The above image was posted by a friend from my hometown who is a part of a wonderful organization that you can visit here. The image was posted on their facebook page, but it wasn’t clear whether it was posted by someone seeking justice or by the miscreants themselves.

Regardless of the intent, my first reaction was that I wanted to take a thousand mile trip to find them and exercise the possibility of becoming a vigilante. You’ve seen Dexter and The Boondock Saints? Yeah, I’m on the titular characters’ sides.

Fairly quickly, though, my blood came back down to a simmer and I came to some conclusions. First, and obviously, these two need to suffer consequences for their actions. Some who don’t place animals very high on their list of things to care much about may disagree, but in the realm of all things right and wrong, by my definition of the terms, this leans pretty far toward the former. Seeking justice, however, is not my intention for sharing this. My intention is that all of you who see this spread it around to shed light on the real issue: parenting.

Time and time again whether I’m watching the news or watching the action take place first hand, I can’t help but conclude that the biggest issue in America (and the world, for that matter) is piss poor parenting. The government seems to like to spend so much money and time worrying about things like the war on drugs and gun violence when what they should really be worrying about is why these kids are turning to drugs and guns in the first place and attempting to fix that.

And what that is is your inability to steer your children in the right direction.

I know, I know. I’m not a parent. I don’t know how difficult it is to make sure that my child flies straight and doesn’t get into a lot of trouble. I don’t realize how much influence my child’s friends have on them. I don’t realize how difficult it is to find that balance to where I’m making sure I’m keeping an eye on my kid and keeping them from making poor choices but not pressuring them into a rebellious state. I don’t know how hard it is to provide for my family and still have the energy to be the best parent I can.

Whatever.

That all might be true, but what I do know about children is that if you give them enough love and attention and positive encouragement and you’re there for them and you’re making sure that your actions are those you want to see them emulate, they’re going to turn out a lot better than if you’re practicing the complete opposite of all of those things.

To address the picture, if these two had some kind of positive influence in their lives when they were growing up, they would not be going to such extreme measures to seek attention. They would not be so heartless to turn to animal cruelty to get a rise out of people. They would be caring and compassionate towards all living things because their parents taught them to care for and respect the world around them.

Unfortunately they had none of those things and while yes, they are clearly old enough to make their own choices, they have no foundation to even begin to care to make other choices. They choose to be brutal and destructive and hateful because any other choice would go against who they’ve grown up to be which is a direct result of having terrible influence.

So please, take some time and evaluate your ideas of right and wrong and whether or not you want to pass these ideals along to future generations. Take a look at the person you really are and decide whether or not you need to be a better version of yourself so that your child can be the best version of them self. Assess the direction of your moral compass and make sure that it’s pointing toward safety and not danger.

Our children may be our future, one we hope to be bright, but we are the ones who make sure that these children shine.