Who’s Responsible?

 

 

Who’s Responsible, Football Players, Girls, the culture, or Parents?

One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.

Proverbs  12:26

In the newspaper today was another short clip about a couple of high school football players accused of sexually assaulting girls. The details are limited but the boys are eighteen and the girls are thirteen. This one is in Connecticut.

Last week was all the coverage of a trial for some young men from Ohio who were found guilty of sexual assault at a party where there was alcohol and the girls who were assaulted were too drunk to stop what was happening.

The overwhelming response of their peers is, “These poor boys are having their lives ruined by girls accusing them of this crime.” According to today’s article the girls are being harassed on social media. They are being called “whores” and other derogatory names. From the reports it really looks like the boys are not being held responsible for their behavior before their peers.

In the Ohio case, the courts did convict the football players of the crime. I find it very disconcerting that we are raising a generation of young people who don’t see that a man is responsible for his behavior (as is a woman) regardless of his skills and talents or how much alcohol he has had in a night.

Honestly, one of my first responses was also that these boys lives will never be the same. The difference is that I blame the boys. I am equally as grieved by the loss for these young girls. What the younger generation does not seem to realize is that those girls will never be the same either. Their relationships will be affected, their ability to trust others, their marriages, and their parenting are forever changed. According to some of the reading I have done on the subject of sexual abuse, it may be worse for them because others do not see them as victims but as somehow having some guilt for the boy’s behavior.

Lots of people don’t like to  hear what God has to say about something. The fact is that if we would live according to His laws the world would be a better place. Our nation seems to think that we are better off without God as a part of our schools, our government, or even our parenting. If these young men would have known and been taught to obey God’s laws regarding sexual morality I would hope they would have stopped in their tracks at the thought of taking advantage of a young girl.

Sadly, our young men are being bombarded with sexual images and innuendo in an awful lot of what they watch on TV and see on the internet. It’s all sex all the time. I was visiting someone who was watching a daytime TV show and was horrified at all of the sexual innuendo. It is unnecessary and it teaches what is important and acceptable in a culture. It scares me for what evening TV must be! (We have no cable so we have no access to it.)

When I think about Proverbs 12:26 I wonder if we recognize our responsibility as parents to teach what is righteous and even to protect our children?  I will not place the blame on anyone but those who assaulted the girls but I do have to wonder if a wise parent would have had more of a handle on where their thirteen year old was going to be. At their ages thirteen and eighteen are pretty far apart.

I have no idea if these families have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ but I know that as Christians we need to be aware of what is happening in the worlds of our children.  I am not one who believes we should just lock our kids up and let them out when they turn twenty to experience the world for the first time. I am one who thinks it is a parent’s responsibility to make sure our children know the laws of the Lord and the consequences of breaking His laws – which includes facing the consequences of the courts when we break a law of the land.

I hate to see any young person have their lives so off track at such a young age. But, I have seen God do marvelous things with the hearts of people as they are being punished for sin, as they should be.

My prayers are for the eyes of the next generation to be opened to the responsibility of each one for his/her own behavior, for healing for the young women, and for all parents to see how far off of the mark we are falling from God’s call of what we are to teach to the next generation.