Wearing a sweaty red baseball cap and a white T-shirt Friday afternoon, David Ashby looked like any 14-year-old in the middle of his summer vacation.
This summer, though, has hardly been a relaxing one for David. He has traversed four states and close to 700 miles, all to educate the public about a social ill close to his heart: homeless children. His trek brought him to Raleigh on Friday.
"We decided to raise awareness of homeless kids, because if adults become homeless, they can do stuff themselves. But [with] child labor laws, a kid can't get a job," David said during a quick lunch at the Raleigh Rescue Mission. "They go to either social services or become homeless with their parents, and sometimes the parents are not the best parents. ... The fastest-growing homeless population [in the country] is families with children."
http://www.newsobserver.com/...
Being a first-time father of a 3 year old boy, I am motivated now, finally, to help children. I really wasn't before. I was more interested in girls and music and just being an immature person. I still have a ways to go, what with my inability to maintain civility with my fellow liberals here at Daily Kos.
This 14 year old kid shows how a real man should act.
It's hard to understand why it takes becoming a parent to instigate empathy for helpless children in a bad situation but it's true for me and I suspect many other people.
So here's hoping that this 14 year old can inspire we Democrats to again become the political party that advocates for the poor and helpless, starting with the children and not for the entrenched business interests that infest Washington DC like roaches. We did it with SCHIP, now let's do it for the parents who have gotten stuck like this family.
Here's hoping that we as the richest country in the world can start to take care of our own, despite political affiliation and despite racial, ethnic, or gender. Let's meet the hatred of the hard right with empathy, just like the great leaders like Gandhi had to do. There's no other choice really. Let's start to do the same for the poor in the rest of the world.
We are making their lives more miserable by the day due to our wreckless use of energy and the subsequent climate change so we owe it to them.
In life, everything comes around one way or another. So I want to help homeless kids and help put in place a safety net for them and for families in general because it can happen to anyone, me included.