Don't Blame the Children: Look At Their Role Models

I remember as a child being told, "Do as I say , not as I do".

So to me this meant that I was to wait until I was old or big enough to do what the adults were doing, which back then there seem to be an understanding that certain things hard working, law abiding, GOD fearing adults would not say or do in the presents of children. The next thing this statement meant to me was not to get caught doing what they did, so when I was with my peers we did what ever we thought we were big enough to do.

Today, these children are exposed to and subjected to life situations that was hidden from my generation. Look at their role models: parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers, doctors, lawyers, police, politicians, preachers, now reflect on what is in the newspapers and what is all over the television about adults misdeeds and short comings. Think of all the faces right here in our own community that our children can attach to the worst of human nature and decency. In the past if someone in the village brought shame on all, they were banished. What example can be drawn by our children, when the shameful rise in status?

Censorship in the past: there was very little violence shown, vulgarity was unheard of, a kiss lasted but for a few seconds and married couples slept in separate beds. Only GOD knows what these children are witnessing behind closed doors from an early age.

This sudden epiphany to the crucial importance pre-school creative and stimulating educational exposures is to early children development; better late than never, this has been ignored for too long. Studies have proven that embryos are effected by their mother's environment: music, sound, diet, stress level, etc., and then their may be born into a household without structure. What can you expect from them by the time they are of school age?

Something else is very disturbing is the statement made by so many good intentional adults, who have become the root to a lot of the problems we have with the children, "I am working hard and struggling so that you don't have to go through what I had to endure as a child". Which was the work ethic value of, "By the sweat of your brow you shall earn your keep"; instead they raise their children to expect something for nothing.

Look at men in our community not only do too many of them neglect their parental responsibilities, and those that do work hang out in the bars with those who have sat around all day doing nothing. There are too many hard working women in our community guilty of enabling the men in their lives.

I can remember as a young man starting out in the workforce eager to learn and to get the work done only to be told by veterans, "Hey slow down, don't work to hard for the Man."

I recent went to the play, 8 to 5 – Government Workers Style 2, and just imagine that those characters represent real people, women who go home to their families and are mentors for their children.

There is a spirituality that is missing in the lives of a major of our children today. How can you save someone if they don't realize that they have a Soul? To much emphasis is put on making money and not on the true purpose of Life, which is to love all as one and to be a contributing part of Humanity.

I was told by a woman who was raised in the church and she remembered telling an adult, "Why should I have to listen to you, because you're not going to Heaven".

I pray every time I have to speak to children or I am in their presences, that I am sharing the best of me, because I believe if I don't GOD will not forgive me.

Ivan Butcher II
St.Croix, Virgin Islands