For the Children

Our eight year old daughter drives us crazy.  We know she has issues, which is why we're having her evaluated for ADHD.  But we're thankful that we have an otherwise healthy child who's intelligent and capable.  Some might disagree with our parenting methods, but we do what we must to keep our child safe and educated.

However it seems that every other day there's news of something happening to a child somewhere.  A boy finds an unsecured gun in his parents' home and shoots his baby brother with it.  A girl dies because of her parents' insistence on using traditional medicine instead of taking a doctor's advice.  A girl has acid thrown on her face for the "crime" of wanting to go to school.

Whether by accident, ignorance, or willful malice, children everywhere are being hurt and killed through no fault of their own.  It's apparent that many people lack the common sense to realize that children are our future.  It is to them that we pass our legacy in the hopes that they do better in their own futures and the future of our planet than we did.

What message would this show to the ages?  That we are incapable of caring for our offspring?  That we are so desperate to keep control of our world that female babies are killed or abandoned in favour of boys, young women are mutilated, and dangerous weapons are kept in the household?

Yes, children should be educated about what's right and proper.  But we also need to educate ourselves and abandon "traditions" that are detrimental to the human race as a whole.  After all, our children will have to clean up the mess that we made.