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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Sept. 29, 2008 / 29 Elul 5768

Who's your tiger?

By Mitch Albom


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "You reach a point," the expression goes, "where you just can't take it anymore."


Apparently, a woman in Nebraska reached that point with her teenaged children last week. Her 14-year-old son was, according to her, smoking pot, getting into trouble and beating up his younger brother without remorse.


So she drove him to her local police department.


And she left him there.


"I hope he knows I love him and I didn't abandon him," she told the media. "I just felt I had to keep the other kids safe."


Now, before you go getting any ideas, please know that while the police are, as they say, there to serve, this is not acceptable behavior, even in Nebraska. The woman was ticketed and faces charges in civil court.


Still, I wonder how many read that story and said to themselves, "You know, there have been times with my kids...."


After all, we have created a society where the temptations for teenagers are at an all-time high, and your disciplinary options are at an all time low.


You smack 'em? Somebody reports you. You withhold their meals? Someone reports you. You yank them out of school? Someone comes knocking.


And heaven forbid you take away their iPods, iPhones, car keys, expensive sneakers or Internet privileges; they're considered social misfits.


What kind of cruel parent are you?

AN OUT-OF-CONTROL SITUATION
The idea of letting the police scare a little sense into your kids is not that alien. Once upon a time in this country, cops or sheriffs would help you out that way if you asked them. They'd come around and give your kids a talking to. A little tough love. Put a little fear in them.


No chance now. Public officials are so handcuffed as to what they can say or do, they want no part of your family issues. Almost everything that is not specifically covered in the police officer's handbook is now viewed through the following letters: L-A-W-S-U-I-T.


This was apparently overlooked by the Omaha woman who dropped her son off at the local pokey. She was under the impression that police stations were covered by Nebraska's new Safe Haven law, which allows parents to leave their children in certain designated hospitals if they feel they are in danger.


It was written ostensibly to protect abandoned children. But so far, numerous parents have dropped off high-schoolers and grade-schoolers. One father dumped nine of his 10 children.


Nine?

NOT A TIME TO JUDGE
Now, clearly, this is not the intent of the law, and Nebraska legislators will need to quickly address it.


But the numbers — and the ages — do indicate just how rough it has gotten out there for parents, especially parents of teenagers.


Kids are bigger now. They are louder. They are more empowered, more sexualized and, thanks to computers and phone-texting, they often feel more connected with the outside world than they do in their own home.


Combine that with the increase in single-parent households, and you can understand why a drop-off zone becomes a tantalizing idea.


"I was tying to do something proactive," the Omaha woman, a single mother of four, told a TV station there. "I'm not on drugs. I have a full-time job. ... I thought it was hopeless."


The woman herself will not face jail charges. But her son is in foster care. And she has become the subject of intense interest, from sympathetic parents who feel her frustration, to finger-waggers who blame her for not being a better mother.


I don't know. I think it's easy to tell other folks how to parent their kids. Until you've been in the home, heard the screaming, watched the behavior, felt the pain, you're not really entitled to a full opinion. So I can't render one on this woman.


On the other hand, I do know Warren Buffett lives near Omaha. And he seems pretty good at relieving people of their burdens.


Maybe she should have dropped the kid at his house.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

MITCH'S LATEST
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"For One More Day" is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one? Sales help fund JWR.



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