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Is it any wonder?
Fiction by Jennifer L. Smith


Is it any wonder, that thousands of children kill themselves every year?
That's the question I posed to the mother of one of my daughter's friends
recently. Our daughters, along with a group of other children, were playing
at the neighborhood playground. While the children were playing this mother
and I were appalled to hear how the children were speaking to one another.
"You're stupid!" "Yeah, well you're a fart-knocker!" (Please don't even ask
me what that one means.) The ugliness progressed to various unkind remarks
about one child's clothing being uncool and another child's lack of athletic
ability.

These were children? They were picking at each other like hungry vultures at
a fresh kill, fighting to tear not at the flesh but at the very heart of
their victim. Ripping and tearing to get to the spot that would take the
fight out of the dying victim and render them dead, dead inside and out.
Nothing left of their self-esteem. Nothing left of their will to live.
Worthless flesh lying on the side of the road. It was cannibalism. How could
the wrong clothes or less than superior athletic ability cause the flock to
turn on one of its' own?

These WERE children. Where had they learned such cruelty at such a young
age? Could it be that in their homes their own self-esteem wasn't being
nurtured? Could it be that their parents aren't teaching them the basics of
kindness?

When I was child my parents taught me The Golden Rule: "Do unto others as
you would have done to you." I've taught this rule to my daughter. She
wasn't one of the flock nor was her friend. They stood on the outside of the
fray. Watching the ripping and tearing in fear, fear that they might become
the next victim. I felt their fear and remember my own childhood. It
harkened me back to my days on the playground. I was the fat kid. By the
time I graduated high school the vultures had picked my bones clean. I
promised myself that I would not become a vulture. I promised myself that I
would never raise one.

Vultures are ugly animals both on the outside and the inside. They feed on
the misfortune of others. We don't need more vultures in our world.

Children, they are beautiful gifts from God. They enter the world beautiful
both inside and out. It's what we feed their bodies and their minds that
helps them to remain beautiful.
Are you raising a child or a vulture?


Jennifer L. Smith  Contact:  jls@sommerconsultinginc.com
Reviews and comments requested
Posted 06/25/2002