It's our kids stupid

Be honest now folks...how many of you out there know, or remember, that April is National Child Abuse Awareness month? It seems that everday is National 'something or other' day. National pancake day, national chocolate day, even national grilled chesse sandwich day. Really? We're actually honoring, yes honoring, irrelevant inanimate objects that are just for promoting products for sales. They actually don't mean a hill of bean to most Americans.

I feel somewhat knowledgeable in the area of child abuse prevention, as I worked for John Walsh's California branch of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children for four years. I served as voluntary board chairman, facilitated many parenting workshops, spoke in many schools on "Stranger Danger". But my real qualifier is I'm a father, grandfather, and even two-time great grandfather.

It seems all societies fail to grasp and digest that our children, all over the world, are our greatest natural resource. Someday, and it'll be here faster than you can blink an eye, us "old timer" are gonna turn this world over to our young 'natural resources', and our man focus today, right now, immediately must be on preparing them to handle their responsibilities as they grow to handle the decisions they make for our country.

When an infant emerges from their mother's womb there's not a set of instructions taped to their bottom on how to properly raise and prepare them for their futures.  They're just helpless little 6 or 7 pounders who seem for scream for attention to eat, sleep, or get re-diapered. I'm 82 now, and remember telling the parents and students in my workshops that I was raised on LSD, and I always got the last word when Dad read the riot act to me when I screwed up. They would look at me wondering if they were in the right workshop.

First of all, what I meant by LSD was Love, Support, and Discipline, and what I meant by 'last word' was me saying "Yes Dad" when he doled out the disciple, which usually consisted of one week of "grounding". Dad could care less about the big school dance after the game. Grounded meant grounded. Dad came from Italy without a day of education, he was my hero and still is.

Ever since Columbine we've turned school shootings into political platforms. There have been entirely too many school shootings, bringing chaos, harm, and even death to our children striving to get an education. The political part seems to be that as soon as there's a school shooting, or any public shooting there are groups who immediately take to the streets screaming for gun control.

The protest signs carried by the political protests read like protests right out of Hitler and Stalin's playbook. Blame the 'other Party', particularly the one in office. Blame the NRA. Blame the gun manufacturers, after all they manufacture the firearms. Yes, plenty of facets of our society to blame for firearm crimes, and plenty of blame to go around.

Yesterday was a beautiful Spring day, and while I was "putzing around" in the garage I spotted five or six 10-12 year olds running around the neighborhood. Three African-American children, along with two little White girls were giggling, laughing, and exploring. Being a strong child advocate, it was nice to witness. They waved at me laughing.

Frosting on the cake? Later, when I walked inside my wife told me these young kids knocked on our door and asked my wife if she had any trash to throw away. Then she further explained these youngsters were actually going around our condo complex, knocking on doors, asking people if they had any trash to throw away. There's a large dumpster area at the end of the street, and these youngsters actually thought there may be some people who can't carry their trash to the dumpster, and they wanted to help.

So many thoughts and questions running through my brain. Who taught these kids that it was really nice to do this? Where did they learn to be respectful? So heartwarming to see them play together; laughing, chasing each other on their bikes. Then I started to think, what will happen to these children? What changes will they go through that may dictate one becomes a Dr., Attorney, etc., and one end up in a gang taking drugs, and ending up in the morgue?

The answer is very simple...PARENTING. I have seen all the protest signs at these anti-gun marches blaming everything, but parenting skills. Some parents find it easier to blame the schools, racism, and a multitude of reasons that don''t befall them in any way.

I would like to see some signs at protests that read, WE NEED BETTER PARENTING, or HOMES MUST BE STABLE FOR OUR CHILDREN,  even signs that ask WE NEED MORE TWO-PARENT HOMES. But no, we'll never see signs like this at protest and marches. It seems easier to blame everyone, and everthing else.

Wake up people! If we all want a better America, start focusing on what really matters:
IT'S THE KIDS STUPID!!

And that's Politics with Pete today. God blss our country and our troops.

Maybe MORE guns needed!

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