion of young people aged 15-16 with a conduct disorder more than doubled between 1974 and 1999.

I am a trustee for a local social enterprise, CHUMS, a  mental health and emotional wellbeing service for children and young people.  Yet the organisation struggles to get sufficient funding to deliver services.  Out of the more than 200 referrals a month it gets of children and young people who desperately need some form of mental health service, only 71 per month at most can be seen.

Each of these lives represent a miracle, a new beginning, a voice and a story of someone who was never here before.  Birth represents newness, the possibility of change and transformation.  Each person is born into a web of relationships, naked and vulnerable.  Each person is equal to every person that was born and yet unique, because there has been no person like them on this earth before.  Why are we allowing as a society, for these new lives to be damaged, left unprotected, neglected, not cared for?  Why is caring so marginalized in our western societies?

What would happen if we prioritized and celebrated the miracle of life and recognized the vulnerability and nakedness with which we are all born into this world.  We are all the same as human beings, equality means we all have divine potential to create, to have meaning and significance in this life.  Birth means possibility and potentiality.   We all have a potential story and a potential life to lead.  Each one of us is unique.  No one has ever existed before like you or me.

Every single person alive longs to live a life of meaning, of significance of purpose.   No matter what country or religion, ethnicity or community we are born into, our lives are meant to have meaning.  Each one of us can do something to make a difference in this world.  Why, so often, are we content not to and to live in denial about the suffering of so many of our fellow human beings, whether they are Syrian refugees, sexually abused children in the UK, or elderly who are abused by their carers?

What gives your life meaning, significance and purpose?  What can you do to nurture, care and protect yourself and others?  The possibilities are endless.