My kids are gaga over penguins.
I can’t say I blame them — the flightless birds are fairly darned cute. I’ve positively contributed to their obsession through the years by supplying a wealth of penguin stuffed animals, calendars and coloring books.
It’s no marvel, then, that they had been instantly intrigued by a current information story with the headline “Antarctica’s Penguin Submit Workplace is hiring.” We needed to examine.
Seems the gig doesn’t contain delivering postcards to penguins, one thing we discovered massively disappointing. Nonetheless, it’s fairly cool. Stationed at a former British army base on a tiny island off Antarctica, a gaggle of 4 to 5 fortunate workers share the duties of sorting mail and managing a small present store. To be able to doc the affect of people visiting the island, in addition they depend all of the penguins and preserve a listing of all of the fresh-faced chicks.
Stamps, keychains and child penguins — my kids had been beside themselves over how excellent this job was. Then we dove into the dwelling state of affairs.
{The teenager} was out when she discovered the island has no web or cell service. The introverted 12-year-old was out when he heard he’d must share a one-room house with 4 different workers. The 7-year-old was much more when he discovered that showers solely occur each few weeks when visiting ships dock and permit island workers to make use of their operating water. He was much less on board when he heard in regards to the toilet state of affairs, particularly the communal tenting potty that must be emptied day by day.
That left simply the 2 11-year-olds, undeterred. Whereas sporting their superhero-themed pajamas, they pulled out their finest set of markers and began writing their resumes on yellow building paper.
I want Idaho’s legislators wished to deal with the shortage of psychological well being providers within the state as badly as my boys need to dwell in Antarctica. Each conditions are equally unrealistic — the UK Antarctic Heritage Belief is rarely going to rent a pair of 11-year-olds from Idaho to spend 5 months managing its submit workplace on the backside of Earth, and no state will ever have ample behavioral well being professionals for its full populace, no less than not underneath our present healthcare system.
The distinction right here is my boys are going for it despite the fact that it’s not possible, they usually’re making beneficial properties. They’re studying easy methods to characterize themselves effectively on a job software and easy methods to customise their resume for a selected viewers. They’re studying about geography and biology as they learn up on the world they need to name dwelling. They’re gaining independence and confidence.
In the meantime, the state of Idaho is anticipating one other large surplus on the finish of this fiscal yr — a $1.6 billion surplus to be precise — and presently isn’t planning to make use of a single penny to extend entry to psychological well being providers. Little doubt there are 1.6 billion methods to spend $1.6 billion, and even cash like that would dry up rapidly. However cash like that would additionally construct a pediatric psych facility. It may fund extra inpatient beds for grownup psychiatric sufferers. It might be used to ascertain psychiatric medical residencies in rural areas; grants for school college students who need to grow to be counselors and social staff; disaster facilities in each county; counselors in each college.
Idaho legislators claimed they had been involved about psychological well being throughout the early days of the pandemic, however other than finger-pointing they did not do something about it. Then they bought bored and moved on to different issues … issues like attacking transgender pupil athletes regardless of transgender adolescents being amongst these at best threat for suicide and self-harm.
Idaho can’t stop each teen suicide try or prepare sufficient professionals that everybody within the state can get same-day counseling appointments on a regular basis. However they will do some issues, and each little factor helps.
My boys doubtless won’t ever work in Antarctica, however I’m happy with them for going for it. I need to be happy with Idaho’s lawmakers. If addressing our psychological well being disaster is one thing they actually need, they’ve the chance they usually have the sources — they only must attempt.
Stellmon set sail for a three-hour tour on the Palouse in 2001. She is now fortunately marooned in Moscow together with her partner and 5 kids.