The Power of Community
by Graelan Wintertide
For quite some time now, our children have been in the news. They've been
called a generation of violence - raised on a diet of Hollywood murders,
bloody video games, televised mayhem. We've seen the violence appear in our
schools, in our neighborhoods - in places we've always considered safe. Once
upon a time, we missed our children when they left for school, but now we
fear for their safety. If it's not drugs, it's violence. If it's not
violence, it's senseless murders. Even in our own neighborhoods we find
dealers on our street corners and drive by shootings which claim innocent
lives.
All of us have seen the experts on television. They stand before their
microphones and tell us how children are susceptible to violence, how they
can't differentiate between fantasy and reality. While the cameras are on
them, they play to our fears, telling us they'll lead us from the
devastation and into a place where things are safe again.
But what they're forgetting is that the problems lay with a small portion of
our children. The younger generation isn't filled with mindless zombies that
follow the media's every suggestion. They aren't lost souls that will snap
and shoot up a school if they watch another action movie, listen to the
wrong CD, or come across the wrong website on-line. In the midst of the
recent school shootings, these violence crazed children we shun before the
cameras as we point our words at their entire generation, are the same
children that cowered in terror from the violence before them. They knew the
difference between a fictional shooting in a movie or on TV where they cheer
the hero. The best of them were heroes any of us would cheer, shielding
their frightened peers with their own bodies, running into a rain of bullets
to stop the violence, and ushering others to safety. These are young,
idealistic adults who still hope for a better world, who have yet to be
jaded by the day to day reality we face as adults.
And we're losing them.
Not to the violence the politicians preach about. Not to a world of guns and
bloodshed, of drugs and promiscuous sex. We're losing them to another
culture, a fictional world woven by a machine which takes no prisoners in
it's pursuit of the dollar. Don't condemn it - that's what it was designed
for. It gives the artists of technology a canvas on which to paint through
their words, their actions, and share their talents. What it does is simply
fill a void that we've left, because as parent's and a society, we simply
are not doing our jobs - or we can't compete alone against a culture with
the power to influence millions.
Think about this for a moment. In every community, there are the "good
kids," those driven by a vision to succeed. They want to go to college;
develop a career; get married; change the world. What they've done is to
find a place within a culture. Sometimes it is one simply of their own
creating - they look at their life, at the world around them and imagine a
better way, a place where they could belong and they reach for it. And then
there are the "bad kids," those that are hurt and lash out, that need to
belong so badly that they will do anything they can to fit in.
In some ways, we're losing an entire generation. As adults, we have no
culture to offer them, nowhere that they belong. Some of us create
micro-cultures to fill the gap; we spend time with our children, lavish them
with attention, and are amazed by the miracle of life we watch grow before
us. But once they step outside of our care, they're in a world where we
don't know our neighbor's names, where we live isolated and alone, with only
a handful of friendships that we've held onto from school and developed at
work.
We don't need to ban movies, get television programs taken off the air, or
pass legislature to keep our children in a safe little box. What we need to
do is to begin to build a culture, a network of friends, neighbors, and
relatives for ourselves, for our children, and for our grandchildren to
come. There is no diversion in locking a person away for a heinous crime
when they are not being removed from anything of value. There is no reason
for a child to turn away from inappropriate behavior when they don't belong
to a community where a higher standard is held.
The key is to begin reaching out again. Spend time with your children. It's
the perfect place to start. So many of them feel isolated and alone. Teach
them with your own actions and attitudes; show them with your life how you
want them to live. Talk about things; reach out and communicate with them.
The troubled ones don't feel you'll listen; the ones we don't worry about
are afraid they'll disappoint you if they're anything less than they think
you want them to be.
Then begin reaching out to your neighbors. The next time you walk out your
door, smile and say hello. Stop and talk for a minute. When the new couple
moves in, bring them a plate of cookies and welcome them to the
neighborhood. Each person that lives near you is a potential friend and a
piece of a puzzle that will begin to unveil a culture around you. Take time
and develop these networks and involve your children. How simple is it to
say, "This is my son, Tommy." The neighbor says, "I have a son about your
age." You have just found common ground, two parents whose children may face
the same pressures and same concerns at the same point in time. It's a
simple matter to join talk with another mom or dad when they're a friend.
What you'll begin doing is creating a culture in your own neighborhood. It
slowly becomes a place where the kids can run and play, a place where they
belong and don't feel so lonely. Our solutions are so simple, so easy to
carry out, yet we have yet to take that step. Reach out to your children, to
your neighbors, and to your community. Remember how easy it was to make
friends when you were growing up? When you were so worried about being
turned away and the new kid down the block was worrying the same thing?
Those kids just grew up and became adults who have a few more worries to
face. But by coming together, we can begin to give our children a home, a
community, and a culture to which they belong.
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