Children-an indicator species
They are dying
Something I almost heard on the radio triggered thoughts about children as an indicator species.
The concept of an indicator species is useful because the realities of Ecology are so mind-bogglingly complex. I’m sure we have all seen a diagram of an ecosystem food web (example1). They are wonderful models, but the reality is far more complex (example2).
Given this complexity, the strategy has been to find an organism that, because of its characteristics and position in a variety of networks, might be any early responder to a broad range of ecological and environmental change. When the indicator species thrives, we assume the environment is stable and beneficent for all. The classic case is the use of canaries as the coal mine indicator species up to 1986. When the bird stops singing, get out, and get out now.
Sometimes the indicator species is also a keystone species such as the Pacific Northwest Salmon. Salmon are sensitive to riparian conditions, water quality and temperature, rainfall patterns and stream flow, and probably ten more things we do not know about. However, without the conveyer belt formed by salmon carrying Nitrogen uphill, the trees will not grow, the bears, wolves, eagles, and, most importantly, the maggots will not thrive3. The tall green, beautiful Northwest will be irrevocably altered into something unpredictable, and very different4.
As we go into election season, we hear all about the state of the nation from different perspectives and focused on different concerns. Much of what we hear paints a pretty terrible picture. Are we really in that bad a place? How can we know?
We can use children as a metaphorical indicator species. Kids are connected to social, health, food, developmental, economic, and environmental system networks. If the kids are thriving, it means that underneath all the noise, we might be doing alright.
First, let’s stipulate that “childhood” is fairly recent invention5, and “adolescence” is a modern creation6. Over the course of time, the concepts of childhood and adolescence have been extended. A recent extension has been the recognition that the “rational” pre-frontal cortex perhaps does not become fully developed until you are almost 25 years-old7.
Second, let’s stipulate that the pandemic with loss of adult care-givers, increased isolation and food insecurity, and a ramifying loss of social stability knocked childhood on its butt.
The pandemic is largely over as a driver of change and instability. While recognizing that the country is big, and highly variable, how are the kids doing?
The headline is that they are getting shot. During 2021-2, gun deaths reached 106% of the 2013 rate. In 2022, children of color had a death rate 18 times higher than white children and their suicide rate increased 24%.
Other key findings:
-There were 2,526 gun deaths in 2022 among 1- to 17-year-olds, averaging to nearly 7 per day.
-Firearms accounted for nearly a third of all deaths among 15- to 17-year-olds.
-From 2013 to 2022, the rates of gun suicide among Black youth ages 10 to 17 tripled and, for Hispanic youth ages 10 to 17, more than doubled.
-Black male teens and young adults (ages 15 to 34) accounted for 34 percent of all gun homicides during 2022, though they represented just 2 percent of the total U.S. population. The gun homicide rate for this group was 24 times higher than that for white males in this age group.
-Over half—55 percent—of deaths among Black older teens ages 15 to 17 in 2022 were caused by guns.
-In 2022, the gun homicide rate among Black female teens and young adults ages 15–34 was nine times higher than that of their white female counterparts.
-Across all age groups, American Indian/Alaskan Natives were five times more likely to die by gun homicide than their white counterparts8.
If a child survives the gunfire, he, it is mostly males, might die by a second killer, car accidents, or by the third, an overdose. Drug use is down but drug deaths are up.
-“Median monthly overdose deaths among persons aged 10–19 years (adolescents) increased 109% from July–December 2019 to July–December 2021; deaths involving illicitly manufactured fentanyls (IMFs) increased 182%.”9
Over the last decade or so, the U.S. has made huge progress in reducing child poverty and its associated ills. The rate had dropped from almost 24% in 2012 to about 5% halfway through the pandemic. At the end of 2023, the child poverty level rebounded back up to over 16%.
-It is likely that in a year or two, one of five kids will live in poverty.
-“Poverty elevates a child’s risk of experiencing behavioral, social and emotional and health challenges. Child poverty also reduces skill-building opportunities and academic outcomes, undercutting a young student’s capacity to learn, graduate high school and more.”11
We could go on examining how kids are doing in terms of physical health, schooling, mental health, food security, and developmental opportunities. The verses are different, but the song is pretty much always the same. At best, the indicator species is under a great deal of stress.
From 1979 to 2008 , the overall death rate of children was cut in half.12 Deaths from car accidents, firearms, and overdoses continued to drop until 2016. At that point death from cars and guns dramatically increased. Some of that increase is a reflection of a rapid and significant increase in suicide rates.
Everything just fades compared to increasing suicide rates. Go back a couple paragraphs and look again at those suicide rates. Without having a definitive list of causes, consider that the causes of teen suicide and teen homicide probably overlap significantly. Then begin to think about the causes of overdose rates probably overlap the causes of the homicide and the suicide rates.
If more and more kids are killing themselves, the indicator species is telling us we are in serious cultural, political, and social trouble. It is time to stop the stupidity. We have created a society where kids think killing themselves is better than living. Why? The long answer would take a bookshelf. The short answer is because of the greed and mental illnesses of the scavenger oligarchs with the concomitant destruction of the middle class.
It started with Reagan. He may never have said the words, but he preached that greed is good. “Greed is good” has become the mantra of a group of white males in the church, in the government, and in the corporation. We hear daily about how immigrants are destroying the country. It is true. Their names, among many, are Murdoch, Musk, and Thiel. The most egregious example is the homegrown Leo. These are the archetypes of end-stage capitalists willing to destroy everything to gain the last dollar.
Their mental illness has resulted in a broad scale crippling of culture, society, governance, and spirituality that is dooming democracy and commonwealth. The indicator species is screaming a message to us, put these damaged, destructive, people back in their cages or the city on the hill is going to become a tarnished shell of what might have been.
1) https://askabiologist.asu.edu/plosable/marine-food-web-collapse
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/0012-9658%282001%29082%5B2403%3AEOSDNO%5D2.0.CO%3B2
5) https://allthatsinteresting.com/invention-of-childhood
6) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/199501/the-invention-adolescence
7) https://www.iflscience.com/does-the-brain-really-mature-at-the-age-of-25-68979
8) https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/guns-remain-leading-cause-of-death-for-children-and-teens