Report from the Year 2086 - Parenting in Primitive Times

Nine-year-old Kress looked away from his wall, which was brilliantly painted with a photo and news report entitled, "2 Nebraska boys kept in wire dog kennel."

"Mom?" he called out.

After a moment his mother entered his room. "What is it, Honey?"

"I'm doing a report for school about child abuse. I was searching for old information, and I found this report from 2011."

Ashly Clark (Lincoln County Sheriff's Dept. photo)

She wiped her hands as she read it. Two young couples were living in a small, run-down house trailer with four children. Two boys, aged three and five, were kept outside in a wire kennel. When the police arrived to check on the children, the trailer had a strong urine stench, and trash and animal feces were littered throughout the trailer. All four children were placed with state authorities and the four adults were charged with a variety of crimes.

"This is disgusting," she said.

"Is this an example of child abuse?"

"It is, indeed."

Kress looked up at his mother with a frown. "How could something like this happen?"

"Well, Honey, 2011 was before my time. But as far as I know, this kind of tragic situation was pretty common back then. Parenting was totally unregulated. In the early 21st century you had to attend training and get tested to be allowed to drive a car. But anybody could just get pregnant and have as many kids as they wanted. They didn't even have to learn how to be parents. There was no oversight, no certification. It was strange, a pretty primitive state of affairs."

"Why didn't they certify parents?"

"I think people generally thought they should be free to do what they wanted. They didn't like the idea of the government telling them they could or couldn't have kids. So even cruel, ignorant people had kids. The damage they did was enormous. But back then people didn't think much about preventing child abuse. They mostly thought it was fine to just deal with the damage whenever it was discovered. Does that help? Maybe you should keep searching for more material."

"Yeah, I will. Thanks, Mom."

"You're welcome." She turned to leave the room.

"Mom?"

"What?"

"I'm glad it's not like that anymore."

She smiled at him. "Me, too, Honey."

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .