While in life we all have choices, it’s what we do with those choices that makes all of the difference.
It’s not uncommon for people to sometimes make bad choices, I know I’m not exempt from that category, but the key is to learn from all of our choices — even the bad ones that inevitably evolve into mistakes. What’s hard for me to understand however is how people don’t learn from their mistakes and continuously make the same one over and over again.
This is especially bothersome to me as I reflect on something my friend’s family in another state is going through. In this particular family, there’s a mother who has three young children. As with most women, this lady has dated a series of men who turned out to be Mr. Wrong. While dating these men, her children were often ignored or neglected by their mother because most of her attention was focused on the men in her life. This woman’s family tried to respectfully intervene by informing her of the needs of the children that weren’t being met, but their efforts were often ignored or down-played by this woman.
Less than a month ago, the woman’s oldest child who was only 11-years-old committed suicide.
In the child’s youthful-style handwriting, was a suicide note that said she “left” because she felt it would be easier for her mother to do the things that she wanted to do. In a somewhat twisted way, this 11-year-old child loved her mother enough to sacrifice her own life to make that of her mother’s more desirable. How sad that the child sacrificed, though extreme, and her mother didn’t.
It’s been less than a month since the child killed herself. Her two siblings have been taken away and are with other family members and the mother is currently being charged with neglect. The thing that makes this case so different is that as far as shelter and food, the mother provided for her children effectively. At this time authorities and family members don’t think the children were subjected to any sort of physical or sexual harm or neglect — only emotional, so the extent of the mother’s sentence is unclear.
There are a couple of things to learn from this very unfortunate situation. The first is that effectively providing for children is more than simply giving them a place to live and food to eat. Children need to be nourished emotionally at all times — it goes hand-in-hand with the other necessities in life.
The second thing to learn from this is how times are tremendously different than they were years ago. Anytime you have an 11-year-old killing herself because her mother isn’t attentive enough — it becomes a very serious problem. With the pressures of bullying, peer pressure, keeping up with the latest fashions, and so many other things that children of today are challenged with; their ability to handle it all becomes more and more difficult. This is why parental involvement is so important.
While I don’t doubt that the mother of those three children loved her kids, perhaps exhibiting it was difficult for her to do. I often encounter high school-aged kids who simply want a hug, a compliment or other encouraging words from an adult. It’s essential that we are attentive to our children and those in our communities because if we don’t the results can be detrimental.
What we don’t want is for these kids to grow up and because they didn’t receive enough love and attention they (A) begin to seek that affection from other people and eventually become promiscuous or (B) they act out and exhibit retaliatory behavior by committing crimes or harming other individuals.
Indeed, we all have choices to make in life, I hope from this point forward, more of us examine the potential outcome of our decisions before we actually make them.
