Parents, teachers, and adults in general are authority figures, and I don’t mean that in the punitive sense but rather a corrective one. If our children lack respect for us it is because we have not shown them what respect constitutes. There was a time when parents and teachers were the moral mentors of children. Today our children get their values from television and the many high-tech gadgets that consume all their free time.
We need to be advocates for our sons and daughters (as well as for our elderly and adults in need of special care). If the professionals, religious or otherwise, don’t measure up to the task and dismiss our requests and their responsibility, we have to yell, loudly and clearly, “shame on you!” Yes, shame on them for dismissing the needs of our loved ones who in good faith we entrusted to their care. They will be held accountable. They destroyed innocent lives with far-reaching destructive consequences.
Let us all cry in protest. Eventually someone will hear us and that is how things begin to get done.
Let us convert meanness to kindness, indifference to caring, negligence to responsibility and brutality to gentleness. Let’s start with our families, our schools, our religious institutions and our communities. And if we do so, if we remain steadfast in our commitment, we might just make a change in our world.
Thank you, Rebbetzin.