This post originally appeared on Sept. 2, 2012. I repost it today because today is the fortieth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.
Texting and driving.
Not to do it is a no-brainer. Am I right, or am I right?
Wrong.
People text and drive all the time. This is because people don’t know how to wait.
In my state, the fight for a law that bans it has been in the news for years.
And there are a couple of things about this that boggle my mind: First, that a law designed to make texting while driving illegal is shot down. Second, that there needs to be a law.
A law, while when necessary is good, is also like a Band-Aid. This is because the problem is not that it is legal to text and drive. The problem is that we are raising people who need to be told not to text and drive.
Apparently, we as a culture are not instilling in our children the values or the sense that make a person able to conclude on his or her own that it is a bad idea to text and drive. Apparently, we are instilling in them the opposite: that you, your needs, your wants come first. Which is why kids become adults who don’t know how to wait.
So a law that makes it illegal to text and drive is a Band-Aid. It aims to make the result of the problem disappear, but it doesn’t solve the problem.
The other law fight I hear about a lot is the one to ban abortion. And that law is like a Band-Aid, too. It aims to make the result of the problem disappear, but it doesn’t make the problem disappear.
This is because the problem is not that it is legal to abort a baby. The problem is that we are raising people who need to be told it’s a bad idea to have sex when you aren’t prepared to be a parent.
Apparently, we as a culture are not instilling in our children the values or the sense that make a person able conclude on his or her than that sometimes, it is better not to have sex. In fact, we are instilling in them the opposite: that you, your needs, your wants come first. Which is why kids become adults who don’t know how to wait.
What if our culture raised kids who could wait?