Families – Society’s Building Blocks
Yesterday my wife and I spent the day with our own family and watched our grandchildren playing with their cousins, just as we did years ago, and still our cousins are our good and trusted friends.
As a teacher I had to watch and help boys whose families had broken up and try to keep them out of trouble. Often it was the father who had walked out and in prisons here and in the States, more prisoners come from broken homes than is the case in the general population.
Children are born, vulnerable and totally dependent on their natural parents. It is not until they have been neglected or harmed that the authorities step in but then no one can be compelled to take them on to provide the love and care expected of a family.
How then can we bring home to parents the importance of their caring for their children and taking responsibility for them? Owners of dangerous dogs who let them out can face a prison sentence; how much more dangerous is a teenager with a knife? When children cause harm then we should consider whether the parents, even the absent ones can help with better supervision, restitution of some sort or even a contribution to the cost of accommodating a young person in an institution.