The Truth is in the Consequences

There is a dangerous trend that is destroying the hopes, the potential, and the lives of the younger generation; it is becoming more and more widespread, and it is not new. Today's youth are not the problem-- they are the consequence.

One recent example comes from yesterday's Des Moines Register. The story details one youth's struggle with drug addiction. For those of us with entirely different backgrounds, it is almost incomprehensible-- first, that a young person who has barely reached his mid-twenties has had "drug addiction" as the focal point of the last ten years of his life; and second, for a person in his mid-twenties to be faced with the prospect of "recovery, institutions, or death."

The Des Moines Register accounts this as "A 14-year-old boy tries meth., and the addiction begins." (*) Something is wrong-- something is very wrong; yet what is wrong is not grasped, even through the words of the scenario: "father watches helplessly... mother watches..." (*) as a child's life began to slip away.

In another recent incident, a middle-school student stole her mother's prescription pills, took them to school, and distributed them amongst some of her friends. Although this resulted in a couple of youngsters ending up in the hospital, and the school took what it believed to be appropriate action, what was truly bewildering was when the incident was brought up on the local news, one parent described this incident in terms of the girl had "made a bad decision."