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Main Page Site Index Getting Pregnant Pregnancy Parenting Pregnancy and Parenting Journals Fertility Nutrition Pregnant Moms Morning Sickness Women's Health Child Health	A Prayer For the Children by Julie Rosien When a child commits a hateful crime whom do we blame? Do we blame the child? Are there some children who are inherently bad. Do we blame the parents? After all, they have brought this child into the world. Should they should be accountable? Or, do we blame ourselves? Recently two children killed fifteen people, including themselves, in a Colorado shooting. These two children could not have been victims. Could they? We could ask the parents "What did you do to this child to make him so angry?" But can we lay all the blame at the parents' feet, raise our stones, and cast judgement? Perhaps it started with popsicles before supper and no dessert when the plate wasn't cleaned off. Maybe these parents never taught their children how to count potatoes or chase clouds on a windy day. Maybe they never took their kids to the circus or let them jump on the bed. Maybe they turned away when the language got foul and the music started blaring from the bedroom. Maybe there was just something bad about the children that no amount of love could hug away. Maybe it was much simpler than that. Maybe the parents thought it was a phase. "Little Johnny" will outgrow his anti-social behavior. "Little Johnny" just needs time and he'll be fine. Most teenagers outgrow their nonsense and grow up to have good jobs and a mortgage. This time "little Johnny" didn't have a chance to grow up. Each time a child commits a crime such as this, we have to look deeper than his parents and grandparents. We have to look at his aunts, uncles, doctors, dentists, teachers, and friends. We have to look at his neighbors and the store clerks that he dealt with. We have to look at the person who honked his horn so the kid would get out of his way. Any person that has contact with a child plays a role in how that child turns out. No matter how insignificant that role is, it has an impact. I once heard a story about a young man that saved and saved his money until he could finally buy a souped up old car. He spent hours fixing that car until he could finally drive it. He backs it out the driveway and drives it around the block. Although the street is full of people, no one waves or calls out to him. He goes around the block a little faster this time and still no one waves. He goes around again, this time a little faster with the stereo blaring. Some of his neighbors shake their heads or their fists but no one waves to him. He goes around once more. The engine is revved and the music is so loud the whole car is shaking. He is racing up the road so fast he doesn't see his neighbor's two-year-old run off the curb and into the middle of the street. Negative attention is better than no attention. Although I am sure this young man did not want to kill his neighbor's daughter, he did, and someone must be accountable. He was accountable. For the rest of his life. The promise of two lives, gone in a second. What he did was wrong and he must pay for what he did. What those two children did in Colorado was wrong and they will pay for what they did. If the people who saw this young man each day had taken time to notice him, they may have helped to prevent the tragedy. We all do it. We shake our heads and turn away when we see vandalism. We pretend we don't see when a group of kids smash a window and run away. We hide our eyes when a young mom is trying, unsuccessfully, to stop her child's tantrum in the grocery store. It's easier to look down or drive away. It's easier to ignore what is happening around us because our own lives are so busy. It is easy to ignore until that child grows up, their anger is uncontrollable, and we become the victims of it. Violence in the schools affects us all. What happened last week was tragic but it was preventable. I was given this poem recently in memory of the Jonesboro massacre. It applies to each child you pass today. All I know of the author is that her name is Margaret and she was once a child. A PRAYER FOR THE CHILDREN We pray for the Children who sneak Popsicle's before supper, who erase holes in math workbooks, who can never find their shoes. And we pray for those who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, who never "counted potatoes," who are born in places where we wouldn't be caught dead, who never go to the circus, who live in an X-rated world. We pray for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money. And we pray for those who never get dessert, who have no safe blanket to drag behind them, who watch their parents watch them die, who can't find any bread to steal, who don't have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser, whose monsters are real. We pray for children who spend all their allowance before Tuesday, who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food, who like ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bed, who never rinse out the tub, who get visits from the tooth fairy, who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool, who squirm in church and scream in the phone, whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry. And we pray for those whose nightmares come in the daytime, who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist, who aren't spoiled by anybody, who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep, who live and move, but have no being. We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must, who we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance. For those we smother and . . . for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it. Julie is the Mom of four. She would like to thank her husband and her little "darlings" for the inspiration she needs to get her through each and every day. If you would like to comment on her work or just add some encouragement you can reach her at rosien@netcom.ca.