Doin' It TO the Kids

As I've gotten older I've come to appreciate my family. No longer am I the angry punk rocker that avoided family functions caterwauling like Keith Kaputo of Life of Agony that, “No one understands me!” Today I thoroughly enjoy our family holidays and I treasure just how devoted we all are to each other. One of the things that usually brings a smile to my face is the interaction between my cousin, her husband and their nearly 2-year-old son. There’s a noticeable lack of dysfunction in that family and soothes me. I watch the father and the son play together and I am mesmerized by the interest. He’s not just fulfilling a role; he seems to actually be interested in his son that he brought into the world. I see him and my only wish is that everyone should have a father whom is as invested in his or her child as he is.

Then I read something like this and my buzz is killed.

“A GIRL of 20 has become the youngest person in Britain to need a new liver because of binge-drinking.”

But wait, there’s more.

“The girl, who began boozing when she was 12, was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in hospital after collapsing following a heavy drinking session.”

If you read the story there’s one noticeable detail missing from the narrative. There is absolutely no mention of the parent’s role in this. There’s no mention of her upbringing. It’s as if she hatched from an egg a critically sick alcoholic and the real story is in her needing a new liver. That’s not the story here. The real story is that yet another child has been betrayed by the institutions that were supposed to protect and nurture her.

Would I be naïve in asking if there is actually a parent out there who thinks they are doing the right thing by exposing a 12-year-old to alcohol? I see it where I work all the time. As part of the interview process I have to ask, “When was the first time you tried alcohol,” and the typical response is between 9 and 12. I suppose it’s one thing if it were just plain old “Lord of the Flies” style neglect but I doubt it.

I remember this story too.

“It's a story of a "traditional" junior vs. senior girls' football game that went terribly wrong. Normally, this "right of passage" for students would involve food being dropped on the juniors; this hazing went to an extreme level. Not only were there physical beatings involved in this hazing, but seniors used feces and intestines in various ways on the juniors. Some of the more unfortunate girls were even reported to have been forced to eat the feces and several students were hospitalized.

This is a fairly extreme case of hazing mixed with typical high school irresponsibility. However, there has been evidence that parents may have even been aids in setting this up. It has been reported that two parents may have provided the minors with kegs, and some may have also helped their daughters bag up the feces.”

That’s right, some of the parent’s bought their children kegs. To this day I stand by original reaction. Any parent that gave those girls alcohol should have had their parental rights terminated and charges definitely filed against them.

And it’s not just alcohol that’s the problem. Adults here in the United States and our good friends across the pond in Europe seem to think that having sex with children is a dandy idea. For example, the lowest legal ages of consent are found in Spain (12) and in Albania, Italy and Iceland (14). Some other countries place the age of consent at 16, as do some states such as Montana, Connecticut, Kansas, Michigan and Maine. Iowa, Missouri and South Carolina take the prize at 14 years of age.

That’s just Europe and the United States; I don’t even want to get into the rest of the world.

I’m sure any of the guys reading this have stories to tell of conquests made at various tender ages. This isn’t about you or me and it isn’t about our immediate needs. As I say to my clients day in and day out, there is an objective morality in this world and it’s worth adhering to.

I’ve head various arguments about teenagers being ready for sex at an early age. Here are the facts:

1) Most children under 18 aren't emotionally or psychologically mature enough to cope with a sexual relationship, or the impact of intercourse.

2) Sex under the age of 18 poses serious risk of cervical cancer.

3) There's an increased risk of pregnancy, STI’s and HIV.

For regular readers of my column, if you are wondering what drove a fairly progressive person like myself away from the Green Party, it was this moral relativism that I see as defining all left movements. Adults are in the nasty habit of manipulating children for their own disgraceful and selfish needs and unfortunately I don’t see this changing anytime soon.

There is a “Culture War” going on in this world but it’s not between Hollywood and the Christians. It’s between parents and adults who hate children and people like my cousin’s family. I’ll say it again, if you think giving a child; teenager or otherwise, alcohol or drugs, then you hate children. If you think, as an adult, it’s OK to have sex with a child from the ages of 12-18 then you hate children. If you are more invested in any other detail in this world than the children you brought into it, then I believe you hate children. Parenting is about sacrifice not selfishness.

I pray for my baby cousin. I pray for my baby cousin because he will have to go to school with other children stricken with self-loathing that they inherited from miserable parents. I pray for my baby cousin because despite the best intentions of his parents, he will have to endure a gauntlet of media streamed violence and sex that has no business in the arena of childrearing.

I pray for my baby cousin because it needs to be done.