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August 18 Nothing to be afraid of, folks... they're only children...People Behaving Badly #9On November 28, 2003, my next-door neighbour was swarmed and brutally beaten by a group of kids while he walked home from a basketball game with his friends. Jomar Lanot, a 17-year old immigrant from the Philippines, died later that night in hospital of his injuries.
I can't tell you how heartbreaking it was to see his mother in the hallway of our building in the days following the attack. Or how wrong it felt to see his brother talking outside to the prying news cameras, wondering out loud how this had happened to his family; a family who had recently arrived in Canada in search of a better life. Or how it didn't seem to matter anymore that the loud bass coming from the stereo in the next apartment was suddenly silenced... it was quiet now for all the wrong reasons.
 Jomar is not the focus of this rant. Jomar is the personal touch that I can add to this story, because I knew him. I'd spoken to him. And in a breath, he was gone, and lives were changed forever. But while Jomar's death may have been in vain, Jomar's family is not alone. 14-year-old Reena Virk was beaten and drowned in a Victoria waterway in 1997, by a 15-year-old classmate. In 2000, 14-year-old Dawn-Marie Wesley names three of her peers in her suicide note, as tormentors who's bullying was slowly killing her. In September, 2004, a 14-year-old girl is viciously beaten by two female classmates, while nearly 30 bystanders stand on the sidelines, some cheering. November, 2004, 16-year-old star basketball player Andrew Stewart is swarmed, beaten, and stabbed to death; a 17-year-old is charged. The list goes on and on. And on. And these are just the "big" stories; the ones severe enough to make the headlines. How many thousands of children like little Dawn-Marie Wesley endure this abuse day after day after day, suffering in near silence? Why are so many kids dying at the hands of their peers?It's easy for the parents of the accused to place the blame on society. On video games. On violent movies and music. On peer pressure. On anything as far away as possible from the actual root of it all: themselves. Yes, that's right -- I'm suggesting that much of the blame for these incidents can be traced directly back to the people who raised these aggressors. Not once have I heard the parent of one of the accused stand up and admit that, "You know what? Maybe I wasn't a very good parent. Maybe I could have prevented this."
This is not to say that all of today's parents are bad people. Or even that they're all doing a bad job of it. But the fact remains, a large number of them are doing a bad job of parenting. Kids today are being raised knowing no respect, no responsibility, no accountability. They're being raised in rose-coloured bubbles, truly believing that they are the be-all and end-all. It's normal for teenagers to believe that they're invincible, but when an entire generation of kids grows up believing that they are infallible, then we have a problem.
I blame the "modern" parent. The one who, upon finding their child has done wrong, asks the child, "How do you feel about what you did?", instead of asking, "Why on God's green Earth would you do something like that??" The one who, instead of grounding or (God forbid!) spanking a misbehaved child, punishes their child for doing wrong by taking away one of their many techo-gadgets. The one who, instead of spending time reading to their child, sits her infront of the television, then, although amused, wonders where four-year-old Sarah learned the word "fuck". The one who, without even attempting to discipline their misbehaved child, throws their hands up in defeat and runs merrily off to the drugstore to refil little Billy's Ritalin prescription.
A good example of the "modern" parent at work: Just yesterday, as I was walking home from work, I passed a woman walking with her child, about five or six years old. The boy was carrying two -- yes, two -- ice cream treats, and by his face, he had just stopped crying. Passing her, I overhear her talking to her son. "See, Tommy? You said you didn't like the first one you picked out so Mommy bought you another one. Aren't you a special little guy?" I'm wondering if the Mother just mixed up the words "selfish" and "special". I missed the lead-up to her conceding and buying another treat for him. But from the look of his puffy cheeks and snotty nose, I knew he threw one helluva tantrum to get that second Popsicle. Now, a good parent doesn't buy the kid a new treat just because he threw a tantrum. And a good parent certainly does not reward the child by telling him he's special for having two treats now. A good parent takes away the first treat, tells the child that selfish kids don't get special treats, and take the little guy home, candyless. How hard is that?
Oh, wait... I get it now. It's hard, because of the whole, "This is going to hurt me more than you" spiel we hear from parents all the time, right? Well, I've got three words for all of you parents afraid to see your kids cry... GET OVER IT. Parenting is not about making friends with your child. Parenting is about doing what is in the best interst of your child. And often, unfortunately, what is in the best interst of your child is not even close to what the child is interested in. Kids need to be taught respect. They're not going to learn that on the playground, if they don't learn it at home, first. Kids need to be taught about manners, about morals, about doing what's right, even if it's a hassle, or a sacrifice, or just not fun. We can't keep raising our kids to believe that, "No" means "Ask her again until she says Yes". We can't keep raising our kids to believe that they deserve everything they want. And we absolutely cannot continue to raise our kids to believe that the Chen's are not as worthy as the Jones', or that violence is an acceptable means to end a disagreement. And as long as parents continue to let these kids grow up into monsters -- lacking morals, lacking respect -- innocent kids are going to continue to die at the hands of their peers. TrackbacksThe trackback URL for this entry is: http://yellowkaren.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5507B7D7D5FF0D0!283.trak Weblogs that reference this entry
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