Guess Where? Sexual assault, rape, bashings, fake guns, knives pulled, kicked, spat upon, intimidation, possession of child porn, slapping, abductions, gangs on streets, riots….
“Obviously America,” you answer.
Answer: Sorry! Terribly shocking news, it’s actually Australia - our school children.
Paula Beauchamp wrote two articles with disturbing facts recently and we are wondering why there hasn’t been much response to them? Few questions have been asked? Are we just accepting this uncivilised behaviour as part of generation Y? That they can’t help it? Or are we secretly hoping no-one will have the audacity to suggest they’re products of our making?
Considering how bad things are - 8 year old girl threatens principal and hits teacher in face; 11 year old body holds two teachers at knifepoint and goes berserk; 17 year old boy sexually abuses 6 year old girl and is found with child porn in his room - are we really going to ignore it? When you’re diagnosed with throat cancer from years of smoking, you humbly acknowledge what you’ve caused. Are we willing to examine ourselves and society for what’s happened to our children? Aren’t they worth it?
What’s been the major theme in the past 20-odd years? The inalienable rights of the individual without reference to the common good; ‘making your own way’. It involves contempt for the social good of marriage and family made up of a mother and a father for the social, psychological and physical health of children; a forgoing of commitment and fidelity; an obsession with casual and unfettered sex (don’t people realise research shows married couples do it more often and enjoy it more!); a devaluing of motherhood - telling women they’re ‘unempowered’ if they stay at home with children, let alone have them in the first place! ; a disregard for authority.
And let’s not forget television and the Internets roles in desensitising violence and promoting sex.
We’ve been sold a lie that we can do whatever we want, that we can be all things to all people, that you can do anything on your own. It’s a lie because the evidence seems to show we can’t. And what we’ve got now is a whole generation that’s grown up with Dad often missing, Mum replaced by multiple childcare-workers, Mum also missing in cases of gay men adopting, commitment – what’s that? Sexual violence seen as normal, and mass violence and delinquency!
Our kids are seriously confused and disturbed, and it seems like having no solid reference points for behaviour have a lot to do with it. William Golding’s 1954 thought-provoking book ‘The Lord of the Flies’ indicates that man is inherently tied to society, and without it we would likely return to savagery. In the book the unguided boys turn barbaric as they prefer to have fun than worry about anything else. It seems ‘making your own rules’ doesn’t work. What do the experts say about children today?
So the solution seems obvious: boys and girls need positive role-models of both sexes at home, but especially father’s who commit time to them, impart values, set boundaries, and direct them in life. As fatherhood and marriage are indispensably good for children and society, this is where we should be advocating for social change and action. After all, the personal is political, and that’s what the lives of the nation’s children should be to us all. Come on people, look, analyse and conclude to ensure the present and following generations of children are not products of our social and moral experimentations.
And a couple of other questions: HeraldSun claimed they had gathered statistics regarding students bullying teachers. Are they able to extract from the Victorian Education Department how much taxpayer money is spent on stress leave for teachers bullied by students? Not to mention the cost of rehabilitation for the abusers and their victims?
Dr. Kerrie Allen
Australian Family Association
dr_ke20@yahoo.com.au