Our societal hypocrisy has been laid bare in the Newtown, CT
shooting. These tragedies present great
opportunities for folks to demonstrate their incredible depth of concern for
children. Let me be clear, some of this
is genuine and particularly near the epicenter of this tragedy, much genuine
pain and anguish is being felt. But when
people in Illinois or Oregon are posting on Facebook as if this happened next
door to them that is a good indication something else is going on.
What much of our nation uses these things as opportunities
for is to demonstrate, mainly for their own self-assurance, how much they care
about children. Yet the reality is, if
our society did truly orientate itself around the birth, well-being, and raising
of children, something like Newtown, CT might be more shocking.
Amid the seemingly instantaneous calls for more gun control,
I read an article interviewing the shooter’s babysitter growing up. It seems that when his parents separated when
he was a very young child (age 5 I believe) it was quite hard on the boy. It seems that he had a habit of throwing
tantrums, not violent, but frequent severe tantrums and would never again be a
well-adjusted child. Apparently despite
the separation, it would take his parents over a decade to formally
divorce. In essence, he and his brother
were raised within a “family” structure that very much resembles where we are
headed as a society.
There has been much talk about the shooter’s “mental illness”
which allows the casual reader to assume that he was somehow born with these
issues. It is much more likely that the
separation of his parents as a young child created the conditions for mental
illness to fester. Divorce is traumatic
for kids and ultimately changes their life trajectories in ways that we are
unwilling to acknowledge.
I remember flipping through our school directory when I was
in Middle School and noting even then that all of the “problem kids” in my
class had only one parent listed. We
were shocked one day when one of my friends remembered attending the birthday party
of one of the worst offenders in 3rd grade. He even produced a picture showing a well-dressed,
well-adjusted child at the time. At
some point after that his parents had divorced and he became the stereotypical
disaffected teenager. Heavy metal band
t-shirt, dark trench coat, penchant for smoking and drug use. If a group of Middle Schoolers can figure out
the pattern here, why not society?
The correct answer to last week’s tragedy is not gun
control, a distraught, emotionally crippled 20-something wandering the streets,
but absent a gun, is not a significant improvement. I don’t know what kind of mental illness
befalls liberals who view that as “utopia”.
No if there is a knee-jerk policy answer to last week’s shooting (and
for the record I don’t really believe there is) it is to ban divorce, at a
minimum in cases where there are children.
Should there be grounds for divorce (substance, physical, or emotional
abuse) the children should be taken away immediately and placed in foster homes
where they can have two stable adults who will love them and put the children
first.
Sound crazy? Of
course it does, because we live in a society that is ordering itself around the
perspective of what the individual wants.
If two individuals wish to be married, we consider that good
enough. In today’s increasingly
secularized world that generally means that they go off to a nice beach,
exchange a few words, and sign a piece of paper without really understanding
what marriage is about.
But next thing you know, through the magic of two people who
are “in love” hanging around each other, you have children. Children used to be the driving force behind
marriage, and we now treat them as a side effect.
Today’s secular world views children as the property of
those who are married. Need to put them
in daycare so you can work? Fine. Want to drug them up with prescription drugs
for vague conditions? Fine. Marriage no longer working out and you need
to shuttle the property back and forth?
Fine.
We have moved away from a child centric society. Children are only prized in our society in as
much as they do something for the adults.
Their mere existence is no longer all that is required for them to be
loved. Doubt it? See abortion and the 52 million children we’ve
slaughtered over the last 40 years.
No children today must somehow please their parents through
good behavior, excellence in sports, excellence in academics, etc. The children are expected to deliver an
almost immediate payback to their parents’ esteem in exchange for all those
pesky things they want like shelter and food.
We make ourselves feel better about this by saying that it is good for
the kids that they do these things like sports (Johnny can get a scholarship to
college) and school (Jenny will go to a good college which you must do to be
happy). In the process, we fail to recognize
that we are no longer loving our children simply because they are there and
need to be loved.
Children are not dumb, they pick up on this. Why do kids keep playing sports almost year
round long after it seeks to be fun?
Because they think their parents’ love depends on it. Why in a suburb I live near was there a test
cheating scandal involving honor students in AP classes? Because for all they had achieved, they
couldn’t risk even the slightest failure and losing the love of their
parents.
In a world where children are treated this way are we really
surprised that one could grow up and go so far off course? Last year, my wife and I had found a
wonderful babysitter for our children.
She was a very responsible high school senior to be whom the children
adored. Her parents began divorce
proceedings and she fell apart, even developing Bulimia. It was her way, in the midst of adults
thinking only of themselves, of trying to get their attention and remind them
that she was going through this as well.
I heard a Catholic Priest say a few weeks ago that, “our
society devours children because the Devil hates children” and he was
right. That isn’t to say that every
divorce produces a possible school shooter.
By all accounts Mr. Lanza’s brother has adjusted well and has a good
life. But divorce is like a bomb going
off and the damage is random and unpredictable.
Guns are much the same way.
A gun can be sold to a law abiding hunter or a gun can be sold to mass
murderer. Yet that randomness isn’t
stopping us from seeking the draconian solution of banning all guns. By that logic, we should prohibit divorce or
even better, restrict marriage to properly prepared adults (the Catholic Church
already does this to a degree). Because
the risk of letting even one child grow up as Adam Lanza did is one we can’t
take.
I will close with this.
Until we drop the hypocrisy, drop the notion that we love children above
all else while murdering up to 1 million children in the womb a year, while
subjecting our kids to a mindless violent and sexual culture, while ignoring
them, while focusing more on what we want as adults than what we need, why
would we expect to raise a generation of caring, empathetic, loving
adults?
