Children's Court

   Growing up in a house with three other siblings, there was seldom a day of peace for my parents. It seems that someone was always in the middle of controversy as someone else had “invaded their space” or “touched their belongings.” On family vacations my father would inevitably threaten to pull the car over and “tan someone’s hide” if we didn’t leave each other alone in the back seat. “Stop touching him” or “give his ‘(insert any belonging I had managed to take from one of them)’ back to him” were just two of the threats thrown around. The constant struggle between brothers and sister was not confined to the car though.


   The girls would typically pester us by trying to take up residence in our room and “mess” with our toys, until finally the P-Bomb was deployed. “That’s it!! I’m telling ‘(Once again, you can enter either parent that was willing to intervene here)’.” Our father would usually herd us into a room to hold council and hear everyone’s side to the story. He would then give his judgment and someone would be left feeling that the whole process was unfair and vow to never play with us again. When our parents had been saturated with our nonsense, and refused to step in, we would take matters into our own hands. A sort of “children’s court” was enacted. Typically, the child who would not conform to the group’s idea was shunned from all participation in the group’s games. The “odd man out” was banned from playing tag or hide-and-seek with the others. The group never “won” by implementing this punishment because it only weakened our numbers and caused resentment between the siblings. The ‘hardliner’ would say, “Keep them out, they are trouble anyway.” While the “voice of reason”, (usually influenced by a parent), would want to accept them back into the group. It was the right thing to do. We needed to learn to work out our differences instead of alienating the person we disagreed with.

   As we grew older, we learned the skills necessary to co-exist. The older and more mature the four of us became, the less parental intervening was needed. We learned the social skills that enabled us to deal with the fact that not everyone had the same daily agenda. Things that were important to me were not always the same things that were important to my siblings, but I still learned to respect their values and needs. These life experiences were good for us as without them we would have never been prepared to have a relationship in the “real world.”

   It would seem that our current governing administration grew up in a world without parents. They never learned the importance of differences of opinion, and how to embrace them instead of shunning them. Obama has “shunned” FOX News for its “differences”, and now is threatening others that do not want to “play by his rules.”It seems that you must play in an Obama-friendly tone, or face the judgment that he hands down. There is no appeals process when you are shunned, only Obama making the rules up for his game that all players MUST follow. Is this acceptable behavior from a man in charge of the most powerful country in the world? Doesn’t he know that this sort of behavior only breeds hate and animosity? When Obama makes threats that he will “strip the insurance industry of its exemption of federal anti-trust laws” because they are lobbying against his health-care program, isn’t this the same behavior that we expect from our children?

   I hope that the country is awakened to the type of person we are playing with here. Someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to get his way. Not necessarily the “right way” but “his way.” Black-listing, shunning, and making an “enemies of the administration list” are not the answers that we need right now. Let us pray that Obama and his administration grow up in a hurry.