Remember those scenes in Hercules movies where the hero battles the multi-headed dragon called a hydra. You cut off one head and more appear. It took every ounce of creativity and strength for Hercules to defeat all those twisting heads.
That pretty much describes life in the US today. It's just one crisis after another. Heroic people battle what we call three-headed hydras, people guided only by apathy, envy and fear. They are the so-called leaders that have allowed a pandemic to grow. We are failing to follow public health research regarding the need for robust contact tracing, and not providing the COVID-19 tests and provider protective gear in many localities. In some counties, as many as 30% of parents reported that accessing medical care was a challenge. There is no national plan to end the pandemic nor a plan to address massive joblessness. The same leaders have let an epidemic of ACEs grow in every state over the past two decades.
We use the metaphor of three-headed hydra a lot in our work, which is committed to ensuring that 100% of our children are safe from abuse, neglect, trauma and social adversity. We work with local heroes committed to a process of capacity-building of vital services so that every child grows up free from a nightmare world created by the hydras. These would be cities, towns and in some cases entire counties, where benign neglect, systemic racism, health disparities and economic depression have doomed entire families to hardship and hopelessness.
As “data people,” we can show just how hard it is for parents to access what we refer to as the ten vital services for surviving and thriving, including medical care, mental health care, housing and food security programs and transport to vital services—among others. We can also share the high rates of child adversity, abuse, neglect and trauma.
The deeply-troubling picture we paint is not new, as trauma and disparities have a long and painful history. What is new is that the pandemic and economic free fall will push many more families, once happily middle class, into a state of joblessness and insecurity. For anyone paying attention, the future is going to be really, really hard for a large part of the population.
The colliding crises we are all experiencing are not the result of an uncontrollable hurricane or wrath of the gods of Olympus. They are man-made and solved with human ingenuity and collaboration.
Our media loves to put one side against the other—we hear it’s “blue states vs. red states” all the time, especially in election cycles. We don’t see it that way at all. We have had people on both sides of the aisle support our work building the infrastructure to ensure safe childhoods.
What we see, almost everyday, are heroes vs. three-headed hydras. The battle is between compassion, innovation and social justice vs. apathy, envy and fear of change (which to a hydra in power means loss of control).
We like to think of ourselves as optimists, peaceful warriors who see the glass half full and we are inspired by heroes working on our 100% Community initiative—our data-driven and cross sector ACEs prevention program guided by the phrase “100% can thrive.” There are heroes confronting hydras in our pilot programs, from Taos Pueblo to the counties of Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Socorro, Otero, Valencia and Dona Ana.
Like in all Greek myths, we mortals face a stark choice. We can join together as heroes to take on the heavy lifting of creating the local systems of support required to survive this era of viruses, ACEs and an unpredictable job market. Or we let the hydras, who are keeping a firm grip on all the control and power they can in a society turning upside down, roam our states, cities and towns, ruining everything.
Our work across New Mexico to ensure thriving childhoods has shown us that these troubled times are within an era that creates heroes. Be one.
Learn more through our books Anna, Age Eight: The data-driven prevention of childhood trauma, 100% Community: Ensuring 10 vital services for surviving and thriving and our new graphic novel Attack of the Three-Headed Hydras: Confronting Apathy, Envy and Fear on the road to saving the humans and future. www.TenVitalServices.org
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