By Douglas V. Gibbs
“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Proverbs 13:24). While often paraphrased as “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” this biblical principle speaks directly to our current crisis of youth violence.
Recent news reports reveal teenage street takeovers and public brawling have become commonplace. At the Wisconsin State Fair, “teens” began beating anyone in sight, with multiple police officers attacked as families fled for their lives. When law enforcement intervenes and someone gets shot or tackled, the predictable chorus follows: the defund-the-police crowd condemns authorities, while a crying mother insists her “good boy” didn’t deserve it. The father, typically, is nowhere in sight.
We may call them “teens,” “youth,” or “young adults,” but they remain children, rebellious, uncivilized, and ignorant of orderly society because they were never taught its fundamentals. This brings us back to Proverbs: disciplining an unruly child young typically prevents that same child from becoming an unruly teen clashing with police.
The problem runs deeper than parental discipline, though parenting certainly shares blame. We’ve cultivated a cultural poison of evading responsibility. While parents may fail to apply appropriate correction, these children still make choices, and increasingly, they’re making bad ones. When consequences arrive, the culture, politicians, and media blame everyone except the perpetrators. The teens in question chose their actions. Though parents may have failed in their disciplinarian role, it wasn’t the parent attacking people at the fair.
Not only does the child blame parents for their decisions, but our entire culture encourages shifting blame: it’s their neighborhood’s fault, the police’s fault, the teacher’s fault, economic factors’ fault. Nobody says, “You made the decision. You are primarily at fault.”
An undisciplined child becomes unprepared for life. A child receiving participation trophies and rewards for mediocrity becomes unprepared for life. Without the “rod,” that symbol of authority and correction, the child lacks the values necessary to function in a civil society. While upbringing deserves partial blame, and some of us take time to learn life’s lessons, absent tough love when young, the culture or its authority figures will apply it later. Then the choice becomes: learn from the lesson, or become harder, stupider, and one of those idiots brawling because you lack self-respect.
Ultimately, we make our own decisions. The key is not to be stupid about them, regardless of our childhood’s quality.
We are, after all, civilized humans, right? So why do so many act like idiot animals?
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Very sad and the education programs are worthless now !