Death and Relations Can be Painful

We Create Monsters

Thoughts drifted in and out today as I tried to go back to sleep. However, the questions that continued to plague me as I lay there thinking about how sleepy, I am was were "Why do some people turn out the way they do?  Why did I turn out the way that I did?”

Looking back over the first ten, even fifteen years of my life, I believe that I experienced lots of things that today the world would probably find a reason to lock me up, lock up my cousins, lock up my friends, and even lock up my Mother.

For example, when I was much younger, kids got into fights. We did not fight nice or pretty. We were taught that everything around you was and could be used as a weapon. We were told, "You better not come home talking about someone beat you up.”  If you did, you got another beating, and sent back out to get whoever got you.  Nowadays, children are allowed to fight to the death.  The motto is “I will get you before you get me, and that usually means I will kill you so you can’t come back to get me.

As awful as it seems, when in a fight, and you are on the ground, you were taught to get some dirt in your hand and toss it in the person's eyes to get them off of you. If that did not work, take the beating, go get your cousins, and get even. Blood doesn't let blood get beat down, and nothing done about it. We were taught, that you don't start a fight, but if a fight got started and you were the target, then you better finish it.  No one fought to the death.  There was always a point when the person surrendered and the fight was over.  Many times, the fighter were friends or became friends after the fight.

If you lived in the country/rural area or even in the so-called city, there were plenty of trees, bushes around, and any one of them could produce a switch. A switch could beat you, your friend, and anyone else deemed out of line. Switches sting and leave some serious marks or welts where ever they landed. In fact, if you did not get any welts on you, when you during the beat down, you were more than likely to get another whipping when you got home.  Growing up as a child was brutal. The culture of the day said spare the rod and spoil the child.  Days were set aside to beat you for the old and the new.  That day was usually Saturday.  Parents did not beat clothes.  In our modern society, those parents would be LOCKED UP for child abuse.

Food was not to be wasted.  If they put it on your plate whether you asked for it or not, you were to eat it.  All of it!  “Those starving children in Africa would be glad for the food, and here you are trying to waste it.  Waste not, want not.  Those were the words used in almost every scenario.  Today, you are not supposed to force a child to eat things s/he does not like.  Of course, food fights are okay, at home and at school.  We laugh at them.

If you were at school and you did anything that was not acceptable by the teachers and/or the principal, you were disciplined at school.  No, they did not send you home.  First graders were not expelled.  Detention was appropriate, but no matter what, you went to the principal’s or vice principal’s office and discipline was administered on the spot.  Many of us recall the ruler and the hand, and sitting in the principal’s office waiting for your name to be called.  Of course, the discipline did not end there.  A note was sent home to your parents, and there was another beat down coming because you had dishonored the family.  Try that now!  The parents would storm the schools.  The principal and teacher(s) would almost be lynched, and they certainly would be banned from teaching in addition to being charged with a criminal case.

The above are just a few examples of how parenting differed in the 50s, 60s and 70s from today. 

Fast forward. Those folks in charge of laws saw all of the above as child abuse abuse, and definitely unnecessary. They created and passed laws that said, parents could no longer do those types of things. No, the law did not say that you could not discipline children, but it did not help parents understand the difference between discipline and abuse.  So, parents walked away from raising their children, saying they no longer had the right to discipline their children, and children started doing things that were never done by children before, without any serious consequences. None.

Even when the laws took this position, they, the lawmakers retained the right to executions, lethal injection, lifetime incarceration, and on and on. Someone believed that these alternatives were better for children and adults than strong discipline at home while the children were learning acceptable behavior in our society. 

Today, parents rarely discipline children for anything.  Children are feared at schools and in classrooms.  Teachers pass them on from grade to grade just to get them out of their classes.  We are told by the news media of the horrific crimes that children are doing.  They show us the child’s room, and it is obvious that the child’s room is off limits to the parents by its very content, and the parents are always surprised that little Johnny or Suzie would do such a thing.  Neighbors always come on television to say what a good kid s/he was, and that they never noticed anything.

No one ever mentions that the child’s time was spent playing some of the most violent video games for hours and days.  Few talk about the child bullying kids in the park.  Few ever mention the confrontation with the parents about the things that they’ve seemed little Johnny or Suzie do when the parents were not looking.  Even though there is research out there, we allow our children to watch hours and hours of unmonitored television.  Most of the programs, including children's programs, teach disrespect, and bad behavior.  We think the children don’t try out what they learn at home, at school, and in other public places?  THEY DO!

When the research is done, and the façade begins to break down, we see a very different picture of little Johnny and Suzie.  They lived in a disturbed household.  No father lived there.  Mom worked two or three jobs, and was never home.  Little Johnny and/or Suzie were raising themselves.  Teachers were always sending notes home, but got no response.  Parents did not attend PTA, PSO or any other kind of school activity.  Parent teacher conferences never made the calendars.  Neighbors better not try to discipline little Johnny or Suzie.  In fact, do not bring that nonsense to my house about my child throwing eggs at your car or marking up your sidewalk with bad words.  For real, for real, you should mind your own business.  No, the village is not expected to help raise the children unless they are contributing financially or supporting the grieving mother or father when the child is being hauled off to jail.  Then they want letters of support or for you to come to court and stand up for their child’s character.

Yes, we create these monsters.  We have given up our rights to discipline children, to teach them the golden rules of life such as “Love thy self as thy neighbor.”  Spare the rod and spoil the child.”  God first.  Others second, and self, last.  Let’s not forget manners and respect.  No longer are these important elements of life.  Manners are gone by the way side.  Please, thank you, and may I are not in the vocabulary.  Emily Post, Miss Manners, and Dear Abby, were never heard of and certainly not taught. 

Sure changes were needed on some aspects of our older culture, but did we need to toss the baby out with the bath water?  I don’t think so, however, we are a nation of extremes.  First, discussions about sex were taboo.  Now, anything goes.  Children were expected to go to school, but also to help out on the farm or in the store or other places as determined by parents.  Today, children are not expected to have any responsibility.  The list goes on and on.  You know exactly what I am speaking of in this paper. 

So, why are we surprised when eleven year olds want to have babies and are sexually active?

Why do we cringe in terror when too many teenagers get together?  Recently, I learned that there are parents who are afraid of their own children.  Why?

It seems that our children are drinking, drugging, and doing all kinds of things that makes them easy prey for jails and prisons.  We have raised children without limits.  Fight to the death.  Kill.  Kill.  Kill.  No respect for life.  No respect for laws.  No respect for their elders.  Self-worth and values do not exist.  Respect for others only kicks in when it is advantageous.  Morals are a thing of the past.  Integrity is on permanent vacation.  Manners?  What’s that?

Yes, the baby boomers can take credit for a lot of things, and we do, but we do not take credit for our failure to teach our children the necessary  life skills and values that they needed to do all the great things that they are doing, but should be done in decency and order.  Instead, the baby boomers have created monsters.  People who are shallow, disrespectful, liars, superficial, unskilled, and basically get-wits who will get with anything so long as it makes them feel good. 

They are not taught to work hard, save their earnings, and pay for their needs before buying what they want.  Instead, they buy what they want, and beg for their needs.  Many are drains on society with no redeeming hope.  Without major changes, our society is doomed, and the values that we treasured in our free society will become things of the past, and only memories.  I thank God daily for the values my Mother instilled in me.  As brutal as the beatings sound, they were NOTHING compared to the character they built!

Thank you Mom.