This fourth MDG is currently the most off track of all MDGs. Researching this goal, seeing the statistics and the photos, reflecting on my own life, my kids’ lives and on our society as a whole, brought to light a complacency that seems to dominate many modern societies.

“Mama Bear.” We have all heard this phrase used about a mother protecting her cubs. The mammalian species historically showcases the fierce behavior of the adult females to protect the young. Why? Perhaps because they grow their babies inside their bodies. Perhaps because mammals nurse their young.7

Whatever the ‘perhaps’ may be, throughout the animal kingdom, females protect the young – and not just their own – to make sure they get what they need to survive. A female can become wildly strong and aggressive when and if a baby is threatened. ( See above photo8). Bears, monkeys, deer, cougars, hyenas, elephants, dogs, even squirrels and hamsters rally around the young to protect them from predators, to make sure they have enough to eat, to make sure they will survive until they are ready to leave the mother and venture out on their own.

Armed with this information and given that we are at the top of the mammalian “chain,” what has happened to the human race that we have allowed so many of our children, like James and Joey, to be at risk of dying today? What has happened to our species that a threat to one child is no longer a threat to our own child? Are we so afraid of getting involved, of a lawsuit, that we can now ‘walk on by’ and choose to ignore the children to save ourselves the trouble? And what is that doing to the make-up of our brains? How does that change us forever? Is it too late to listen to our instincts? Is it too late to step in and stop this crisis? No, it is not. We can still do something about it. We can still step in and help. And at this point in time, we must step in and protect our species. We must bring all we can – emotionally, spiritually, financially, and technologically to the table and share it. We must stop pushing the less fortunate away because they are not “ours.” We must once again embrace each child as our own. We “Mama Bears” with the resources and the strength must step up and protect our children – all children.

When one baby dies all are affected. If James or Joey dies, in someway or another, Kendall and Kamden will be affected. We are all connected – across continents, race, and gender – by the threads of humanity. Let us tend to these threads and stop cutting them loose. Let us weave them together to build them up and make them stronger.

Number 13

My eldest son, Kendall is thirteen years old.  He and his eleven year-old brother, Kamden, choose to wear the number thirteen on their soccer and baseball jerseys.  Bucking the societal belief that thirteen is an unlucky number, they have set out to prove, if only in their own minds, that a number is just what you make of it.

James, age four and a half, sitting on the left in the below photo,¹ and his little brother Joey, age three, represent the millions of children in developing countries around the world.  These may not be their real names or their real histories, but for these two boys, it is very real that thirteen may be an age they never see.  For them and for ten million children a year in developing countries, thirteen is the number of times they are more likely to die within the first five years of² their lives than children like Kendall and Kamden who are born in industrialized countries.  They may also be two of the 29,000 children under the age of five who die today around the world.  Or, they may be two of the twenty-one children under the age of five who die each minute, mostly in developing countries, of mainly treatable causes.³

James and Joey live on the other side of the globe from my boys.  Their lives, their communities, their families, and their futures are vastly different than Kendall’s and Kamden’s.  How can they buck the system and change their relationship to the number thirteen?   How can they look at the number five, the number twenty-one, and the number 29,000 and set out to prove that a number is only what you make of it?

The United Nations hopes to make this possible for James and Joey through the success of the Fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG4).  One hundred and ninety-two United Nations member states and at least twenty-three international organizations have agreed to achieve this goal and seven other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), begun in 1990, by the year 2015.⁴

The fourth MDG’s target is to reduce by two-thirds the number of deaths in children under the age of five by 2015.⁵ In 1990, the number of deaths per 1,000 live births was 93.  The 2015 target number is 31 out of 1,000.   As of 2008, the number of deaths per 1,000 live births is 65.⁶ Five years remain to reduce the current number by more than half.

Part 2 on Rise of The Mama Bear will be presented next week…..

done (dn) v. adj.

1. Having been carried out or accomplished; finished: a done deed.

4. Informal Totally worn out; exhausted.

Idioms: done for Informal.  Doomed to death or destruction. done in

Informal Totally worn out; exhausted. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Physical pain or Emotional pain?

Seems like an appropriate anthem for my life at this point in time.  In fact, I say it and hear it said by others almost daily.  So I was amazed and in awe when the following video by OK Go was brought to my attention by Keith (thanks Keith for loving music so much that you are constantly discovering new music for us to enjoy!)   Truly, one of the most remarkable music videos I have seen in a very long time, it will remind you that each and every thing that happens leads to something else, which leads to something else, which leads to something else….and on and on and on.  Enjoy!

Click Here To Watch The Video By OK GO -  This Too Shall Pass