Why couldn't I have said that?

Words fail me all the time. They just slip right out of my head. My mind goes completely blank. I know have something to say, I just can't remember what that something is. It happens to me ALL the time, but it especially happens to me when I feel like I am being confronted about something. Does that ever happen to you?

Recently I was at a girlfriend's house with some friends, having a glass of wine and some great dessert, when we started talking about clothing stores and their source factories, and someone asked me a question about why I shop at a certain clothing store over another. So, I dove into the problem of children laboring in the cotton fields of Afghanistan. Children start picking cotton in these fields around the age of eight. They camp out in the fields for weeks at a time, with no adult supervision, obviously not being educated, while picking cotton that has been sprayed with more poisonous pesticides than any other grown product on earth from dawn until night. (Since cotton is not consumed, it can be sprayed with pesticides exponentially more than produce). At least I tried to dive into this problem. I half-hazardously stumbled through an explanation, grasping for words as my mind blanked before me.

Then I tried to explain that MANY companies KNOWINGLY use this cotton, and I would rather spend my money supporting a clothing manufacturer that KNOWINGLY DID NOT use this cotton and actively supported fair wage and fair growing processes.

Then, ACK! Someone there said something about if those fields weren't cotton fields, they would be planted with poppies and used to harvest heroin, so it was better the way it was.

And my blank mind struck again!! What I wanted to say was that NO! It wasn't an either/or situation. Afghanistan can plant cotton fields and harvest them without using child labor in slave-like conditions. They can pay fair wages to their cotton harvesters. Children there can stay AT HOME and be educated. In fact, that is what needs to happen in Afghanistan if that country is going to succeed.

But how? We, the consumers, have to demand it. Are you a stock-holder in a retail corporation? Do you know where those garments are sourced from? Demand to know. Use your buying power wisely and selectively. Sponsor a child in a country, like China, Bangladesh, Thailand, or Afghanistan where child labor is the means for family survival in many cases, so that these children have access to education and a better life.

Now, if only I could have said all that the other night!