Rise Up Parents !

As our nation is once again gripped by images and video footage of violence in yet another city, Baltimore, of our nation, the same questions arise as they did in Ferguson, Missouri. Questions as to ‘how do we stop this?’ and ‘how on earth did we get here?’ are all legitimate and honest questions. Uprisings, protests, and rioting, looting and violence are a direct reflection of environments…specifically home environments.

Recently a video aired from the Baltimore riots which showed a mother slapping her child (who was rioting), cursing him, and forcing him to leave the scene (presumably to return home with the mother). Although the attack on the dignity of the child, as well as the embarrassment of the mother that the child would participate in those actions, are not exactly the way to resolve the issue, it is symbolic of the way. The mother represents a household devoted to honoring the dignity of humans, of property, and obeying authority. Discipline was taken by the parent on the child once the child violated these principles, which obviously were taught at home.

Pope Francis told parents in February of this year that it was okay to spank their children and to take disciplinary measures when a child misbehaves, however, the parent must maintain the dignity of the child. Additionally, Pope Francis focused on the role of fathers in the teaching, raising, and disciplining matters. He told fathers that a good father was one who forgives a child but also will ‘correct with firmness’.

“One time, I heard a father in a meeting with married couples say ‘I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them,’” said Francis. “How beautiful. He knows the sense of dignity! He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that parents have a responsibility to not only teach by words, but through actions and examples.

“Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law.” (CCC 2222)

“Parents have a first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery- the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the ‘material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones.’ Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them.” (CCC 2223)

“The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies.” (CCC 2224)

As a journalist, I have stood at memorial services of children and watched parents weep uncontrollably as grief takes them to places they never imagined, I have sat in courtrooms where teenagers are facing murder charges for shooting other teenagers in gang violence, I have sat face to face and interviewed…and wept…with parents who lost children to gang violence.

As a friend, I have held a weeping and worried mother as her child lay in the hospital during the last days of their life.

As a military wife, I have stood at funerals where children bid farewell to their fallen parent and still…deep down…wonder how they will ever make it without them now.

As a police officer’s daughter, I have prayed every night each year until my father retired that he would come home safe. My heart stopped beating more times than I can count when the phone would ring late at night, while he was working. A gripping fear that he would not return home.

The faces of grief may change, but the impact and horror of it never does. As our cities burn, our children are encouraged by parents (such as in the Ferguson riots) to continue looting and rioting as opposed to obeying the law. They are encouraged to use violence for violence, yet that is not the answer. In return, our children lose their lives, they lose their dignity, and they attack the dignity of others.

Mothers and fathers alike must rise up and take control of our future generations, take control of our society, before our future leaders are six feet under ground or behind bars. If we want the violence to stop, we must teach love instead of hate. If we want the burning of buildings and businesses to stop, we must teach to give rather than take. If we want our human dignity preserved, we must work to preserve the dignity of others. If we want peace, we must offer an open hand instead of a closed fist.