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When Children Were Children
Paying the price for
our neglect
By Sharon Hopper
I apologize for the absence of my articles the past couple weeks, but
after the horrible thing that happened in Sandy Hook School it has been
a rather thought provoking time and a time of great reflection on days
gone by. What has happened to us as a people that we have so many
monsters running loose out there to harm just about anyone. And because
they usually commit suicide after such an act, we will probably never
really know the answers…
When I was a child I would be angry and would act out my anger in my
imagination. Sometimes as an adult I still do the same thing, however I
know that harming another is not going to solve my problem or my anger.
The consequence is prison or death, neither of which I am in a hurry to
experience. But let me get to the children.
I cannot imagine going to school with the knowledge that someone might
come into that building and hurt us, let alone kill us. As a child
school was a wonderful place where you played, wrote notes, learned
about life, and math, reading, and geography. I don’t think they do
that one anymore because the people on Jay Leno never know where
anything is at. The other night I watched a program where the teacher
asked if anyone could tell him about pie. No one could answer the
question, however I observed several students texting on their cell
phones. Then I looked at my computer keyboard and could not figure out
a way to make the pie symbol.
That really got me to thinking. In today’s world do we really need to
learn it? And to have a phone in school was impossible, so notes were
the best way to communicate. Sometimes getting them passed was a
problem, because the person having the note could do one of two things.
Tear it up or tell the teacher and get one into a pile or trouble. In
my school career I had my share of both. That small type of incident
could ruin several days of school for me. Can you imagine those kids
going back to school after knowing that someone came in to
intentionally hurt them and I think in a lot of cases they even knew
the person. How utterly disturbing. I cannot imagine school today with
cell phones, personal computers, and teachers on the internet. Where is
the personal contact?
And they return home to a flood of reporters on every television talk
program asking the same questions over and over and the fight about
guns, and computer games. Turning on the television is difficult at
best for an adult, let alone a child. Some say they do not pay
attention to the media on television. I say they are crazy. Children
hear far more that we realize and they form opinions unto themselves
that the adult world is oblivious of understanding. I prefer the
wonderful innocence we had as children. No need to hurry the growing up
experience. It was going to happen anyway. Well that world is gone
forever.
I wonder… What do we expect to learn from all this. I say that because
it has gotten worse and I don’t think we have learned a thing. Oh! I
almost forgot. When I was child we talked about the Ten Commandments
and said a prayer every morning. It has been many years now since that
has been done away with. And the filthy words I hear coming out of the
mouths of so many young people. Golly if we said a swear word in school
or on the bus there was hell to pay. I wonder! Could there be a
correlation to all this evil. Could it be that as adults we have by
default guided an entire generation into hell? When we were children we
were far happier than the children of today. Much less stress. And much
more love and communication.
How many more schools will get shot up before someone wakes up and
declares the Civil Rights of living. The right to demand civility,
decency, respect, and all the good things that we had to learn to
become the greatest generation of all time. I wonder when did we the
everyday people become sheep following a minority, instead of the
shepherds demanding human values in these great United States. The
children will have to pay the price for our neglect.
By Sharon Hopper
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