Of all the things that confuse me (there are easily 3k this…

We have special provisions for children. In court, they're treated differently. We've agreed they shouldn't have to work. They need public school (or so I thought). They cannot consent to sex. We have a set of laws that protects them.

I thought this was understood, and enacted by the thousands of examples we can gin up of adults running into traffic to save a child - not necessarily their own - or stopping a bullet. Remember those heroic teachers in Newtown in Parkland who shielded their students? That.

And we derided adults who USED children as shields, or failed to protect them. The mother who lets her husband beat her child because otherwise he'd turn on her. Society abjures such a person. The guard who hid instead of rushing the shooter in Parkland? Hated.

But now, with Covid is is simply disallowed to claim that we should prioritize, say, a 10-year-old school child over an 84-year-old in assisted living. Where the hell did this attitude come from and why does half of my social circle seem to believe it's right?

To me, this puts us on a level with societies that use and lean on children, for their own comfort, safety, entertainment....The ancient Greeks who had sex with young boys, mere playthings. Indonesian child labor markets. Hamsters -- because they eat their young for sustenance.

I will be 55 in a couple months and in a perfect resource-filled world, during a crisis, sure, I'd say save my life AND the 5-year-old's life. Yup, that's ideal.

But if there's one dose of medicine or oxygen? It's not a hard problem. The child comes first.

I've had two marriages - both interesting, the second thankfully near perfect. I've had three wonderful children and buried one. I've visited 14 countries. I've had three reasonably successful careers. Am I done? Hope not. But Jesus, people, I've had a chance.

In the structure inside my head, the child with the future comes before me. And I'm 100% bewildered that this isn't the accepted line of reasoning in our broad community. Prior to 2020, I really thought it was.

Of all the things that confuse me (there are easily 3k this morning) this stumps me most: When did we decide that saving an 80-year-old's life is worth sacrificing a child's? Or that the value of their lives are exactly comparable? I could've sworn we'd agreed to something else.

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