All Children Are Created Equal

All Children Are Created Equal

Meri Wallace
Meri Wallace

Meri Wallace, LCSW, a parenting expert and child and family therapist for over thirty years, grew up in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Meri completed her Masters degree in Social Work at NYU, specializing in child development. Meri writes a blog for “Psychology Today”, and is the author of “Birth Order Blues” (Henry Holt and Co.) and “Keys to Parenting Your Four Year Old” (Barron's Educational Series.) She has been a columnist for Sesame Street Parents, New York Family Magazine,and Brooklyn Parent and has been a consultant to Children’s Television Workshop. She is frequently interviewed by national publications including Newsweek, Cosmopolitan, and Parents Magazine.

Would they ever see their parents again?

They sat huddled in a cave waiting, they were panicked, frightened, cold, hungry, and badly wanted their parents who symbolized safety and protection. Would they ever see their parents again? Were they going to die? Their coach was kind and positive and tried hard to keep their morale up to help them stay alive. The whole world was watching and praying that the terrible catastrophe that nature had wrought upon them would not kill these children. All over the world people’s hearts ached, and longed for these children to be reunited with their parents. Everyone knew how horrendous it must be for the parents whose kids were inside, fearing that they would never see their beloved children alive again. The water was rising. Time was running out.

Like these children, the immigrant children separated from their parents are in a horrendous situation. They too feel desperate and lonely and ache for their parents.Though their trauma has not been wrought by nature, but by complicated world issues, it is equally serious for them. Their emotional and physical well being is at stake.Time is running out for these children as well. Every day that passes, puts these children more in peril of lasting emotional harm.

A court has ruled that these children must be reunited, and the deadlines have passed. Roadblocks are being raise at every turn but it must be understood that there is no time to waste. Experts from countries from all over the world banded together to strategize and use all the knowledge and skills they had to resolve the situation in Thailand. The result: one by one the children were pulled out of the cave alive. Surely a joint effort and recognition of the urgency, can bring about a similar positive resolution for the immigrant children. They have an equal value to any child in the world.