The other evening, I burst into tears at a comedy routine.

My husband and I were watching the show on the internet when the comedian started talking about children. I’m terribly at telling jokes, so I won’t even try to be funny in retelling it. Basically, the comedian observed the different social reactions to how many children families have. One child, and people coo and aww. Two children? Well, ok. But three children?! Are you crazy?!

I know, I know. It was just a joke. But it made me cry because it reminded me of a much bigger issue in our society: the worth we place on children.

I seem to see it all over the place lately, from simple things like apps that let you block baby pictures from your Facebook feed and restaurants that ban children under a certain age, to cover stories on Time magazine about couples choosing to be childless and jokes about large families, to problems with huge implications like declining birth rates and abortion.

When I think about 36,000 abortions in our state every year, my heart breaks for these precious babies whose lives weren’t valued.

Now, I don’t have anything against jokes about children. Nor do I want to criticize couples who don’t have children – I’m in that category myself. I just find this negative attitude about children so troubling.

It reminds me of the character Aibileen from the book, “The Help.” She was a black maid in the south during the 1960s. Many of her employers didn’t value her because of the color of her skin, so I guess it’s no surprise that they also didn’t care much about their own children.

Aibileen made it her mission to help children understand their value. She would take her young charges aside, sit them on her lap, and ask them to repeat after her: “I is kind. I is smart. I is important.”

I wonder what the world would be like if we had more people like Aibileen — people who look beyond someone’s appearance or abilities, look beyond the annoyance or expense they can sometimes be, and value others for the very simple reason that they, too, are human beings.