Circulation Manager

[email protected]

When things go wrong with kids, someone always looks to place the blame on someone else.

Parents, in their sometimes naive attitudes, put the blame on television, teachers, video games, the weather or space aliens altering the Earth’s gravitational field, disrupting the behavioral patterns of their child. At the same time, the rest of the population places the blame on the parents for not having done the right things in raising that child or young adult.

The recent events across the nation, involving kids bringing guns into schools and killing other kids are perfect examples of this phenomenon. For the majority of the victims, their friends and their families, anger is focused on the individual who committed the act, but immediately one question arises, “What kind of parents could raise such a child?” While not all blame can be shifted to the parents of the individual, they are certainly not exempt from all culpability.

When young adults commit horrific crimes and do brutal things to themselves and each other, the parents are partly responsible. During these teens’ years of critical development, they lacked something fundamental to make them healthy human beings, both emotionally and intellectually. I believe that in many cases there is simply a lack of attention, affection and involvement of parents in the lives of their children.

To raise good kids, parents need to take an active role in their development. Instead, the current trend seems to be that parents distance themselves from their children by using television, video games, school, daycare centers, babysitters and nannies. While none of these things in and of themselves are horrific things for a child to be involved in, there seems to be a tragic and deadly mixture of these things going into the lives of children. When parents rely upon all these things as substitutes for real parenting, the consequences become all too clear in America.

The diverted attention comes down to violent video games or the content of programming on television. While certain things are not for kids, when parents don’t effectively communicate and spend time with their kids to teach them the reality of the things they see on various media or in the world around them, the kid will be messed up. Plain and simple.

I used to work in Naperville, the epitome of what’s wrong with the Midwest society. Every day there would be a great big line of cars at the local daycare center, with parents dropping off children of all ages before going to work. In the evening while making house calls and service and repairs in the household, you would see business-like adults raising their kids on TV.

Don’t misunderstand my point here. I love TV, and daycare is a necessary option for some families at times, and the people at daycare centers are 99 percent of the time excellent with kids. The problem is not in those institutions, but in the fact that those people who are the most important in the lives of children simply are not there when they are needed the most.

For most working class families, having a stay-at-home parent is not an economically viable option. The finances to support such a lifestyle are not there. Yet, many times what is seen as a material need is unnecessary, and as with most family budgets, are superfluous. With a change in lifestyle, spending more time with the kids is possible without decreasing the standard of living. Actually, just spending more time with kids should increase their quality of life.

Nonetheless, there still remains those people who do not have that option. Some working class parents and especially single parents, do not have the option of staying home with their kids because they need to make enough money to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. In instances such as this, I think there should be some kind of fully-paid maternity or paternity leave for these families.

While it is true there are laws saying pregnant mothers must be offered maternity leave, there is no comprehensive payment for any other time except right after birth. Some program should exist to give money or subsidies to parents that want to stay at home to raise their children. A program such as this would also be an incentive for participation in kids’ lives. I am not saying that just anyone should stay home to raise kids and never have to work, but some program should exist for parents that at least want to work only part-time until their children reach 10 or their teens.

I for one want to have the opportunity to stay at home with my kids (when I have them later) and work and play with them. I love children, and I think that in their best interest and in the best interest of everyone and our future, this option should be one everyone should have.