Childhood

My childhood felt fairly normal. I grew up in a three bedroom home outside of town. We were surrounded by family, my maternal grandmother lived on a farm at the end of the end of the road, and aunts and uncles lives in the two houses next to us. I have fond summer memories of riding my bike with the other neighborhood kids and playing in the woods out back of my house. When we were older we would drive down to the creak to go swimming.

Nothing ever upset our lives, there was never really any strife. My parents were and still are married. Aside from my sister getting caught smoking, my sister and I didn't get in to trouble. We had some typical family emergency's to deal with, the death of my grandfather, and my father's thyroid cancer, but I would like to believe every family has things like that to deal with.

This morning I read about an other kind of childhood. A childhood that ended in the death of an 8 year old. I have know about this kind of childhood for a while. Sense moving to Dorchester two years ago I have been surrounded by it.

This family has generations of problems, broken relationships, violence and hurt. Some would say that what is needed is "Parental Accountability". When I think back to my childhood I would agree with those people. If I was a troubled youth my parents would straighten me out. On the other hand my parents had steady jobs, owned their own house, and had lots of loving family members surrounding them. They the had the resources, or access to resources, to deal with life's problems.

What does a parent do when they haven't has a steady job in years?
When they didn't graduate from high school?
When they have a criminal record?
When they have their own drug addictions?
How can we claim "Parental Accountability" for a family that looks like this?

While mentoring a young boy in my neighborhood for the past year I have been able to catch a glimpse into his home life. It's not the best, his brother is a drug addict. He spends lots of time unsupervised, and there are few positive role models around him.
I could stand back in judgement and talk to his foster mother about parental responsibility, but every time I talk to her, it is obvious that she loves him, and that she wants the best for him. She also knows that she can't give him everything that he needs.

When I was a child I spend lots of time with my grandfather, every morning before school, and summer vacations too. Actually, I feel more attached to him than to my parents. Sometimes I feel like he really raised me. Not every family has that gift, someone who pick up the slack for you. Maybe the nuclear family is a myth. One father, one mother, and 2.5 children is not all we need. Sometime we need that extra hand to help out. Sometimes it can mean the difference between a healthy childhood and a bad one.