Parents Talk Back

Driving has been getting deadlier in America for the past three years, and one popular theory suggests that it's because of reduced enforcement of traffic laws.

When drivers know they are less likely to get caught or punished, they're more likely to drive recklessly. Increasing enforcement and creating harsher penalties for the most egregious infractions are likely to be effective deterrents for a particular group of deliberately dangerous drivers.

But the rising number of fatalities on the road has multiple causes.

Consider the rate of traffic fatalities in Missouri -- significantly worse than the national average and in the bottom third among states. The state's laws contribute to deadlier driving: We're among the minority of states that do not require new drivers to take a driver's education course before getting a license. Riders in the backseat are not required to wear a seatbelt, even though wearing one reduces the risk of dying in an accident. In 2020, Missouri repealed its helmet law for motorcycle riders over the age of 25. Unsurprisingly, motorcycle fatalities jumped 35%. Unlike those in other states, Missouri's texting-and-driving law only applies to commercial drivers and people under the age of 21. And anyone is allowed to use a cellphone for calls, making the texting law hard to enforce.

Speed, distraction, impairment and fatigue all contribute to accidents and traffic deaths.

Attempts to create safer drivers for the long haul have fallen flat here. Many schools cut driver's ed programs years ago -- if they had ever offered them at all.

In 2021, then-state Rep. Mark Ellebracht, a Democrat from Clay County, introduced a bill requiring driver's ed after one of his constituents lost a grandson in an accident involving young drivers. Ellebracht said there was support for the proposal from the insurance industry because teens who have gone through a structured course have a lower risk of getting into an accident or getting a traffic ticket.

Even so, "no one took it seriously," Ellebracht said. In 2017, Rep. Galen Higdon, a Republican from St. Joseph, also proposed bringing driver's ed back to Missouri schools and proposed a funding mechanism to pay for it.

It went nowhere.

Rob Droege, president of the Missouri Driver Safety Education Association, also teaches a classroom-based driver's ed course in the Lindbergh school district. Students can sign up for behind-the-wheel driving lessons offered after school, but they cost $200 for four hours. (That's much lower than what commercial driving schools charge.) He said it's hard for schools to even find instructors because fewer trainers obtain the certification now that the course is not required.

While some school districts offer free in-class instruction, it's the practice behind the wheel that is crucial for young drivers. Making that education and experience free in the areas with the highest accident and fatality rates would improve traffic safety for every driver on the road.

Missouri requires a new driver to practice for 40 hours with a parent, grandparent, guardian or instructor before obtaining a license, but that's a far cry from requiring instruction from a certified professional.

"How many are even doing 40 hours, truthfully?" Droege asked. Plus, practices have changed since many adults first learned to drive. For example, new drivers are no longer taught to hold the steering wheel at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions, he said.

Simon Anderson, owner of the Coach Harder Driving School, said his company is seeing student drivers with more anxiety and stress than they did five or 10 years ago.

A parent may not be well-equipped to teach their teen how to drive. Meanwhile, the lack of a required class means fewer new drivers understand the risks involved.

"We are doing a disservice by not having it," Anderson said. While he understands there would be a cost associated with requiring driver's ed, like the majority of states in the country do, there's also a cost associated with having large numbers of poorly trained drivers on the road.

"In many ways, we're paying for it," Anderson said.

A few weeks before Christmas, Amanda Mullen was up late at night with the family calendars, trying to plan her school-aged kids' summer activities -- more than six months away.

Dawn Morgan sets alarms an hour in advance of when camp registration begins in the winter.

Every year, as February inches closer, Ben Westhoff feels his blood pressure start to rise.

"I know camp applications are coming up," the father of two said.

Parents of school-aged children across the country are familiar with the anxiety and stress that come with finding summer childcare -- and it's only getting worse.

Parents are dealing with summer camps that are short-staffed, along with rising prices and waitlists as soon as registration opens. It's an indictment of America's broken child care infrastructure, which is vital to keeping people working.

Mullen said her daughter has participated in a Girl Scouts camp every year since kindergarten. This past month, Mullen logged in to sign her up just a few hours after the registration began. Now, she's on a waitlist.

"It's really hard to find a full-day program," she said. She tries to keep track of the different registration times for each of the four or five different camps her children attend over the summer. She has to juggle pickup and drop-off times for the various locations and relies on her parents, who live locally, to help out during the weeks when camps aren't available.

Even though she sets a series of alarms for each registration -- 15 minutes before, then 5 minutes before -- things can slip through the cracks.

"It's pretty cutthroat," she said. For now, her son is signed up for an astronaut camp about 45 minutes away from where they live.

"We just have to figure out a way to get him there," she said.

Westhoff, who has two elementary school-aged children, said the stakes are high for working parents: If kids don't get into camp, you can't work that week.

