Stop! We Are Killing Our Children

It’s been quite a while since I have written anything on this page. Want to know why?  Well, I will share it with you. I haven’t written anything in a while because I could not write and recover fast enough before more shootings would occur. That’s how trauma works. It affects me before I can write, and I must recover fast enough to place what I am feeling at the time in my written response. I always want to be authentic, and I always want to be genuine. Therefore, I am giving you raw emotion this time. I haven’t recovered from all the shooting deaths yet, but I can’t wait any longer to let others know what I am feeling, right now in this place of trauma. 

My heart aches for all those who have lost loved ones and for those whose loved ones are fighting for their lives. How anyone who would state, “if we had a better mental health system these killings could not have occurred”, is beyond the scope of reality. Why you ask? My response is this, our “system” is the problem. How our society views violence and mayhem is the problem. Our lack of belief in God is the problem and most of all our uncaring natures are the problems. 

Broken people are raising children and these children grow up to become assassins in the worst sense of the word. They encourage the relevance of having guns, the bigger, the better as an acclaim to having power and control in their lives.  While simultaneously their children are watching and listening. The children occasionally look up from their horrendous murder-ridden video games, yawn and continue to blow characters on the screen to smithereens. Demented households are the breeding grounds of some of society’s children today. Then these children are sent to school to obtain some semblance of what the system would call “normal and rational” behavior. Well, teachers can do many things, but they can’t create a sense of family, love, and belonging while simultaneously teaching little Johnny how to read. Life just doesn’t work that way.

The influence of their home environment is too pervasive to allow that to happen.  So, they come to school and “act out” the roles they have seen play out at home and if home hasn’t taught them how to be rough enough, they will gravitate toward others at school who have been raised in homes with similar polluted values.  Where do we go from here? We make attempts to settle it within our legislative branch of aged pragmatists who have no idea what is causing this epidemic of violence and are solely focused on maintaining their relationship with the NRA and other public interest groups who donate to their demented campaigns.  There you have it.  This is the problem, I have no solution, except to state, mental health is not the problem. We are the problem. Our society must change our child rearing practices and alter how we are raising our children.  I become sick to my stomach when I hear parents say, “No he/she doesn’t have a gun, and then a search of the home proves not only did he/she have one gun there were many.  Parents need to wake up and pay attention to their children.  They can not raise themselves, you have got to become involved in their lives!  We must focus on life sustaining principles opposed to viewing violent acts as a source of power and popularity.  If we don’t change, our world will disintegrate. 

Our superficial behaviors must be curtailed to ensure that our children can grow to understand what peaceful co-existence truly means.  We must awaken to promoting qualities that matter.  Qualities such as promoting genuine love and forgiveness which is the beginning of healing. We must come to understand that children repeat patterns they see in their homes.  As Michael Jackson would say, “I’m looking at the man in the mirror. I’m asking him to change his ways.  No message can be any clearer.  We must make that change!”

If you need assistance in changing, this is where mental health can play a vital role, but we must begin the process by wanting to change.

Please click on the following link: https://youtu.be/edaA71kMKgg

Reverend Patricia Jones Turner

White Feather Historical and Education Project Manager

Trinity Episcopal Church