The Penn State child sex abuse scandal is an astronomical example of adults betraying children. While many say that Paterno was doing a coverup to protect the institution’s reputation, I believe that more accurately he was just protecting one of his inner circle, Jerry Sandusky, the accused pedophile, who had worked for Paterno for over 30 years by 2002. Beyond that, Paterno obviously didn’t care about the child, or any of the children. That can be said of the Athletic Director Tim Curley and VP Gary Schultz also. None of them pursued the identities of the children to help them.
But this horrific example of child betrayal by adults in power is more indicative of American society than it first appears. “Adults” in power have been betraying children seriously for 60 years. The PSU scandal is an example of betrayal of children in sports and universities. But adults in power are responsible for the extreme immorality on TV, betraying American children of wholesome depictions of life. Pornography and violence are overwhelming TV, and “adults” in power are responsible: Les Moonves of CBS, Anne Marie Sweeney of ABC, Steve Burke of NBC etc. are examples of those who for money betray the good of children.
What is in the interest of children? What do children want? It is not that difficult a question. They want a sustainable society. They want a social structure that is stable with security and protection in which they can live, and grow, and contribute to that sustainable society themselves.
How do we know this? Look at what the youngest children do. As soon as they are able they want to go with the adults in power, their parents, and do what the parents are doing. A child will happily putter in a garden while a father plants seeds. A child will stack pots and pans on the kitchen floor while the mother cooks dinner.
But, largely the adults in power in America are not giving a sustainable society to children. And for a sustainable society to exist it must exist at every cell of that society: in the family, school, city, organizations, and nation.
Recently in New York City a 33-year old woman was shot and killed, and it is said she died while covering children in the line of fire at the school. A heroic act, but this woman is reported to have 13 children and be pregnant. I can’t help but believe that more than one biological father was involved. It is also reported that the “gunmen” were 15-year old gangster wannabes: half-brothers of broken homes. Where is the responsible parenting here? Where is the sustainable society being provided by the “adults” in power here?
On a more populous scale, what about the “adults” in power in business? “Business Leaders” such as Jeffrey Immelt of GE are quick to layoff thousands of employees to make another penny in dividends and make themselves more extraordinarily wealthy. Immelt charges his lawyers to find ways for GE to pay zero in taxes as that corporation’s share of supporting the society in which his company thrives. But who are the betrayed children here, you might ask. They are in the families whose parents are sent to unemployment. But frankly there is another child too, that one inside each person that never really goes away no matter one’s age. It is the child who expected he could look up to the “adults” in power and trust them.
Of course Government too has betrayed the child. Education is touted as key to the nation’s future by the same politicians who then cut education budgets–but not their own salaries. Politicians in D.C. won’t pass a law that would tax a millionaire even one more penny so that a job might be created. The economy is bigger today than it was in 2007, yet there are now millions more people who are not participating in our economy’s income. Businessmen don’t want to spend any of the record $2 trillion in cash on their books to hire these people because the future is “unpredictable.” That specious defense of greed is handled with one question, “When was the future predictable?”
So, the betrayal of children by Paterno etc., as horrific as it is, is the tip of an iceberg of betrayal of children in America. I haven’t even gone into such things as global warming, and extermination of species and resources that “adults” in power are taking this unsustainable society into.
It is common rhetoric for many “adults” in power to speak of the urgency of actions necessary to save our children’s future. But it is way past time for all ”adults” in power to actually do it. Firing Paterno et al is just the tiniest of ice shavings in the work that must be done.
