vision2020@moscow.com: Happily Ever After....
Happily Ever After....
Jo Williams (tajs@potlatch.com)
Sat, 21 Mar 1998 21:32:03 -0800
I have to take issue with several of Gary You's assumptions in the
discussion of our area's 'troubled teenagers'.
First, he suggests that they are all from "broken homes". There are many
great teens whose parents are divorced- and many problem kids from homes
where the parents haven't divorced.
Second he makes the broad generalization that parents who don't spend
every spare moment with their children are then to blame when those kids
get into trouble. Does that go for the father busy spending his spare
time finishing a graduate degree? Attending city council meetings?
Running for county commissioner? The mother attending medical school,
running for mayor or organizing youth outreach programs? Maybe it
applies to parents so busy taking Johnny to basketball practice or
football games that no one is home cooking supper for Johnny's brothers
and sisters (who then get into trouble due to this parental neglect).
Finally he makes the statement that the "easy" solution is to "get right
with God". Living a religious life is not easy- and not intended to be
easy. It's a lifelong struggle, always falling short (unless you happen
to be a Saint). Similarly, it's not an easy solution to a communities'
problems. There are no easy solutions. But there are a lot of difficult
and time consuming solutions that we'll never get to if we sit around
waiting for Utopia/Heaven, mouthing pat phrases.
Jo Williams tajs@potlatch.com
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