What are we teaching children?

Another Viewpoint is a column The NewsHerald makes available so all sides of an issue may be aired. Victor La Bonte lives in Willoughby Hills.

I am an old man. I grew up in a time when every boy wanted to be a cowboy, a cop, a soldier or a fireman and heroes were people like Audie Murphy, Alvin York and John Wayne. We played with cap guns, later BB guns and the lucky ones went on to supervised .22’s, while still in grade school.

In my father’s generation, a pre-teen boy would be permitted to hunt on his own for the table. The high school I attended had a rifle team, as did many schools in the area.

I was 11 when my Marine, Master Sergeant father taught me to safely handle and shoot his pistol. A rifle in a case could be carried on a city bus without causing alarm.

There has been a profound and terrifying change.

We no longer idolize my heroes, we disparage them.

People who hold traditional values face ridicule. Clinging to God and millennia of Biblical teaching is called a mental illness.

We belittle and undermine organizations like the Boy Scouts.

Enjoying the outdoors and harvesting your own food has become an intrinsic evil.

A man and woman marrying, forming a family, faithfully honoring their commitment to each other and sacrificing to raise children together is an obsolete concept.

We teach that the reward for working hard and winning is the same as for showing up.

We hand our children a smartphone and a video game console as a substitutes for spending time with them.

We shake our heads in horror and bewilderment, when after being bombarded with inappropriate activities and images for their entire lives, they slaughter each other. My generation is at fault. “If it feels good, do it” was our mantra. “Give peace a chance!”, our battle cry. We marched on Washington, partied at Woodstock and died at Kent State.

We believed that the answer to every social problem was to throw government money at it. Taxes, spending and debt sky rocketed.

Trillions of dollars spent in the War on Poverty didn’t eradicate the problem, it made multigenerational dependence a family business.

We allowed a flood of Illegal immigrants to cross the border and help themselves to our tax money. No? There are millions of illegal immigrant children in our schools at a cost of up to $20,000 a year each.

Could that be part of the reason that, school systems all over the country are perennially broke.

Do you think we break even on the taxes their parents pay? We don’t.

We weakened our military and allowed dangerous people and countries to rise and threaten us.

We made victims out of people living with the consequences of their own bad decisions.

We could not have been more wrong.

You don’t have to learn life’s lessons the hard way.

Don’t want a life of poverty? Take advantage of every educational opportunity.

Not good in school? Learn a trade.

Think the only way to make real money is with an MBA? Call a 24-hour plumber to fix a burst pipe in the middle of a Sunday night. Stay clean and sober. Work hard. Get married, find a career and have money in the bank before you start a family.

Live within your means. Don’t rent a house, buy it. Get the Ford, not the Lincoln. Play catch with your kids. Teach them to swim and fly a kite. Go fishing or camping. Teach them to shoot. It may not be fashionable, but it builds self confidence, self discipline, fine motor and breath control, concentration and just might save their lives one day. Cook or bake with them. Teach them to fix things or better yet, make them.

Let them try, fail and try again.

Promise them that if they find themselves somewhere or with someone and they don’t feel safe, you will come get them. No questions asked. Mean it. Make the same promise to their close friends and be willing to roll out of bed in the middle of the night to keep that promise.

It does not take a village to raise a child. It takes the mom and dad who show by their example, how real people live a life.

It is the hardest work you will ever do and absolutely worth it.

Victor La Bonte