Parenting in willful ignorance

The news the past few days has really been tough to read. It has angered me in a way that makes me stomach sick. Lives devastated, lost, because we as a society pay lip service to the whole concept of protecting our kids. A society that is either afraid, or unwilling, or unable to care for its children. We put our own wants and desires ahead of what is best for the child.

Yesterday I opened the paper to Boys 8 and 9 charged with rape, bile crawled into the back of my throat. My first thought was that they must be abused kids themselves, because how else would they even know what it was that they were doing? But after thinking about it, that is not necessarily the case; I mean look at the TV they watch, the movies they see, the music they listen to, and the easy access to porn on the internet. Look at all the unsupervised time they have, the lack of accountability at home, and at school. It’s a wonder we don’t see more of this kind of behavior.

And then, when I opened the paper today to read about the 14 child who was able to purchase a car, ostensibly, without his parents knowing. And yesterday that boy walked away from a crash without a scratch- but he did manage to murder two of his friends when he rammed through a fence and flipped the car over multiple times. What? Excuse me? How, as a parent, can you miss that your kid owns a car? Where are they getting the money for one? What about insurance? How can you be that oblivious to what your child is doing?

Is what passes for parenting these days?

These families have learned the hard way the heavy price paid for being an absent parent. Sadly, they are mere statistics now. The potential those two dead boys had is gone. The lives of those who survived forever changed. While the reality of that makes me rage, it makes me physically ill to realize how easily, and how likely it is that this kind of thing will happen again.

So I think I will skip the paper tomorrow. And like too many parents out there living in willful ignorance, I will just stick my head in the sand and hope for the best.