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Earlier this year, a six-year-old boy pulled out a gun at school
and killed one of his classmates at a school in Mount Morris Township,
Michigan. Her name was Kayla Rolland. She was a cute, rosy-cheeked
blond girl with intelligent eyes. She came from an apparently
normal, loving family.
Her killer did not.
No, little Dedrick Owens's family could be called a lot of things,
but normal wasn't one of them. The family's collective police
record reads like something out of an Iceberg Slim or Donald Goines
novel. His 28-year-old father is in jail - again - and his mother
has demons that prevent her from coping with the pressures of
keeping a job, paying rent and raising her three children. She
left her two boys with an uncle. That's when a sad story turned
sordid. The uncle was a drug dealer whose home was a crack house.
A lot of foolish people tried to turn this story into a gun control
issue and babbled about trigger locks for handguns. They don't
live in neighborhoods like the one that trapped Dedrick, and they
know little about drug dealers.
A drug dealer, to survive in the "profession," must
be totally ruthless. He must be willing and able to kill at a
second's notice. There are no trigger locks in a crack house.
You won't find tenderness, mercy or morals, either. Frankly, the
safety and well being of his nephews was probably the last thing
on the uncle's mind.
A crack house is a vile place. Words cannot describe the filth
and squalor. Neighbors, out of fear, did not call the authorities
to rescue these children. They told reporters they saw the children,
sad-faced and forlorn, sitting in front of the house as crackheads
staggered in and out.
Teachers and parents also rushed to tell their stories. Dedrick,
they said, was a problem child. He was hostile and bullying and
once stabbed another classmate with a pencil. But no one cared
enough to take the time to really look and ask what was wrong
with Dedrick's life. When the boys came to school unkempt and
tired, no one called child protective services. His father knew
that something was wrong, but what could he do? He was in jail.
A time bomb was left ticking. When it exploded, little Kayla died.
Kayla's mother was one of several hundred thousand women who spent
Mother's Day in Washington, DC at the so-called Million Mom March.
With all due respect andsympathy to a grieving mother, I wish
I could tell her that it wasn't a lack of unbending gun control
that killed her daughter - it was lack of child control. Raising
decent, moral children is hard and sometimes thankless work, but
Kayla would be alive today if the Owens children had at least
one real parent.
Years ago, my father told me children who were not reared by strong
parents who possessed a guiding hand and watchful eyes were dangerous
to themselves and to the entire neighborhood. Dedrick Owens and
the two monsters of Columbine High School in Colorado are perfect
examples.
There are those who hesitate to place any blame at the feet of
the parents of Columbine killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris,
but not me. When I was ten years old, someone gave a copy of Mandingo.
It was an extravagantly trashy novel, part Southern Gothic and
part sex romp. I didn't understand a lot of the words, but I knew
it was something my parents wouldn't approve of.
I read it in secret, and hid the offending book in my toy chest.
It took my mother, who I swear would've made a fine FBI agent,
only two days to find it. The parents of Klebold and Harris were
unaware their sons had an arsenal in their rooms. That is parenting
set on the autopilot, and it leads to tragedies big and small.
There may, however, be a happy ending for the Owens children.
The authorities stepped in to try to save this family. They don't
live in a crack house anymore. The kids are living with an aunt.
They will attend a private school at the state's expense. Their
mother, in exchange for admitting her parental ineptitude and
taking a parenting class, may regain custody and get another chance
to do right by her kids. There is a tiny glimmer of hope for this
family. It's just such as shame that Kayla Rolland had to die
to give it to them.
The line between a good kid and a troubled one is not wide. Many
times, the only thing standing between a child and disaster is
Mom and Dad. So don't be afraid of what your sophisticated friends
or even what your child thinks. Guide your child. Be there. Teach
them with fairness, kindness and firmness, and don't hesitate
to exercise your right to control their actions.
Practice child control. You may not get a thank you, at least
not until your child has children of his or her own, but you may
save a life.
(Kimberley Jane Wilson is a member of Project 21's National
Advisory Board and a conservative writer living in Virginia.)
Note: New Visions Commentaries reflect the views
of their author, and not necessarily those of Project 21.
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