So today in my afternoon commute a talk show host was bemoaning the gun control controversy. He was stating and not for the first time that we don’t have a gun problem we have a crime problem……and he was right. Look at all the serious problems we have in this country from gun crime to abortion to bank bailouts to overspending to gangs to treason. We have taken faults and indiscretion to criminal heights. Greed, selfishness, avarice and sloth have transfered from things we should avoid to things that many aspire to.
The elephant in the living room though is something very few people want to talk about. They don’t even want to think about it. We may have a crime problem but more than that we have a responsibility problem. That’s right. Where is the parent at home to teach children the difference between right and wrong. In some cases the parent is working two jobs just to keep themselves above water. In some cases the parents can’t give up ” the good life”, can’t sacrifice a new car, or a destination vacation, or clothes at Black and White, or dinner at a fancy restaurant or the latest game system. In other cases there are parents home but they’re too strung out, too drunk, or too lazy to care for their children.
Children are sent to school hungry, not because there is no food in the house but because if the child doesn’t feed themselves no one else will feed them. These same children don’t understand the difference between right and wrong either because no one ever taught them. Other children, those who’ve been daycared since birth most of the time live in a dog eat dog arena. They have to be hard, if they aren’t the other children will pick on them, so they become either bullies or hardened.
I understand that not everyone’s home life is paradise. I would dare say most homelife is not paradise. But image a country where children are cared for by one of the parents. That’s right one, not the mom all the time. Dads can stay home as well. Children “NEED” caring parents, they need consistency and they need someone, a guardian they know they can trust. They need a parent who is there for more than the hour before they go to bed. They need to see sacrifice, love, genuine caring. Teachers, most of them are compassionate people but they are not parents. They will never be able to give a child what they need from their parent.
That is the elephant in the living room. We have children having children, we have people having babies because they thought it would be “fun”. We have people having children to cash in on more assistance. We have one parent homes where children never see a loving mature relationship. They can’t model what they never see and don’t get me started on the disgraceful, offensive and outrageous depictions of families in the movies and on TV. If I really thought that the “Modern Family” looked like that I think I’d run off a cliff. We have children coming home to passed out parents, empty houses and worse because there are NO responsible people in their lives. We need to take a good long look in the mirror and decide if we really want to do what’s best for “the children” and start talking about the appalling state of the family in the black community, about the white communities willingness to allow other people to raise THEIR children and other equally unfortunate problems that confront all members of society.
Maybe we should take a leaf out of the Asian communities book of family. Most of them live, work and play together. There is usually one parent in the home, even if one works days and the other nights and while there are Asian gangs there doesn’t seem to be as much violence and collateral damage as in other ethnic communities. It is something to think about.
Besides if we could get the economy to the point where only one person had to work, image all the good that could be done in schools and communities around the country. Parent volunteers in school could help keep our children safe. Neighbors could look out for neighbors because there’d be more folks home during the day. Less cars on the road, less fossil fuels (a green advantage for our tin foil hat wearing fellow citizens), less money spent on non essentials, parents and children who know each other instead of being strangers who live in the same house, less children running the roads getting in trouble because no one knows where they are and what they’re doing.
The fact is that children need parents, they need structure, guidance and consistency. They also need consequences. But they don’t get those from parents who are too tired, too busy, too fractured and too strung out to see that those consequences are enforced or who can help when help is needed. What are we really willing to do “for the children” or is it all “sound and fury, signifying nothing?”
“crickets chirpping”……………..yeah pretty much what I thought.
Some former coworkers said I was a dinosaur for raising a large family on one income so mom could focus on raising the children. More like the goose that laid the golden eggs, I’d say.