As CBS News so eloquently said many times last night the issues in Baltimore involved “children”, poor little waifs that got caught up in peer pressure and the frustration of being black in white America. Then along comes this mom (at least we believe this is a mother and her son) who finds her little boy throwing a rock and she gives him five or six upside the head, humiliates him in front of his friends and classmates, practically frog marches him through crowds and past the press and cameras and it is all over the headlines. The mayor wanted to “give those who wished to destroy space to do that”, (that is a quote, she said it) and young ones took her at her word and now this mom gets mad and humiliates her son. How will children ever grow to be law abiding adults if they never have the space to destroy stuff? What she did was child abuse and when the police have time they should find her and arrest her.
I’m kind of expecting someone to say something like the above sometime today . Watching this mom go after this kid in front of his friends was actually kind of neat. Embarrassment is a huge motivator. I remember my mom chasing me home after finding me doing something stupid and it changed the way I acted and also the way my friends acted. One of my friends said that he probably stayed out of trouble through High School because he was afraid of my mom. Of course no one in this enlightened age would condone punching children and this women has a nasty right hand, but …if you are old enough to throw a brick at a cop maybe you need a punch in the head. But then I don’t know if a punch can fix stupid and the stupidity seems rampant everywhere from the office of the mayor to other offices about an hours drive down 195 from Baltimore.
Christianity in America is considered offensive and doctrinaire and mean (at least the branches of it that still consider sin to be ……well ……sin) but there were some pretty good ideas about how to handle the “children”.
Here are just three but I suppose they sound pretty harsh. If you think they are harsh ask yourself a simple question – how harsh is life in a society when the police are expected to be law enforcers, psychologists, peace keepers, property protectors and parents?
Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother
Proverbs 29:17 Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.
Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
it is said “ignorance is fixable, stupidity is forever”
…and teachers, who are also expected to be babysitters, teach moral values, hygiene, respect, etc., besides getting a child to pass standardized tests! The ability of children to imagine is being quashed in favor of high test scores which force teachers to teach the test! More crazy laws made a few miles from this Baltimore riot!