Parents, Don’t Cry ‘My Baby’ After the Gavel Falls

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey addressed parents of that city March 24 regarding the newest societal plague: flash mobs.
These seemingly instantaneous roving bands of hoodlums made their impact on the famed South Street last weekend causing merchants to shutter windows, and strollers to stay away from the place.
Ramsey chided mothers and fathers not to lament in court what will happen to “their baby” when a cell will become home for quite some time. Now, Ramsey said, is the time to take corrective action over their children, especially those in their teen and adolescent years.
“Know what your children are doing,” urged Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams. He spoke to people there, but his words, and those of Ramsey, are just as pertinent to those in Cape May County.
I know what you’re thinking. “Where were those parents who can’t control their own offspring?” Regardless of the facts, the truth remains, someone was lacking in training during the formative years, and is slack even now.
It is very easy to point the finger at “society,” and opine that is the reason these things are happening. Society may be more permissive than ever, but parents ought to know how powerful they are and should be. Forget “society,” children are not brought into this world by that faceless lukewarm unit, nor is it the job of that netherworld bunch of good, bad and ugly to rear a boy or girl.
I believe we are seeing, here and now, the fruits of what “society” allowed to happen for the past 20 years or so.
The justice system seems to have failed, because children were never taught self respect. Without that, no law or number of police will control any community. Instead of wholesome discipline, “society” admonishes parents to give “time out” by sitting in a corner for say, five minutes. From an early age, children may learn the word “sorry,” and falsely believe that is the magic pass out of any infraction.
While acknowledging one’s wrongs is a good thing, especially to someone you have harmed, it is terribly overused by “society.”
On a day of sentencing for murder or killing by drunk driving, a perpetrator utters those meaningless words, “I am sorry.” Is that string of eight letters in three words supposed to mean anything?
How many times have we heard a parent blurt in utter frustration, “What am I supposed to do? I can’t control my child.” Many times, they are ages 3, 5 or 15.
At those times, being a parent is the toughest job in the world. It is also a time, believe it or not, when that child is asking for boundaries and direction. Parents are not supposed to be “friends” to their children, they are far more valuable than that. Parents are the first lawgiver to their child. They set rules, simple at first, and more complicated as years advance. They are the one who, first in the world, teach that child to respect him or herself. Absent self-respect, none can expect to be safe and secure regardless of the number locks and alarms we install in our homes and cars.
Teaching the wrong of stealing in childhood saves grief later in life, to the person and the community at large.
Those who were never taught right from wrong about personal possessions can certainly not understand why they cannot destroy or steal anyone else’s things.
At Christ Gospel Church, Dr. Evelyn Bethune addressed a gathering Feb. 27 to mark Black History Month. What she said brought many “amens” from throughout the sanctuary. Had she, in her adolescent years, told her mother she wanted privacy in her room, her mother would have “taken the door off the hinges,” she said. It’s not that her mother disrespected her; it was because she loved her and wanted to know she was headed in the proper direction, and if not to show her the right way.
Bethune also told parents it is not their job to be a “friend” to their child, but rather to be an adult, set rules and high, yes high, expectations of children. Those who set a bar high have a tendency to attain such levels, while those without any standards gravitate to whatever level will have them.
Bethune urged parents to read to their children, and then expect them to read and continue to excel, not fail, in school.
Bethune chided men, especially black men, to stand up and be fathers because that is what is lacking in many homes. Boys, in particular, need male guidance and role models. Girls need a father figure by which to measure up their future husbands and understand how the opposite sex differs, she noted.
The alternative to early parental attention and love is prison or equal woe later in life. That seems to be playing out recently in the streets of Philadelphia.
Which brings us back to Ramsey telling the parents in the City of Brotherly Love, in essence, what Bethune told the people in Whitesboro: Do your job. Be a parent, and don’t back down. Know where your children are and what they are doing. Don’t take “no” for an answer.
Discipline to many may bring thoughts of spankings or being sent to bed without supper. While such may be needed, although not to the point of cruelty, an even better discipline is showing the right path. Let children learn discipline by following a parent’s example. That is true discipline that will last a lifetime, and society will surely benefit.
Youths, while they may not admit it, cry out for religion. They will find firm moral guidance in whatever holy book they might search. Absent that, they will find an alternative “religion” to fill the void.
“Society” likes to say that religion is old fashioned and out of tune with reality. Nothing could be more distant from the truth. People never change. Stories and lessons taught in holy writ give as clear a direction today as they did 100, 200 and 500 years ago.
Parents, the future is in your hands. Step in. Take charge. That is your job, not society’s. No child has the last name of “Society.” For that simple fact we all must be thankful.