I wrote a long post and deleted it. I am not going to try to be in judgement of anyone. But, it was about a story on the news here. Three or four teenagers were involved in a fatal shooting at a gas station.
I have raised teenagers, and I know that there comes a point in their lives where you just don't know what they are doing. They are old, mobile and worldly enough to be anywhere they want to be, regardless of the rules and instructions you have given them. I know that my teenagers did not always abide by my rules, when out of my sight. I did not pay attention to my parents' rules either.
So, my anger about the situation with the parents felt misplaced. Maybe I vented my frustrations and got to where I could think better of it. I don't know. But, I spent some time trying to figure out what I thought about the situation, from a personal standpoint. What if it had been one of my children involved in this?
I would have felt some responsibility. I would have felt like I did not do my job correctly as a parent. I still feel responsible for their actions, because I gave them the basis for how they are making those decisions and how they are facing the world. With that in mind, is it fair to hold the parent of someone under 18 at least partially responsible for the things that they do? Is it just a financial responsibility, for reparations, or is it also a legal responsibility?
I have an example of piss poor parenting that I drag up all the time. The two Columbine kids, whose parents allowed them to amass a small arsenal, build bombs in their homes and be obviously mentally disturbed, without action. Those are my text book, worst parents in the world. Yet, none of the responsibility fell on them. Is it reasonable to expect that parents are plugged into their children enough to tell when they are arming for mass murder?
If that is reasonable, and I think that it is, then why does the law not require it? In a less extreme case, is it reasonable to find the parents/guardians of teenagers out at 3:00 a.m. at least partly responsible for the mayhem committed by their child? The situation on the news was very familiar to anyone that watches news in Raleigh. In a poor section of Durham/Fayetteville (they are interchangeable in that regard), at a gas station, a man was fatally shot. The police determined four suspects were involved. Their ages ranged as low as 15, by one report.
Now, in North Carolina, at 14 you get charged as an adult, and are eligible for the needle. And, perhaps that is okay. I have not squared that away, but that is a subject for a different post. However, there is never a mention of culpability or legal responsiblity of the parents. I tried doing some research, but I am not a lawyer, and it is hard for me to tell what the law states. It was obviously written by lawyers. Lots of semi-colons; the mark of a cluttered mind.
Why is a child, on a week night, out at 3:00 am? Or am I wrong to consider a 15 year old a child? What possible purpose could you have in letting your 15 year old run around within this group? Because the part that no one will be able to report, because we "protect" the child, is that I am positive this was not the first criminal activity by the four participants. I would expect that this was not the first criminal activity for any of the 4.
These are terrorized neighborhoods, that seem to have significant numbers of these unsupervised, unaccountable young people, and a never ending story of violence and tragedy. And, when you do see a parent as part of the story, it boggles your mind that the child made it to 15. They do not know where the child was, they never claim they were home with them. Again, I am not trying to be in judgement, though it is hard. I would not believe it could be my child either.
But, what happens after that concerns me most. These children go to trial, as adults, get sentenced as adults, and do adult time. And, I am not opposed to that. If you commit adult crimes, you do adult time. But, nothing happens with the parents. Nothing happens with the other children in that home, to break the cycle. And, we have the audacity, the gall, to continue to act surprised that it keep happening.
We are at a crossroads, in my opinion. We are going to continue on our current path, and by default create a caste system in this country that enforces segregation along poverty lines. Or, we are going to change course, and impact the family unit in these impoverished areas, at a very basic level. We could break the cycle, should we choose to make it important enough to do so. It is not so hard as we make it out to be.
Unfortunately, I do not see the turn signals on, nor any indication there is leadership and desire enough to do something about turning in any direction. We should be ashamed, not satisfied. I don't understand it, and don't know if I am even correct in my opinions, but I pray on it daily, and on what I can do about it.
I love those kids, I don't know them, but I love them. And it breaks my heart that their lives put them into that position, that risky place, so ill prepared for how to deal with it. I don't want to continue to see them thrown away, but unfortunately, until the family unit treats them as more important than garbage, nothing we do as a society will impact it materially. If harsher penalties, more prosecution and earlier harsh sentencing worked, our news would not be filled with the stories we hear.
What I have to keep telling myself is I love those parents. That is what I have to work on, because I know that I blame them, whether I should or not. I put the fault at their doorstep, and I am unmoved as to their challenges, their personal demons. It is beyond me how you have a child and can love it so poorly that your needs come before the childs. I don't understand that at all, and I pray hard on it everyday, because I have seen it in my own family. I harbor anger over it, and I shouldn't. I have kept that grudge many years, and I fight with myself over it every day.
I love those kids, and I love those parents. I pray for them. Maybe that is all that we can do, with any assurance of success. Nothing in the legal system is working right, it is time we start focusing on God's system. What else remains, when all other hope and action is stripped away?
I love you all.
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