Kecoughtan High School

Hampton, Virgina

Teacher: Emma Flood

 

                                                                                                 

The Role Of Personal Responsibility in Improving the Quality Of Life in Our Communities Today

By Carl Thames

 

As humanity counts down the days until a new millennium many people across the nation are wondering what is happening. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at an all time high and unemployment is at an all time low. At the same time the AIDS epidemic looms on the horizon and poverty spreads throughout the world. While society can be blamed for some of these problems it cannot be blamed for all of them. The amount of input individual responsibility has is of paramount importance. In particular, the roles of the individual parents in society will most deeply affect the life in the communities of the United States, as the children these parents raise will soon be in charge of the world. Through the teaching of values, an emphasis on education, and parents spending more time with their children, individuals can make a difference in both the communities of today and tomorrow.

 

Values are the most important thing a child picks up in the early stages of his or her life. With the dramatic increases in youth violence in recent years, the importance of values to children is critical. Many adults blame video games and violent television for the problems. This is, in a word, ludicrous. Many children and young adults in this world play violent games and watch action-packed movies and television and are completely harmless. While these games and shows are not totally at fault, they are not totally to blame either. The main reason is that values are not embedded into children’s heads at a young age. The reason that the children who play these games and do not reenact them is that their parents told them that killing is wrong. The children that do commit violent crimes at young ages do so in part because their parents did not say, “Hey, it is bad to hit other people. Do not do it.”

 

Many parents also undervalue education today. While most parents tell their children how important education [is] many do not. A number of children grow with idols like Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson. While both of these are extraordinary athletes, neither are good role models; neither of them has a complete formal education. As long as children can see how much one can make without an education, children, without guidance, will continue to believe this to be an achievable goal. Parents today have to show their children that one cannot go anywhere in life without an education.

 

Another thing that is critical to a child’s development is that the parents spend as much free time as possible with the children. In today’s world with copious divorces and a growing number of single parent families, many children grow up with only one parental figure. Statistics show that children t5hat grow up with only one parent are more likely to commit violent acts than those with two parents. The presence of both a mother and a father is a highly underrated portion of a child’s development. Sons need…fathers to go to baseball games and daughters need mothers to go shopping. Reading with children is very important. Children who have…parents [who] read to them have better reading capabilities at an earlier age than those who do not…. Many parents today do not even… have dinner with [their children even] once a week. Parents must take the initiative at home to spend time with their children. Too many parents today take off time from their children and spend this time at work. While this [is] understandable in some cases, too many children are raising themselves or being raised on the streets by a number of bad influences. If the parents of this nation do not take charge today, this nation’s future will remain dark indefinitely.

 

As the year 2000 approaches, humanity must look ahead and shake off the horrors of the 20^th century: the Holocaust, two world wars, civil strife on an unprecedented scale, the threat of a nuclear winter…The children being born today are the first generation of post-Cold War children. They must find solutions to the problems humanity has created for itself. These children must be raised first, however. It is the responsibility of every single parent today and the responsibility of tomorrow’s parents [to see] that these children are raised properly. These children must know what to do when the time comes. These young ones must know when retreat, when to compromise and when to grit their teeth and fight. Through the teaching of values, an emphasis on education, and parents spending more time with their children, individuals can make a difference in both the communities of today and tomorrow.