The Care of Youth

Tupac Shakur, a renowned rapper, once said that THUG LIFE stood for “The Hate U Gave Little Infants Fs Everybody.”  Although the term thug life has its own negative connotations, Shakur’s acronym is significant in that it summarizes a trend in parenthood: that an unloved child will cause many problems for society.

This phenomenon can be outlined through a sociological test known as the “still face experiment.”  In such an experiment, a parent, who normally interacts with his or her infant with a variety of facial responses is asked to keep a still face in front of his or her infant for some time.  The result of this experiment, oftentimes, is that the infant becomes frustrated at the parent’s lack of reaction and cries. This experiment shows, that even at one years old, a child can develop feelings of frustration, not only from a parent’s neglect of physical needs but also from emotional neglect.

Often times the problem that causes parents to ignore their child’s emotional needs is not an ignorance of this aspect of human psychology.  As people who were once children themselves, parents should already have an idea of what children truly need. The problem stems from a lack of time.

In a world that grows only busier, people find themselves less able to set time aside to raise children.  However, the Church argues that this should not discourage parents from putting time aside to raise their children, stating in section 52 of Gaudium Et Spes, “to achieve the full flowering of its life and mission, it needs the kindly communion of minds and the joint deliberation of spouses, as well as the painstaking cooperation of parents in the education of their children.”  To raise a child requires the efforts of both mother and father, and the pay off is the creation of “the family, in which the various generations come together and help one another grow wiser and harmonize personal rights with the other requirements of social life, is the foundation of society” (GS, Section 52).  Done right, a child who is raised to his or her fullest potential as a member of society can greatly impact the world of tomorrow in a way no singular career can.

Although mothers and fathers are the ones that are mainly responsible for the upbringing of their child, it is also the community’s shared responsibility to take proper care of the general youth.  The Church adds, “Children too who unhappily lack the blessing of a family should be protected by prudent legislation and various undertakings and assisted by the help they need” (GS, Section 52). As a society, people should be more wary of how they treat children who were not blessed with a family’s love because it is these same children who will one day carry the torch of society, and the fate of that torch will lie in their hands.

It should be noted that every family has its circumstances, and there is no formulaic way to raise a child.  But a child is the responsibility of both the parents and the community, and in order to foster a child that can contribute to society in “light of the Gospel,” parents must set aside time to raise their kids, and the community must give proper care to the youth.  It is only through this way can the cyclical nature of THUG LIFE be discontinued.

By: Marshall D. Mendoza