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 surprise, then, that they had been instantly intrigued by a latest information story with the headline “Antarctica’s Penguin Put up 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 bunch of 4 to 5 fortunate workers share the obligations of sorting mail and managing a small reward store. With a purpose to doc the affect of people visiting the island, in addition they rely all of the penguins and maintain a list of all of the fresh-faced chicks.
Stamps, keychains and child penguins — my kids had been beside themselves over how good 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 should 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 concerning the toilet state of affairs, particularly the communal tenting potty that must be emptied each 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 development paper.
I want Idaho’s legislators needed to deal with the shortage of psychological well being companies within the state as badly as my boys need to reside 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 put up workplace on the backside of Earth, and no state will ever have ample behavioral well being professionals for its full populace, not less than not underneath our present healthcare system.
The distinction right here is my boys are going for it although it’s not possible, they usually’re making features. They’re studying learn how to characterize themselves effectively on a job software and learn how to customise their resume for a particular viewers. They’re studying about geography and biology as they learn up on the realm they need to name house. They’re gaining independence and confidence.
In the meantime, the state of Idaho is anticipating one other big 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 companies. 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 might fund further inpatient beds for grownup psychiatric sufferers. It could possibly be used to ascertain psychiatric medical residencies in rural areas; grants for school college students who need to develop into counselors and social staff; disaster facilities in each county; counselors in each faculty.
Idaho legislators claimed they had been involved about psychological well being through the early days of the pandemic, however except for finger-pointing they did not do something about it. Then they obtained bored and moved on to different issues … issues like attacking transgender scholar 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 possible 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 really need, they’ve the chance they usually have the sources — they only must strive.
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.