Forget The Village, The Parents Need To Step Up

This past Thursday, I walked into the kitchen at church to find that the youth group had left food on the counter and the floor.  The former custodian is living in church for a few weeks until he finds another job and gets on his feet.  He grumbled about what he perceived as the pastor playing favorites where one of the youth group leaders were concerned.  “He’s always bragging on the guy, but how is that guy going to be a youth pastor anywhere else if he can’t control these kids here?” the former custodian said.  He continued to tell me the problems he had with the same kids messing up the church while he was trying to clean it.  The night before, he had observed one of the kids ripping and running down the church halls with no shoes on.  When he suggested that for their own safety that they should cover their feet, the kid gave him an attitude.  To make matters worse, one of the churches who rents space in the building were attempting to have a Bible study over the racket the kids were keeping up. 

When I got home, I left a voice message for the pastor telling him what I found.  I have a feeling that not much is going to come of it.  The former custodian told me that the pastor would give him a “well, you have to bear with the children and have patience” speech each time he put in complaints about the kids.  I’ve heard that from pastor as well.  it is another version of the “it takes a village to raise a child” arguement.  That little saying is a nice thought on the surface, but deep down, it doesn’t work.

If everything in the village was good, wholesome and worthwhile, then parents and guardians could trust the village to be a positive influence on their kids.  But our “village” is an extremely faulty society.  Any parent or guardian worth anything is not going to let their child be exposed to everything and everyone in the village.  They will be diligent to to counteract negative messages that come from the village.

Unfortunately, too many parents and guardians are irresponsible these days.  Those types of parents have no qualms about letting the village deal with their sprogs.  I see this among the majority of the kids who show up at my church.  Their parents and guardians never show up to services, preferring to use the church as babysitters.  They send us kids whom they have not taught how to act before they allowed them to come outside into the village.  When wise village elders attempt to impart knowledge about the proper way to behave, those kids disrepect them. 

The wise village elders are themselves hampered by misguided village dwellers who feel that the little darlings should be able to express themselves in any fashion.  Never mind that the brats’ behavior has inconvenienced or hurt someone. 

The whole village is victimized by the very people who are responsible for raising the kids.  They feel no responsibility in making the village a better place by actually putting in the work to guide and protect their kids.  it is mainly because they didn’t think about all that goes into parenting in the first place.  The village, which is already not perfect in and of itself, also has to suffer from the consequences of being full of undisciplined, unsupervised ankle biters.