How rioting thugs make me grateful on Mother’s Day
Last weekend while listening to a sermon in church, I thought about rioting Quebec university students. On the surface, it’s a seemingly discordant thing to ponder at church, but my guess is I wasn’t the only one who thought about the chaos on Montreal streets at that time.
Rev. Scott Weatherford, head pastor at Calgary’s First Alliance Church, was delivering a sermon entitled, Kids Count: Investing in the Next Generation.
Pastor Scott referred to a verse from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that states: “Parents, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.”
It’s what Pastor Scott said next that gave me my eureka moment about the rioting Quebec students, who have been wreaking havoc for more than three months now over provincial government plans to raise university tuition fees — which are currently among the lowest fees in all of Canada, if not North America.
Pastor Scott mentioned several ways parents enrage their children, including, by belittling them, underestimating them and not treating them as individuals. But it was when he said that one of the main ways we provoke or enrage our children is “when we give them a sense of entitlement,” that I thought of those rampaging students.
“Entitlement leads to rage,” declared Pastor Scott. When we feel entitled, he said, we get angry when things don’t go our way.
In Quebec, the Liberal government announced in its deficit budget that it would gradually increase the university tuition costs by $325 for each of the next five years. That may sound like a lot to some, but not to most other university students in the rest of the country who pay much more than those in Quebec.
As Premier Jean Charest kept trying to inform these angry students, even with the annual increases factored in, the average tuition in Quebec would rise to only $3,793 per year, which would still be among the lowest tuitions in Canada. Tuition at the University of Calgary, by contrast, is $5,257, or $6,264 when you include the fees. Currently, Canada’s topranked university — Mcgill — charges just $2,168 for basic tuition, or $3,727 once all of the compulsory fees are factored in for Quebecers. But, for an out-of-province student, basic tuition at the Montreal university costs $5,858 and increases to $7,417 once the fees are added.
While the cost of virtually everything else goes up annually as a result of inflation, tuition in Quebec has remained frozen for 33 of the past 43 years.
Since early March, a small percentage of student protesters have committed numerous criminal acts during riots. Rioting is, in essence, what a spoiled two-year-old would do if they had the ability.
In Quebec, these entitled youth, who believe the rest of society MUST provide them with an almost free education or else, have blocked other students from accessing the educations they paid for, burned vehicles, smashed shop windows, looted property and severely beaten up a police officer who got separated from the rest of his colleagues. Earlier this week, some students are suspected of exploding smoke bombs in the Montreal subway, inconveniencing tens of thousands of commuters.
One gentleman interviewed on television said: “this is starting to resemble terrorism.” The only thing wrong with that statement was how he qualified the statement with the word “starting.”
If you build an entitlement society, chaos will come. Rage will come.
Instead of throwing those who break the law in jail and vowing not to bow to the pressure, Charest capitulated to these criminal temper tantrums by these entitled spoiled brats.
Charest offered to spread the increases over seven years if the protesters promised to stop breaking the law, and he made
Jean Charest’s capitulation to the students is essentially bad parenting on steroids.
some other allowances as well. The students, who feel entitled to make others continue to pay for 87 per cent of the cost of their educations, slapped away his offers and continued with their criminal rioting. Charest is not unlike a weak parent who buys his screaming two-year-old the demanded chocolate bar in the supermarket checkout line, just to keep the peace. The parent who does that spoils the child and does him no favours.
Jean Charest’s capitulation to the students is essentially bad parenting on steroids.
Which got me thinking about my kids. Fifteen years ago on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, the most wonderful and amazing thing happened to me. My twin sons were born 15 minutes apart just before 11 p.m.
“Just in time for Mother’s Day!” were the signs the nurses in the neo-natal intensive care unit placed on the bassinets for each of my boys.
My children are both keenly aware that growing up in Canada is like winning the lottery. They have been taught that to those whom much is given, much will be expected.
When I asked my kids recently what they wanted for their birthdays, both suggested I make a donation to my favourite charity, Lifeline Malawi, in lieu of a gift.
That’s why my kids, who lack a sense of entitlement, are the only gift I need on Mother’s Day.