Her View: On mental health, Idaho’s legislators could at least try

My children are gaga over penguins.

I can’t say I blame them — the flightless birds are pretty darned cute. I’ve definitely contributed to their obsession over the years by supplying a wealth of penguin stuffed animals, calendars and coloring books.

It’s no wonder, then, that they were immediately intrigued by a recent news story with the headline “Antarctica’s Penguin Post Office is hiring.” We had to investigate.

Turns out the gig does not involve delivering postcards to penguins, something we found hugely disappointing. Still, it’s pretty cool. Stationed at a former British military base on a tiny island off Antarctica, a group of four to five lucky employees share the responsibilities of sorting mail and managing a small gift shop. In order to document the impact of humans visiting the island, they also count all the penguins and keep an inventory of all the fresh-faced chicks.

Stamps, keychains and baby penguins — my children were beside themselves over how perfect this job was. Then we dove into the living situation.

The teenager was out when she learned the island has no internet or cell service. The introverted 12-year-old was out when he heard he’d have to share a one-room apartment with four other employees. The 7-year-old was even more interested when he learned that showers only happen every few weeks when visiting ships dock and allow island employees to use their running water. He was less on board when he heard about the bathroom situation, specifically the communal camping potty that needs to be emptied daily.

That left just the two 11-year-olds, undeterred. While wearing their superhero-themed pajamas, they pulled out their best set of markers and started writing their resumes on yellow construction paper.

I wish Idaho’s legislators wanted to address the scarcity of mental health services in the state as badly as my boys want to live in Antarctica. Both situations are equally unrealistic — the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust is never going to hire a pair of 11-year-olds from Idaho to spend five months managing its post office at the bottom of Earth, and no state will ever have sufficient behavioral health professionals for its full populace, at least not under our current healthcare system.

The difference here is my boys are going for it even though it’s impossible, and they’re making gains. They’re learning how to represent themselves well on a job application and how to customize their resume for a specific audience. They’re learning about geography and biology as they read up on the area they want to call home. They’re gaining independence and confidence.

Meanwhile, the state of Idaho is anticipating another huge surplus at the end of this fiscal year — a $1.6 billion surplus to be exact — and currently isn’t planning to use a single penny to increase access to mental health services. No doubt there are 1.6 billion ways to spend $1.6 billion, and even money like that could dry up quickly. But money like that could also build a pediatric psych facility. It could fund additional inpatient beds for adult psychiatric patients. It could be used to establish psychiatric medical residencies in rural areas; grants for college students who want to become counselors and social workers; crisis centers in every county; counselors in every school.

Idaho legislators claimed they were concerned about mental health during the early days of the pandemic, but aside from finger-pointing they failed to do anything about it. Then they got bored and moved on to other things … things like attacking transgender student athletes despite transgender adolescents being among those at greatest risk for suicide and self-harm.

Idaho can’t prevent every teen suicide attempt or train enough professionals that everyone in the state can get same-day counseling appointments all the time. But they can do some things, and every little thing helps.

My boys likely will never work in Antarctica, but I’m proud of them for going for it. I want to be proud of Idaho’s lawmakers. If addressing our mental health crisis is something they really want, they have the opportunity and they have the resources — they just need to try.

Stellmon set sail for a three-hour tour on the Palouse in 2001. She is now happily marooned in Moscow with her spouse and five children.