Blame and Punish Podcast
Episode: O-0003
Posting date: 01/15/21
[This written episode was used as a guideline to the spoken one. To hear the exact words, find it at https://www.blameandpunish.com/podcasts ... ry/latest/.]
Clearing Something Up: What I believe
Hi, I’m Bruce Carlson. This is the third episode of 1,560 of our podcast. If you don’t remember, I’ll be doing one of these episodes each week for thirty years.
I’ve been trying to learn how to speak so it is easier on my throat but after doing something for 70 years – it’s hard to change. In any case, I’ll just keep trying to not speak as loudly . . . and I have plenty of people reminding me to do that whenever I open my mouth (uh, but maybe they have their own reasons for telling me to talk softer instead of just trying to protect my throat). I’ll move on, though.
Today, I am going to try and wing it a little.
I had said I did not want to be labeled when I started doing our book. I wanted to give facts, explain things, give options of thoughts, try to just be the pointer: I could point to this problem all of us have, I could point to this fix or that fix, I could gather information and we could start the cycle over again together until we arrive at a starting point where we can help ourselves save ourselves.
However, no matter how I try to form a start there are people who are saying I am a conservative or a liberal. I have to say this, or not say this, or not say that, or say something else a different way.
Sorry, I’m just going to keep saying things the way I say them. I’m not going to try and fit into a mold. Believe me, if you knew me personally you would know that I am NOT afraid to say anything! And that LITERALLY means anything! I am not afraid of giving my opinion nor am I afraid of listening to yours.
Take anything you want from me and let it spark you to open your mouth . . . I look forward to the explosion.
If you want something to start on – whether you are a conservative or a liberal or a half-dozen things in-between, or extremely outside of any of these control labels: Let me make sure that you understand that I believe that bad parents can be poor or rich, they could have been brought up any way there was to be brought up, and they can raise their child unlike any way that has been used by any other.
And, yes, even if they don’t raise their children right at all, those kids can still turn into kickass kids and then turn into kickass adults (and kickass is a term of endearment in this sentence).
I have mentioned in our book that it is unfortunate some people have children just to collect money from the government to help them take care of them. I also mentioned in our book that it is unfortunate that some people have children just to show them off and they could care less about them. Both of these statements are true and both of them just came out of my mouth. However, I am not saying either one is bad (nor am I saying either one is good). What I am saying is if that a child ever does anything wrong: WE SHOULD PUNISH THE PARENTS FOR NOT RAISING IT RIGHT!!!
I have seen children live in shelters. I have seen them stifled and cheated and not fed and cold and dirty and hungry and scared and sad and crying and wanting. I have seen big old abandoned factories with hundreds of cots in them where a drunk parent and their child have to share one cot and they get one small, thin blanket and it is always the child who gets the blanket pulled off of them overnight. I have seen that child wake up in the morning and beg through their eyes for just a little bit to eat or jump back as they are sometimes washed with water that is literally as cold as ice or so hot you can burn a layer of skin off since the water temperature is controlled by who gets into the showers first (and burns) or last (and freezes). I have seen that child get taken and dropped off at a public preschool to be educated and they can’t talk correctly, certainly can’t spell, and have never owned a book of their own but marvel at the beautifully painted pictures inside of ones they can look at. They try to smile at the pictures and they look forward to the free school snack. Often the teachers have to clean them better than when they came to school because they hadn’t been bathed in days and their clothes still have a spill on them from a week ago, or maybe they have a hole in their pants or their shoe and the teacher tries to do a small repair. A parent will usually come and get their child after school or have someone else get them but their parent will never attend the parent-teacher conferences.
What are our options (don’t forget, we are society – we will cross paths with one of these people or their children sometime in our lives). The parents are having a hard enough time taking care of themselves, much less having the ability to take care of their children? They may have been their children twenty years earlier and now they have gone and repeated history. Who takes care of the parents, who takes care of the children, who takes care of us?
Forget about the schools and teachers taking care of the children for a minute: What about food and a place to live outside of the shelter? Can these families find subsidized housing? In the U.S. there is something called Child Services and every community in the United States has a place that can help you get food stamps or subsidized medical aid or free cash to pay for things. Of course, the aid workers have too many cases and their money comes from taxes but 353,000 new children get added to the earth’s child population each day so if you think a family welfare worker might someday catch up with their workload: Think again.
The children being raised in an environment like the shelter I just described are going to have a tough time becoming who they should have the right to become.
So, is this a matter of money . . . not having enough of it? If there was more money in the world, would everyone grow up fine?
I have seen students pull up to their high school in brand-new sports cars costing more than many working parents across the country make in a year. I have seen teenage charge card accounts which have higher limits than hard-working families who have been paying their bills for years. The clothes these children buy in one school year cost more than a family of four might spend in a calendar year. These children do not have to work and they certainly don’t have to account to anyone about how they spend their time during the day. If there are any problems, regardless of who they are, the family attorney can take care of them, so, “Poof,” no problems! The attorney just threatens whoever needs to be threatened to “get the kids what they want!”
These kids don’t worry about hot or cold water or what comforter they have on their bed at night. Yet, the children being raised through this environment are ALSO going to have a tough time becoming who they should have the right to become if they do not have parents raise them right!
How is the first child (without money – we will call them the “poor child”) different from the second child (with money – we will call them the “rich child”)?
How can we stop these children from being born every second and being brought into a society where they will get indoctrinated into our “World of Want” or our “World of Need?”
So what you say. Let a child grow the way they grow. Let the parents do the best they can and may the child be damned!
So what!
Here’s what, “So what.”
The poor child is full of street-smarts – watch out for those if you don’t have them – you can lose your wallet and your teeth while you’re buying a new swimsuit and not even realize that your wallet and teeth are missing if a street-smart person gets you!
But the rich child has book smarts – and society is steeped in the almighty of properness which is bred through books and social status. You may not be able to live on the streets and make it but you can step on the hands of anyone trying to crawl up your staircase on their hands and knees. A person from the streets will always have a hard time walking up those stairs standing erect. The person with the money may not let you.
BUT THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MONEY! And it is not meant to say a poor child can only steal to get what they want or a rich child can only manipulate to get what they want. It’s just that being well-rounded would/could/should give everyone an equal chance to live a good life.
There are people who have come from the lowest poverty imaginable who have led the world. There are people who seemed to have been given everything and they have also led the world.
What we have to do is find the common denominator to what makes good people. We must be ONE people. There can be children who are poor and there can be children who are rich – the poor child or the rich child.
I am not going up against either of them – they both deserve a chance to be great. But there is only one way to do this and that is to make sure all parents raise their children with the same moral principles as the next parent.
How should parents be held accountable for their children?
Any person creating a child, or any person taking responsibility for an already created child, MUST accept it as their responsibility to raise that child and provide all that is necessary for than child for as long as the child and the parent live. And if their child stumbles, or fails, anywhere along the way – the parent must be responsible for such stumbling or failing. Parents MUST be held accountable for their children?
That’s not a conservative thing. That’s not a liberal thing. That has nothing to do with being broke or having a heck of a lot of money.
It has to do with raising your child right . . . or paying for anything they EVER do wrong!
If you want to play, you pay. It’s about time parents find out that having a child isn’t a free game!
Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.
[END]
