Thomas Mott Osborne: “I spent a good part of my life in coaching, dealing with young people, and not long ago, I had a call from a young man…”

“I spent a good part of my life in coaching, dealing with young people, and not long ago, I had a call from a young man whom I had not heard from for about 7 or 8 years. This young man was abandoned by his father in infancy and then by his mother when he was 12, and he spent basically 2 years on his own on the streets, and he spent some time in a group home and, needless to say, had a very difficult life. Maybe things are getting a little better now, but unfortunately, this story is not unusual. It happens more and more frequently. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that 10 million teens, which is one-fourth of our teenagers, are at serious risk of not achieving a productive adulthood. There are 22 million fatherless children in our country. Fifty percent of our children currently grow up without both biological parents. We are the most violent Nation in the world for Nations that are not at war for young people in regard to homicide and suicide. We have 3 million teenagers addicted to alcohol and hundreds of thousands addicted to other kinds of drugs. I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that this level of dysfunction among our young people is a greater threat to the long-term well-being of our Nation than terrorism.”