Thank God for the children.

Recently I've seen two very good examples of teenagers protesting what they feel is unfair behavior by their elders.

The kids in a high school in the US are protesting the firing of a teacher who was terminated when her lesbian partnership became public knowledge.


http://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/high-school-fires-teacher-after-her-partners-name-appeared-i




Another teen is filing an injunction against her principle who threatened her college career for daring to stand up against a conservative speaker who was using inflammatory rhetoric to give misinformation about the effectiveness of birth control and push her personal religious agenda.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/04/17/1883121/west-virginia-abstinence-assembly/


This is not the first time I've seen teens doing great things to uphold the moral standards they've been taught and I applaud them and others like them.

But I'm a thinker, Internet. I do a lot of thinking. Sometimes when I ought to be sleeping.

While it is fantastic that these kids have the moral fiber  and fortitude to stand up to authority in the name of what's right, I'm disturbed that they need to.

These are still children. They should not have to defend the right. That's supposed to be the Grown Up's job.

We spend a lot of time and resources as adults teaching our kids the right way to act. We have rallies and anti bullying campaigns. We monitor their media intake for content, we lecture them about being polite and empathetic.

Then we don't necessarily walk the talk.

As a society we are bogged down in religious intolerance, and bigotry and hate.
We participate in political smear campaigns with glee and love watching "Reality Tv" wherein combatants disrespect each other and gossip and plot.

We demonize other cultures in the name of fear, and name call on social media.

So, thank God for the children. They seem to be living the life we are supposed to be mirroring for them. They're not perfect by any means, they're kids after all. But at least they're trying.

It would be a really fantastic state of affairs if we as the Adults would remember that we need to practice what we preach or we lose our moral authority to direct.

The kids are watching, so let's be really really clear about what they are seeing and whether or not it's what we want them to see.