Good kids usually mean good parents
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
We were in a restaurant the other night when a couple came in pushing two child carriers.
“Oh, boy,” I thought. The restaurant had been peaceful, but I could imagine it getting noisy very quickly. And we were just starting to eat.
Well, was I ever surprised.
The children were well behaved. Their parents paid loving attention to them. Whatever the children said, they said in normal voices, without yelling.
On our way out of the restaurant, I stopped and told the parents what great kids I thought they had, and how that reflected what good parents they were. They looked at me with a bit of surprise. They apparently thought all children were supposed to behave the way theirs did.
It made me think about the children who were removed from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound near San Angelo, Texas.
Many of the 462 children have been separated from their mothers and taken to foster homes, which has been a problem for Texas authorities. It seems as though the majority of the children are very well behaved, so well behaved, in fact, that the officials have had trouble finding foster homes that are appropriate for well-behaved children. Most of the kids who wind up in Texas foster homes apparently have behavior problems, brought on by coming from families with awful parents.
I know that the parents in the RLDS compound are suspected of being cruel to their children in some ways. Girls reportedly are forced to marry older men. Young boys can be thrown out and made to fend
for themselves.
Yet, something right must be going on, too.
I’m glad I don’t have to sort it out.
