My duty as a parent is to teach my children how to make decisions. I am trying to teach them right from wrong. I’m teaching them about consequences - both good and bad. If I do my job well as a parent, then hopefully my children will go on to make good decisions in life and become productive tax paying citizens who are not relying on the government to feed themselves or their families.
Why am I trying to teach my children these things? Because these are the same things that I learned as a child - it’s what MY parents taught me. They taught me not to lie, cheat, or steal. They taught me manners - how to sit at the table and eat properly, how to greet people, how to be courteous, to write thank you notes, to be appreciative of what I have. My parents taught me to not do drugs, that sex should be within a marital relationship, that children conceived outside of marriage are our responsibility. I could go on for a long time about what my parents taught me.
In essence, my parents passed on a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong. Those lessons have continued to be the basis of all decisions I try to make as an adult. Do I make mistakes? yes! Do I sometimes make bad choices? Absolutely! But, I can quickly get back on the right track because or everything I have been taught by my parents.
So, what happens when children are not taught right from wrong? What happens when you grow up in an environment where these lessons are not taught, OR, there is an absence of one of the parents? THIS is what happens. This article ran in the Charleston Post and Courier this past Sunday and it has sparked a debate on the radio both here in the Lowcountry and across the nation. Neal Boortz, who I listen to regularly, even spoke up on the situation on his talk show on Monday, the day after the article was printed.
Brian over at Flashpoint wrote a blog entry about the situation and also had this to say:
I support helping the kids, who are the real victims, not Ms. Kelly. Every year my wife and I purchase gifts for poor families through Operation Santa Claus so that the parents don’t have to make another bad decision like Ms. Kelly did. There are other programs, such as Big Brothers/Sisters, that I (and probably my wife) will dedicate our time to once our kids get a little older and less needy themselves.
I definitely “see” what Brian is saying and I commend him on reaching out to help - but is he REALLY helping these children in the long run? Is he REALLY helping these children break out of the cycle?
Ron Goodwyne rings in his conservative Christian opinion. This statement bothered me the most:
Brenda presents some difficult questions for Christians. How do we live up to Christ’s expectations with this woman? How do we show the love of Christ to her? I submit that tough love is called for. Brenda must live the consequences, all of them, of her bad choices. In this way, perhaps, Brenda can learn from her mistakes and work to improve her life. And at the point where Brenda has taken responsibility for her situation and is working hard to improve her life, then it would be Christian love and charity to provide financial and other assistance to her. But until she reaches that point, there is nothing anyone can do to help Brenda. She has to be willing to help herself first.
I would submit to Ron that the RIGHT thing to do is to judge Brenda Kelly based on all of the facts, not necessarily those that we’ve read in an article. And, I agree that throwing money at the situation is not the right answer, but I’m not necessarily ready to decide that removing the children from her care is the right decision either. Someone needs to address the situation and sit down with Brenda and help her to sort out the things in her life that are an issue. Until you’ve actually lived in poverty or known what it’s like to be in Brenda Kelly’s shoes, I think that it’s unfair to say that she should simply “lose her children”. Poverty doesn’t make you a bad parent - but producing an egg or a sperm doesn’t make you a good parent either. I would love to see Christian organizations work to counsel people like Brenda Kelly - work with her to see that there is a better life out there for her and her children and help her along the way to make better decisions - to teach her how to make the decisions that we were taught to make as children. Will she change? Hopefully - it’s hard to say. But I think that it’s completely unfair, especially as a Christian to simply say, “Take her children away from her.” As Christians, we need to do better than that.