Plus, many camp offerings only run from 9 a.m. to noon.

"Who only wants their kids in camp for three hours a day?" he asked.

The process of signing up is a byzantine hodgepodge of paperwork and outdated websites. Westhoff has to gather medical records and other information from doctors for the five different sets of forms required by the various camps his children will be attending.

One of the forms has an extensive section for parents to describe their kids' personality traits, fears and activities, as well as their hopes and dreams for the camp experience.

"It feels like a Myers-Briggs test," Westhoff said. "Who is going to fill this all out?"

He doesn't understand why there can't be a universal camp form, like colleges use for applicants.

Part of the problem is that America expects families with full-time working parents to figure out child care with little support or resources. The need for affordable, full-day summer care options has been a persistent problem for years.

Morgan, who works as a paralegal, says she coordinates with another parent so they can share summer carpool duties. The camp they are trying to get their children into gives preference to local residents, so Morgan has to wait a week before she can even attempt to sign up.

"If I can't get in, (my friend) has to cancel, and we have to find something somewhere else," she said. They need the transportation help from one another.

"It's a pure struggle," she said. "Most parents work nowadays, and no one understands that."

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 81.2% of employed mothers with children ages 6 to 17 worked full-time in 2021, compared with 77.2% of mothers with children under age 6. Among employed fathers, 95.7% of those with older children and 95.3% of those with younger children worked full-time.

Plus, there's the guilt of having to send children to a camp all summer that they may not want to attend simply because of logistics, timing, location and cost.

"This isn't a new problem," Morgan said. "It's been going on for years. No one seems to care to help or fix anything."

People sometimes privately share with me their concerns about medical treatment for transgender children, and those concerns sound familiar to me.

They ask why so many more children are identifying as trans now compared to a few years ago. They wonder if a young child might just be going through a phase and worry about the long-term consequences of medical intervention.

These fears sound familiar because I used to have the exact same thoughts -- until around five years ago.

That's when a dear friend shared that her high school-aged child identified as nonbinary. I had only known this child as the gender assigned to them at birth, and I really didn't understand what "nonbinary" meant. I felt awkward trying to use different pronouns, and worried that I would slip up and offend them.

My friend explained that her child didn't feel male or female, and assured me that it was normal to take some time to adjust to a new name and pronouns. She also said that she didn't have many answers about how to proceed, but wanted to support her child however she could.

I felt her palpable concern as a mother, and I have never doubted her fierce love for her child.

Over the years, I listened and asked questions as my friend and her spouse figured out this journey for their family. They sought help from the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital, which was in national headlines recently when a whistleblower made allegations of misconduct and harm. The complainant says that puberty blockers and hormone therapies were given too freely to children and teens at the center, that there was a lack of disclosure about the medications' risks, and that patients with mental illness were inadequately evaluated.

My friend's experience with the facility was nothing like that -- in fact, quite the opposite. As the investigation into the whistleblower's allegations runs its course, it's important for political leaders to show compassion for those whose lives are at stake.

Over the past few years, I've met a handful of families with transgender children. They express feeling persecuted and attacked by lawmakers using their children as pawns in a culture war. They fear the state criminalizing them, or even taking their kids away, if they follow a doctor's guidance on caring for their child.

Consider this tweet by State Rep. Chris Lonsdale last week: "Sorry your (sic) hysterical about MO Republicans protecting kids. We aren't going to allow the mutilation of children in Missouri!"

It's awful to hear anyone insult and demonize the parents of trans kids, but an elected official implying that these parents need to be stopped from "mutilating" their kids is especially cruel and ugly. These are parents who have watched their children suffer and are desperate to help them. They are scared of losing a child to suicide, which is a higher risk for gender-nonconforming youth and adolescents.

While there are legitimate questions about how best to treat transgender kids, everyone of any political persuasion should be able agree on one thing: It's unacceptable to dehumanize trans children or their families. This should not be a controversial idea. Preserving the human dignity of the families affected should be the nonnegotiable baseline as we grapple with these issues politically.

As for Missouri Republicans "protecting kids," one could argue that they have failed to do so for years by turning a blind eye to allegations of sexual abuse at unlicensed religious reform schools, state-contracted youth residential facilities and summer camps. Victims say their pleas to investigate these institutions were long ignored. Missouri also brings kids into foster care at one of the highest rates in the country. The director of the state's child welfare agency said at a Missouri House committee meeting that the state has "effectively legally orphanized" around 1,500 children by severing parental rights before anyone was available to take them in.

Why haven't we seen the same sense of urgency to protect these children?

Rather than solving these real problems, some lawmakers have chosen to paint our friends and neighbors as monsters for seeking medical help for their kids.

It's an easier way to score political points. But it's not about protecting children.