Here We Go Again....

I've had way too many thoughts rolling through my head and I just can't get them organized every time I try. Last night though had my blood boiling. I just wrote about how senseless the Chris Lane murder was and was wondering where the Trayvon Martin level of outrage was (still not there, in fact -- although Jesse Jackson acknowledged it with this tweet. Yes, "frowned upon", like what I do when spouses act all crazy around here). But then last night came another story of another bunch of thug teens who killed someone -- this time it was an 88-year old, WWII veteran who was beaten in a parking lot. There seems to be no motive, just that it was a random beating. What. The. Hell?!

Seriously people it's time that we go back to treating our children like children. We need to bring them up with respect for other people, for other people's property and most of all that if they fail to be good, decent human beings that fail to adhere to the rules we set for them that there will be consequences. My two year old understands that if he talks back, if he doesn't share his toys, if he hits/bites/punches another living being (this is to include our family's dog who, bless her heart, doesn't flip out every time he yanks her tail and attempts to drag her down the hallway) that there will be age appropriate consequences. Ok, so I know that I'm a long ways from having a teenager however I remember how I was raised and I knew that there were consequences for my actions, from being grounded to getting my car keys taken away and everything in between. My parents taught me to have respect for those around me, to help out in our community in whatever way I can (do they still require community service hours in high school in order to graduate?) and to just be a decent human  being. I know that most of my friends growing up had the same rules (some of their parents might have been more strict or more lenient than mine, but still it was very similar across the board). And by high school, a lot of us had both parents working outside the home, which is pretty commonplace now to have both parents (or the only parent in some cases) work a regular job. I think that the main difference is, even with their fulltime jobs our parents managed to stay involved in our lives and knew who our friends were, where we were, etc. Parents need to be parents and they need to be in their kid's business. That didn't stop either when I was in college and home on breaks, I still had a curfew, was expected to help out around the house, hold a job during the summer, and follow a few simple rules. As close as my mother and I were, she was still my mother and often would say, "I'm not one of your friends off the street, I am your mother!"

Perhaps if we had more parents with the mantra my mother had, we wouldn't have teenagers killing for the hell of it. We would have productive young citizens in this country who would care more about their future and that of the country than the latest pair of Jordans, being the next reality star, or just simply proving that they're thug enough. Our culture needs to change because young men who prey on old men aren't strong, aren't cool, aren't badasses, they are weak, scared little boys.