(Taken from Dawn's Page)
Cancer Competition?
By Dawn Burgess
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
So, I sure didn't mean to start a controversy, but Kristi brings up an interesting
point worth considering. Competition. Sometimes I feel like we're being forced
to compete. I don't want to take away anything from breast cancer, I just want
or kids to get a fair shake. I want equality. I want GOLD to be recognized the
way pink is. But I struggle when, for example, a well known breast cancer walk
group comes to town DURING childhood cancer awareness month, and gets a huge
media show, DURING childhood cancer awareness month, when the media seems to
want nothing to do with covering childhood cancer awareness events. I find it
difficult when I see pink everywhere--even when money from that item is not
going to breast cancer anything, it's just pink because people will buy it. I
have a hard time when the teachers in our school have a "pink day" because a
teacher in the district has breast cancer, yet they've never had a "gold day"
and in our elementary school alone there is one child with cancer now, one who
has died, and our daughter who lost her brother last year. I get frustrated
when breast cancer gets people so revved up because it's viewed as "empowering"
to women, yet people turn away from childhood cancer because it's "just too
sad." It is, but it's also reality. And our kids are so so so very much more
than sad. How do you make people see that? And I'll admit, I get angry--yes,
angry, but it's a "productive" anger-- when I see some very well known cancer
organizations giving huge chunks of money to some adult cancer research, yet
spending more on salaries and publicity than they do on reserching the cancers
that kill our kids. So, are we competing? Many days it feels like it. I don't
particularly like that. I hate the ungliness that sometimes comes with
competiton. I pray for the self-control to avoid that. I prefer to think of it
as a matter of differing passions. You have a passion for breast cancer,
prostate cancer, whatever. I have a passion for our kids. You follow yours,
I'll follow mine. We can do it and still be civil. And hopefully, someday soon,
we'll get where we want to be and we won't need a gold or a pink anything.
(Originally Posted Aug 25/10)
Cancer Competition?
By Dawn Burgess
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
So, I sure didn't mean to start a controversy, but Kristi brings up an interesting
point worth considering. Competition. Sometimes I feel like we're being forced
to compete. I don't want to take away anything from breast cancer, I just want
or kids to get a fair shake. I want equality. I want GOLD to be recognized the
way pink is. But I struggle when, for example, a well known breast cancer walk
group comes to town DURING childhood cancer awareness month, and gets a huge
media show, DURING childhood cancer awareness month, when the media seems to
want nothing to do with covering childhood cancer awareness events. I find it
difficult when I see pink everywhere--even when money from that item is not
going to breast cancer anything, it's just pink because people will buy it. I
have a hard time when the teachers in our school have a "pink day" because a
teacher in the district has breast cancer, yet they've never had a "gold day"
and in our elementary school alone there is one child with cancer now, one who
has died, and our daughter who lost her brother last year. I get frustrated
when breast cancer gets people so revved up because it's viewed as "empowering"
to women, yet people turn away from childhood cancer because it's "just too
sad." It is, but it's also reality. And our kids are so so so very much more
than sad. How do you make people see that? And I'll admit, I get angry--yes,
angry, but it's a "productive" anger-- when I see some very well known cancer
organizations giving huge chunks of money to some adult cancer research, yet
spending more on salaries and publicity than they do on reserching the cancers
that kill our kids. So, are we competing? Many days it feels like it. I don't
particularly like that. I hate the ungliness that sometimes comes with
competiton. I pray for the self-control to avoid that. I prefer to think of it
as a matter of differing passions. You have a passion for breast cancer,
prostate cancer, whatever. I have a passion for our kids. You follow yours,
I'll follow mine. We can do it and still be civil. And hopefully, someday soon,
we'll get where we want to be and we won't need a gold or a pink anything.
(Originally Posted Aug 25/10)
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