Who's to Blame?

"Train a child in the way he should go, & when he is old he will not turn from it" (Proverbs 22:6)

I hear people all the time say things about the younger generation & children today behave worse, learn less, & basically aren't the same as kids were in the "good 'ole days" (whatever that means). I understand the pressures of culture, technology, & the busy-ness of life. It's a rough world we live in today, but who's to blame for how kids turn out when they grow up? I believe Scripture puts an immense responsibility on parents when it comes to children. I know, some will say no matter how good of an environment they provided for their children they still turned out screwed up or whatever.

Many times I tend to give kids the benefit of the doubt when their behavior is sub-par in my opinion. I always wonder what's going on at home or not going on at home that influences this behavior. Let me give you an example of what I experienced on Monday afternoon:

I was in Wal-mart (where it seems we spend a large part of our time & money) waiting on a prescription for Cade. I went back to sporting goods to get my LA fishing license & encountered a sad scene. A mother & another lady had 2 children w/ them & were looking at baseball gloves for the young boy (my guess is 6 or 7 yrs old). The mother got my attention when she was screaming & cussing at this little boy b/c he didn't know how to put the glove on right. If I repeated what she said on here I would probably lose my job, but trust me it was embarassing me & I was 20 ft away!

The little boy was crying & couldn't defend himself b/c the mother was berating him & throwing gloves around. At one point she said something like "hurry up before we get kicked out of wal-mart" (w/ a few choice words mixed in). People were staring & security was almost called before a male associate arrived & helped the boy try on a glove, figure out if he was right or left-handed, & provided the irate, stupid, irresponsible woman who doesn't deserve in my opinion to have the privilege of being a mom, with the right glove.

I walked away at that point & my blood was boiling. I honestly wanted to go help the boy but didn't for fear of getting beat up or sued or something, but more so I wanted to punch the woman in the face (sorry, God & I are working on the anger thing) & give her a piece of my mind. After walking away I prayed for them asking God to dramatically reveal himself to them.

Will this boy when he grows up have to take responsibility for his actions...absolutely. Can we as parents be perfect in raising our children...absolutely not (I'll admit I'm far from it, but I'm striving to do my best everyday w/ God's help). But if we as parents take responsibility NOW for the way we're raising, or not raising, our kids maybe the younger generation wouldn't be so "horrible" in society's eyes.