Mothers Who Don't Know Best

Rod Dreher reports on a sad story from New Orleans. Keep in mind this is the city that was wiped out. Our Leaders are trying - at enormous expense to the rest of us - to rebuild this place and entice the former inhabitants to return.

After Katrina, we all learned what a dysfunctional culture prevailed in the Big Easy. Vows were made that the "New" New Orleans would be different. They are not off to a good start. It seems that two 17-year-old boys, one of who had just returned to New Orleans after living elsewhere since Katrina, got into a fist fight.

This in itself is not unusual - kids fight all the time. The shocking part was the parents. One of the boys went home and told his mother what had happened. This loving mother then gave her son a pistol and told him to "go get even" with the other kid. He took her advice. The other boy is now dead.

I would like to think this is an aberration and things like this don't happen every day in our inner cities. Unfortunately, I suspect they do. A segment of our society is, for all practical purposes, gone, fallen into the depths of primal brutality. We have progressed to a point where, instead of complaining about it, parents actually encourage their children to rebel.

The same thing happens in many smaller ways, too. I know parents who look the other way while their teenagers use drugs, roam the streets at all hours, and engage in all manner of antisocial behaviors. They excuse it by saying they are "just kids" who are "having fun."

Maybe so. Maybe their nice suburban kids will grow up to be fine citizens after sowing their wild oats. The lower classes, however, don't have as much opportunity to recover from such misspent youth. Nice new housing will not change a culture of mothers who want their sons to murder people. What will change this culture? A spiritual renewal is the only hope. Pray that it happens soon.