Last week, the Gwinnett Coalition of Health & Human Services released their annual report about the kids of Gwinnett. More specifically, 32,273 kids from Gwinnett County. For those who did not see the report, the survey driven study discusses preteens and teens and their exposures and experiences with sex, drugs, gangs, and other wonderful topics that parents would prefer to simply avoid. You know how it works, if we simply avoid something, it will just go away. Or maybe it really never existed at all. Ahh, wouldn’t it be nice if raising children was just that easy. Well, hopefully this report might just be the wake up call that apparently some parents need. Because if you believe what the report says, reading, writing, and arithmetic have been replaced with smoking, groping, and doping.

Even for someone like me, who for a long while has dealt with many a kid who probably will never qualify for a Nobel Prize, the news of this report was shocking. It was shocking that so many of the kids, at a very early age, have already engaged in sexual intercourse. It was shocking that some of the older kids have already had multiple partners in sexual intercourse. It was shocking to learn that more and more kids are exposed, on a normal basis, to a variety of drugs, and that cigarettes are still a big deal on campus. It was shocking that these kids reported having personally witnessed some aspects of gang activity. How can this be? I thought that Gwinnett had the best schools that money could buy? Didn’t I just see that over 90% of Gwinnett’s schools have earned some national level of excellence and led the state of Georgia in this category? Isn’t it true that everyone moves to Gwinnett because of the schools? Then if all of this is true, how are our kids in such a mess? It must be the fault of the schools. Who else could be responsible? Hmm... Let me think about this for a moment.

In the report, there was a huge backlash from parents demanding to know what was going on in our schools. Based on these legitimate concerns, Ellen Gerstein, the Director of the Gwinnett Coalition for Health & Human Services, came out in the papers and placed the blame for our current kid crisis squarely where the responsibility lies. Basically, she said that the mess is obviously the responsibility of the parents. What did she say? Surely she would never assume that parents could actually be held responsible for raising their children. For goodness' sake, why do we send our kids to school? Okay, listen up folks. Thank you, Ms. Gerstein, for bringing this topic back up. I have been preaching for years that the chaos, in which we now find our kids, is completely the fault of parents. I have taken some shots at the school system in the past, but no one should think for a minute that the content of this report can be blamed on the schools.

It’s simply a case of too many parents who are trying to be friends to their kids rather than parents. Parents try to act like their kids, try to hang out with their kids, and worst of all, some parents even try to dress like their kids. Surely there is a legislator out there who will finally make it a crime for a fully grown woman with an even more fully grown rear end to wear spandex, midriff shirts, and other assorted styles that really were not meant for this demographic group. I worry every time I get behind one of these ladies on the escalator. If that stitching fails, it is going to be ugly.

Parents will do everything possible to make sure that their kid is the best dressed, drives the coolest cars, and has every resource known to man to be in the cool category. Never mind the character destruction that they are causing. And how many times have we heard these parents say that they are simply trying to give their kids what they never had. This statement might have worked with our parents but most of us didn’t really have it all that bad. Our parents were trying to ensure that we got a chance at a good education, and today’s parents are a little different in trying to ensure that their kids get a chance at a BMW. They are not doing it for their kids. They are doing it for themselves. Nothing is more pathetic than seeing adults relive their adolescence vicariously through their children. But, they do it.

And when the kids get in trouble, and the kids fail, and the kids get involved with sex, drugs, and all of the other crap in the report, those same parents stand there like a deer caught in the headlights. They don’t know how it could have happened. But they do know a few things. They know that somebody, but not them, will be held accountable for their kid’s failure. They know that somebody, but not their kid, is responsible for their actions. Parents immediately fall into a defensive posture and begin blaming everyone possible to deflect the real culprits in these instances. The responsible party for their kid's failures can be found by taking a quick look in the mirror.

We have seen time and time again just how quickly kids can find themselves in hot water and in the most extreme cases; we see how the continuation of this behavior has actually cost some of these kids their lives. You would think that we, as parents, would finally get the message. If we want our kids to grow up to be responsible adults, we have to teach them how. If we want them to develop strong moral and ethical values, we must teach them how. And if we want to teach them that hard work and commitment is the key to success, w have to quit giving them everything that they ask for.

You would think that parents would get the message… but they probably will not. Within a few weeks, this report will serve as nothing more than a good liner at the bottom of the family bird cage. And then we can just all sit back and wait for the next kid casualty and more importantly, see who gets blamed for that one. I’m betting it’ll be somebody… anybody… but it won’t be the parents.