The comments like, “I sure hope this kid isn’t treated too unfairly.” drive me nuts. I don’t want to see him overly inconvenienced, but folks, get a grip. Whether we like it or not, he burned down the homes of other children, whether we want to focus on that or not. Does Jesus not have compassion for them? Shouldn’t we?You're absolutely right that the other people of all ages need compassion and our help as well. They are all living through a nightmare of unbelievable proportions. A lot of people are doing everything they can to help the victims of this fire. We lost our home to fire when I was 6 and I can still vividly remember it till this day.
But the current fad is to treat children as way more responsible then they really are. I remember a serious debate not too many years ago about putting 12 year olds to death. I think it was after those school shootings in Arkansas.
We need to find some balance here. Yes they deserve punishment. It has to be that way for their own good. But we need to remember that their brains are still developing physically and not all circuits are firing yet. They are still learning how to "drive" them. Juvenile justice should be focused on rehabilitation and not vengeance. An old fashioned idea that has lost favor in our modern disposable society.
It's the same story about making matches overly available to kids. Obviously it's a lot better to prevent a tragedy like this in the first place. We know kids are kids and will do bad stuff. We need to take extra effort to protect everybody from the worst consequences. Fire in these firestorm prone areas is one of them.
I think this kid and his family deserve to have some people running defense them. I tend to focus more on the lost sheep because there are plenty of people tending the flock. But you're right, they're all God's children and this is a tragedy.
I agree with your insight. The fad is part of a whole spectrum of seeing children as miniature adults - it goes right along with giving children sex ed complete with condoms, and with allowing children to dress like miniature adults, especially young girls. Look in clothing catalogs for children and if we haven't yet had our senses dulled we should be shocked at the sexual poses not to mention the suggestive clothing. It's part of why some people think young girls should be able to take birth control and have abortions without their parents knowledge.
Then there's the 3 year olds with cell phones, and the kids with their house keys around their necks who get themselves up in the morning, find their own breakfast and lock the door behind them as they leave for school and then fend for themselves after school until their parents get home from work. All because we think they're capable of having the same privileges and responsibilities as an adult.
So it's just a small step from there to holding them responsible for things that we would an adult.
The whole spectrum is wrong and unfair to the child. They need to be allowed to be children, in every sense of the term.