On April 20, 1999, two students of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado broke out in gunfire across their campus, killing twelve classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.  On March 24th of 1998, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, four students and a teacher were killed by two young boys ages 11 and 13 in what police had called a “carefully planned ambush.”  They also wounded nine other students and another teacher.   These are the most prominent problems we see with the youth of today.  But how about the more overlooked issues, such as occasional drug use, promiscuous sex, and theft?  Who, or what, is causing the decrease in morals of today’s youth?  What has changed since the ideal TV sitcom family life of “Leave It to Beaver?”  Who is to blame for this?  Is it the parents, society, the youth themselves, or a combination of the three?

Today more than ever, we are always pressed for time.  Everything we do is “on the go” or “on the run.”  We have “fast” food, and “express” lines in the supermarket; our mail system is now referred to as “snail mail” and we resort to instant messaging such as e-mail and faxes.  So why should parenting be any different?  With the rising cost of living, households often find it necessary to have two incomes as opposed to one, making for less quality time spent with the family.  So, like everyone else, parents are pressed for time.  There just simply is no time for parents to involve themselves in the complexity of today’s problems.  They ask, “How was your day,” but do they really want the answer?  Do they have time, or do they want to hear about the drug sales that go on right in the hallways of the school building?  Laurence Steinberg, professor of psychology at Temple University, recently completed a survey of 20,000 families in which he discovered that one fourth of parents seldom asked about their children’s days.  The survey also found that the same amount of parents were unsure of their whereabouts during the day, and virtually never engaged in recreational activities as a family.  Another study conducted by psychology professor Reed Larson and his colleague, Maryse Richards, showed that when time was spent between parents and adolescents, that time averaged at eight minutes per day for mothers and three minutes per day for fathers.  It is not to say that parents aren’t trying, but based on these results, it can be said that not much could possibly be happening.  As hard as it may be, parents need to set apart time to spend with their children to find out what is going on during their days. 

Sixteen year old Mike was arrested after a night of drinking with his friends.  Upon hearing the news, his father, Jack, was astonished that his son could ever have been arrested after what he considered to be a caring upbringing.  When asked about it, Mike replied that he never had quality conversations with his father.  He just sat while his father talked at him and not with him.  So could parents be to blame for the problems of today’s youth?  Yes, they are.

Now from a different perspective, let’s take a look at the society in which we live.  In this technologically expanding day and age, more negative images are being portrayed to children in many different forms.  For example, more households than not are equipped with the Internet.  While this can be a good thing for educational purposes, it also opens up a new world to children of pornography and violence, both of which have somehow become socially acceptable.  Exposing sex and violence to an adolescent is a poisoning of the mind.  An adolescent’s mind is very impressionable and first images of sex should not be violent in nature or demeaning to women, as a lot of pornography is.   The same goes for violence.  Unfortunately, in the movie business, it is the sex and the violence that make the movie sell.  And it is the movie with these things that adolescents want to see.  However, could it be that the violence that was portrayed in the Colorado and the Arkansas shootings is a result of what society allows for adolescents to see in the movies and on TV?  Measures have been taken, whether successful or not, to curb the amount of violence that is viewed by adolescents, such as the V-Chip and the TV ratings and warnings that appear at the beginning of the TV show or movie.  However, if a parental figure is not present to monitor these ratings, do they really do any good?  Or do these ratings just intrigue the adolescent, further sparking interest in the violent or sexual program?  Another portrayal of violence is in video games.  These games are saturated with violence and graphic killing.  Why do we allow such things in our houses?  Is it because we are too busy to actually spend time with our children and we allow the violent programs and video games to be the volunteer baby-sitter?  Another problem with society is that we do not have the funding to care for children when a child’s parents are deemed unsuitable.  For example, the number of child welfare cases is outrageous, but the funding for these cases is virtually nonexistent.  Caseworkers are poorly trained and underpaid, and are handling more cases per worker than is possible.  Caseworkers are overwhelmed and it is the children who suffer.  In order to save state funding, “family preservation” has become an appealing option.  With this plan, the children that are in danger are not removed from the home and from the parents they are in danger of, but rather are kept in the home with the thought in mind that tearing up the family is a bad idea.  Oftentimes this results in the death of an innocent child due to this lack of funding.  So, is society to blame for the problems of today’s youth?  Yes, it is.

The judicial system says that once an individual is fifteen years of age, he or she is legally responsible for his or her own actions and can be tried as an adult in a court of law.  So why wouldn’t an adolescent be morally responsible for what they do wrong as well?  Studies have been done in the past to attempt to learn at what age a child can differentiate between right and wrong.  Most experts agree that by the age of seven, a child has some concept of right from wrong.  So why do people do things that are morally or legally wrong?  A well-known psychologist once theorized that people commit illegal or wrongful acts because it is easier to do so than to go about things legally.  For example, it is much easier to steal expensive items than to go through the process of finding a job, working to earn a paycheck, and then spending the hard-earned money on the desired objects.  With this in mind, the youth themselves are to blame as well. 

There is always a question of who is to blame when someone young does something wrong.  People never want to admit that they are wrong or at fault, so we search for answers to this question constantly.  So who is to blame?  Is it the parents, society, or the youth themselves?  In a word: us.  Whether we are the parents, whether we are the society, or whether we are the youth, we are all to blame.  And with that said, we are all responsible for finding the solution.

May 12, 1999
Playing the Blame Game
With the Youth of Today
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