Let them eat cake! I'll just eat mine and have it, too, thank you!

The child poverty rate is

the most widely used indicator of child well-being

because poverty is closely linked to

undesirable outcomes in areas such as

health, education, emotional welfare, and delinquency.

Carsey Institute: Child Poverty High in Rural America

I'm so happy that some children have a lot to celebrate! And loving people who help them celebrate!
But I can't help wondering about the millions of children throughout the world with nothing to celebrate and no chance to celebrate even if they did. In the US alone, 12 million children go to bed hungry every night.
I think about Marie Antoinette when she was told "the people are hungry...they have no bread" and she replied, "Let them eat cake!"
At first glance that seems so callous, as though she doesn't care about the people or their hunger. But on second thought it's obvious that she didn't know how other people lived.
No doubt thinking of the overabundance of foods of all kinds available to her, and not aware of how little others had, she simply assumed that if there was no bread, they could eat cake instead, so what's the big deal?
When I hear politicians saying children don't need help, when they vote to cut funds to programs that may provide the only real meal a child has in a day, when they suggest health care is available to all, and so forth, my anger knows no bounds. But what if like old
Marie,
they simply don't know any better?
What if in their insulated worlds they can't even imagine hungy children, children dying for lack of health care, abused and neglected children dumped into systems unable to really help them for lack of funds, and so forth...
What if all we need to do to change the world into a better place for all children is to tell those with the power and the money to make a difference, that children are suffering and they can do something about it?
But what if we told them, and then by their choices we knew for sure that Marie probably knew all along how much the people were suffering but didn't give a damn as long as her life was filled to overflowing...
What would we do if we knew they knew and chose to do nothing to help children or anyone else in need...

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee