The Truth is in the Consequences

There is a dangerous trend that is destroying the hopes, the potential, and the lives of the younger generation; it is becoming more and more widespread, and it is not new. Today's youth are not the problem-- they are the consequence.

One recent example comes from yesterday's Des Moines Register. The story details one youth's struggle with drug addiction. For those of us with entirely different backgrounds, it is almost incomprehensible-- first, that a young person who has barely reached his mid-twenties has had "drug addiction" as the focal point of the last ten years of his life; and second, for a person in his mid-twenties to be faced with the prospect of "recovery, institutions, or death."

The Des Moines Register accounts this as "A 14-year-old boy tries meth., and the addiction begins." (*) Something is wrong-- something is very wrong; yet what is wrong is not grasped, even through the words of the scenario: "father watches helplessly... mother watches..." (*) as a child's life began to slip away.

In another recent incident, a middle-school student stole her mother's prescription pills, took them to school, and distributed them amongst some of her friends. Although this resulted in a couple of youngsters ending up in the hospital, and the school took what it believed to be appropriate action, what was truly bewildering was when the incident was brought up on the local news, one parent described this incident in terms of the girl had "made a bad decision."

Also in the recent local news, it has been reported that the parents of an eleven-year-old girl has filed a lawsuit against a local Youth Shelter. When the girl was a resident of the shelter, she was allegedly raped by a seventeen-year-old boy; her parents are claiming that the shelter did not provide proper supervision. While an outsider's point of view that an eleven-year-old child should not have been in a "youth shelter" in the first place, and that providing for her was the responsibility of her parents, a recent online blog spells out the heart of the problem to those who are capable of seeing it-- "We need to support environments where it is easier and more attractive for these children to make the right choices and harder for them to make the wrong ones." (*)

While situations such as these are commonplace in this locale, it is as if the majority prefer to exist "in denial" rather than acknowledge that a problem exists. As many of the older generation flatly refuses to acknowledge that much of their own behavior is negative, they are passing the same message on to youth-- that there is nothing which can be deemed 'wrong,' nothing which can be simply stated as 'unacceptable.' And this attitude is taking away young people's hopes, potential, lives-- making them the "consequence."

To those of us of middle-class backgrounds, it was different, and it still is different. Whether an individual is forty-five or eighteen, it is nothing more nor less than a fact of life that certain behavior is "unacceptable." For people in my generation, and their kids who are now young adults themselves, it has been a fact of life: drug use is Unacceptable; promiscuity is Unacceptable; stealing is Unacceptable.

The words of the 'anonymous' blogger speaks volumes, but she has it backwards. The younger generation does not need drugs, alcohol, sex, crime, etc., to be in front of them with the concept "Choose," "Choice," and "Decision" attached to it all. Youngsters do not need to be in the position of making such decisions; and, equally important, they do not need the message that "either/or" is equally o.k. To clarify: first, teens should not be in the position of making decisions or "choices" which have the potential of destroying their lives; guidance in matters of health, morals, and safety, are the responsibility of the parents; for parents to neglect this responsibility is exactly that: neglect.

Second, to present youth with the message that whichever way they decide to go on such life-determining issues is equally o.k., goes beyond neglect. As being present-oriented is a common aspect of youth, teens will not see longterm consequences attached to such behavior as experimenting with drugs and alcohol, early sex, petty crime; and when parents uphold such things that are currently attractive to their teens as nothing more than "choose!" they are essentially choosing the consequences for their kids.

The result: swarms of youngsters spending their time on the streets, too soon dealing with situations such as described above-- which, if parents had any sense of responsibility, these kids would not have to be in the position of dealing with at all. And they should not have to be. Being a "parent" is also a verb-- and it means more than ensuring that one's youngsters have food, money, and gadgets; it also means that your kids are your own responsibility, and a large part of that responsibility is to let them know that behavior and actions which can destroy their lives is "Unacceptable."

Otherwise, if you continue to spout the nonsense that everything is about "choose" and "choice," your children will live the consequences which you yourself have given them. Keep that in mind: you are not merely giving them 'choices,' you are giving them the consequences.

(*)Des Moines Register
(*)M.Chester-online blog