The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

My intent with this blog is to keep it light and limit anything that could be construed as political or pertaining to a particular issue or religion or party, etc. But the news coming out of State College, Pennsylvania has stopped me in my tracks. In the US, we are blessed with a legal  system that says we are innocent until proven guilty, and the man at the center of this whole mess has already been tried and convicted by the media and public opinion. He is entitled to his day(s) in court, as are his accusers. But the story brings up for me a larger issue: "How did this situation ever get this far?" "Why weren't things dealt with years ago?" 

My sister is a counselor in a school district that has a large population of low-income and poor families. She mentioned that the child abuse issues she has had to deal with of late are more egregious than she has ever seen before, and there are more and more of these sorts of issues arising.  There have also been several recent qualitative studies that indicate that all types of child abuse are on the rise, some of it attributed to the difficult economy.

One of the things I found while working on my studies is that we in the West tend to look at our children as possessions; one author called our kids “emotional chattel.” This trend, along with the litigiousness of our society and the obsession with medical privacy, can lead normally good, moral people to turn a blind eye or wash their hands—to avoid getting involved.   We all do this to some extent…we don’t want people nosing in on our business, so we avoid nosing into theirs. Whistleblowers—be they corporate, political, or social--often don’t get treated with much respect, or worse. No one wants to be known as a “snitch.”

When we hear these stories of ongoing abuse, we all like to think that we would never let something like this happen; that if we knew or even had an inkling that something was amiss that we would follow up, take some accountability, and not just pass it up the chain of command and forget about it.  

Things like this or events like the Virginia Tech, Arizona, and Norway shootings happen because of the snowball effect—because no one was willing to stick their neck out and stop it before it became a tragedy.  But what worries me is that we will get lost in the tabloid-esque details and miss the bigger picture.  This is not just about Joe Paterno or the football program at Penn State, about who knew what when.  This is about an increasing trend in our culture to look aside from things that require us to take some risk and get involved.

It is important for parents to come together in community for the protection of all children. At my daughter’s school, we have groups called” Parents in Partnership” (PIPs) for middle school and high school to give parents an opportunity to get to know each other and to share the challenges that arise as we try to keep our children healthy and safe. It is not a forum for gossip, or to discuss school- or teacher-related issues. It is a chance to build relationships and trust. With trust, we might be more willing to share things that concern us.  We don’t need vigilantes; we need people who care enough about each other and our children to take a risk.

If you are interested in learning more about how to introduce this kind of thing in your own school, you can be in touch with me via this blog.

Keep all those wounded in this sad event in your thoughts and prayers.