Silence of Summer – Memorial Weekend Bailout
Posted on 26. May, 2009 by Goode Fellow in Local
On the weekend when many American families turned to barbecue, camping, and a long weekend – kids are looking forward to the end of school and the beginning of summer. For many kids, swimming in the local public pool and chilling with friends is one of their treasured activities; but in one neighborhood this year, all is quiet!
Public Swimming Pool Closed Due to Cutbacks
Closed Due to Cutbacks
Macklanburg Park – Community Center, City of Oklahoma City Park & Recreation Department public swimming pool is closed this year due to financial cutbacks.
In this neighborhood, you will not hear the shouts and laughter of boys and girls splashing and carrying-on during the hot summer days. The children do not have a place to escape out of the house for some cooling down fun and the parents won’t have a few moments to themselves, or a place to go and work on their sun tans.
What kind of message is being sent to children today?
Too Much Sun - No More Fun!
Children always seem to be the ones to suffer.
Children don’t understand financial cutbacks to their local public swimming pool when the government has spent almost 8 trillion dollars on bailouts for bad business and managerial practices. They don’t understand how it can be so difficult to keep a simple swimming pool open – after all, it’s just a rectangle filled with water and a few lifeguards during the summer – how much can that cost?
They can’t understand why their city takes away their only source of recreation while even the City and State governments are spending lavishly on projects that may never show a return – instead of investing in the future of our State – the children!
And what about the parents?
Parents do not understand the fact that they now have to spend $7-$10 per/day if they want to let their children have a little fun this summer. Another added expense during an already stressed economy.
All's Quiet on the Playground Front
What happened to all the government rhetoric about building communities that encourage safe places for children to play. The government does seem to understand that when you take away something as simple as their playground and swimming pool – you are saying: “You are not important enough! Go play in the street”, because that is what is left to many of these children today.
With rising costs of everything, unemployment still at an unprecedented high – money is tighter than ever. However, it also means that tensions are higher in the home, stress over money, overworked families and higher bills, summer coming on and parents telling kids to just go play. Government should know by now that when children don’t have healthy, safe outlets for their energy – they have a tendency to get into trouble; crime rises, vandalism, anger rises, tensions soar, etc… and it is all because they genuinely do not feel like anybody cares enough to “give a damn” – so why should they?
Our government needs to stop talking about the children of this nation as our future and start actually treating them like they are our brightest future. Trillions of dollars have been spent over the past few months on many projects – and that does not mean that many of them are not worthy projects – however, if the children are our future we should be building them up, encouraging them and giving them a small chance to be children without stress and worries as they grow to be caring adults.
