I read an article today on MSNBC that reminded me of something I've been saying all along, because of government interference, because of people being people, we've become a society afraid to parent.
Kids are out of control. We have school shootings, bullying run amok to the extent kids are killing kids in school with people shaking their heads and saying, "Well, that's how kids are." and parents cowering in the corner for fear their children won't like them.
I heard a comedian talking on one of my comedy channels on Sirius joking how if you were ever lost all you had to do was go to the local McDonald's playground and look at the parents. He went on to say, in Princeton, the parents are standing at the bottom of the jungle gym saying, "Please, Chauncey, come down now, you're hurting Daddy's feelings." while in HIS neighborhood dad was at the bottom of the jungle gym saying, "HEY! Get your Italian ass down here right now or I'm coming up there to beat it!"
While these are two extremes of the same parental situation, they're not too far off. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a parent in a store saying at their child's bad behavior, ""I'm going to count to ten..." and THEN DO IT! Usually by the time they're at two the kid has pulled down a clothing rack and set the toy department on fire. Please... I never had to do that with my kids. By the time I was at one, they were like little soldiers in a row. I raised my kids to know I wasn't their friend, I was their parent. My kids have enough friends, they NEED parents. My kids are all either adults or teenagers and they all have told me at one time they appreciated my doing things the way I did. I guess I did something right because they're all doing extremely well in life, which is what every parent wants. None of them are in prison, they all have higher learning and they all know their choices have consequences, either good or bad.
Somewhere along the way, there was a power shift where the kids started running the show. All my kids have come home at some point to tell me there was a "speaker" at their school from Family Services to explain to them what constituted child abuse.
With Matt it was spanking. He got a spanking once and sent to bed with no supper for lighting mouse traps on fire and throwing them at his sister. We got a diatribe from him that he was calling children's services. I told him I'd dial the number.
With Billy, it was his getting smacked in the face for calling me a pretty nasty name and threatening me with bodily harm. He DID call the police and they showed up. Once they heard the story behind it, they told my son I should have smacked him sooner. One police officer visibly blanched when he heard the name my son called me.
Ashley never gave us this problem at all. She's pretty conciliatory and saw the propaganda for what it was.
Elias came home one day this year to tell me being disrespectful to him was abuse (per their little visitor from Family and Children's Services). A few days later I was yelling at him for not cleaning his bathroom after I asked him to do so. He stalled on it for a full weekend and I told him I was tired of his laziness. He told me he was going to call children's services. Again, I told him I'd dial the number.
See, we have a group of people out there who are legally permitted to wreak havoc on the lives of others in a pretty tangible way. The article from MSNBC embedded in the headline of this post tells of a mother who was only a few feet from her car and sleeping toddler. She was helping her other daughter put collected change into a Salvation Army bucket and some busy body noticed the sleeping child in the car. In thinking about it, it might have been an overzealous police officer. Mom was charged with child endangerment and obstructing a police officer. The obstruction was when her husband advised her to say nothing until he got there. She said nothing, awaiting someone who might have been in a position to protect her rights, and the police arrested her for it. Isn't that an obstruction of someones constitutional rights somewhere?
See, Family & Children's Services is a government agency with a government budget they need to justify. While I believe there are families out there needing intervention, I don't know there are as many as this particular governmental agency would have us believe. They tear apart families that did something as simple as, I don't know, leave their toddler sleeping in a car while they stood 30 feet away and leave alone families like the one in Camden, NJ, where the foster parents were charged with child endangerment for not feeding children placed in their care by DCFS.
While I could say this is the fault of a liberal agenda, to make everyone depend on the government for every aspect of their lives (which it is, parents were raising kids and raising them well before the government started interfering) it's a problem propagated by both sides of the aisle. Government agencies rely on the government for providing their money each year. The way it works for government agencies, if they don't spend all their money in a fiscal year, their budget is reduced accordingly the next. Every year, there's a mad dash in September to spend all their money so they can not only justify the same amount for the next year, but perhaps they can justify a little more.
Our government it too big now. I can't help but wonder how our lives would turn out if the government would allow us to make our own decisions as to what's best for our lives and the lives of our children?
But who am I to judge? This is just my two cents...
