One too many

I just read an Associated Press story about the drop in the number of children in foster care nationwide.
That's good news...sort of.
It's good that the numbers are declining. However, what isn't good is that there are still close to half a million children in foster care nationwide this year. The story reported a nine percent decrease around the country from 2008-09 to 2009-10, and an 11 percent drop in foster care populations in the state of California.
Good news, right?
Consider that there are still 60,000 children in foster care in California and 423,000 nationwide for federal fiscal year 2009-10. While the decreases are certainly significant, they are by no means a reason to celebrate.
As one who runs a volunteer foster care home, I can speak with some authority on this.
My wife and I just received our latest placement today; an infant seized by Child Protective Services because he was the victim of severe physical abuse. Suffering multiple broken bones throughout his fragile little body, this baby, born premature, could easily have succumbed to his injuries. Thank God he didn't, and thank God he is healing. However, he has suffered perhaps the cruelest of fates: To serve as a living, breathing example of what people in their anger and carelessness are capable of; a sad testament to, and a sorry reminder of just how cruel and heartless people can be.
This little boy's parents are both doing time for the crimes against him. God willing, they'll remain locked up for at least the next 18 years.
Our newest foster placement is just one example of what is wrong in our society, and that a return to traditional American values is not only right, but imperative. If the public doesn't embrace the traditional values of the American Revolution, the values that made this country great, then I fear we will continue down the slippery slope to social ruin.
We are nearly there now. Some may argue we're there already, but I'm trying to be optimistic.
I haven't the slightest clue what was going through the minds or coursing through the veins of this baby boy's parents, but I'm certain it wasn't love thy neighbor as thyself or do unto others as you would have done unto you.
We have reached a social crisis in this country, perpetuated by some ill-conceived notion that we are entitled to do our own thing regardless of the consequences, and to heck with anyone else. Self-centered narcissism has been a human trait as old as time and as far back as our origins. But here in the United States of America, it had a rebirth in the 1960s with the pleasure-seeking, me-first hedonists who lived to get high, fry on acid, and tell "The Man" where he could stick it.
Thanks to the free-loving, dope-worshipping generation of 50 years ago, several generations of like-minded individuals since have been spawned. Now, this self-centered, me-first mindset has permeated society to such a degree that it is no longer uncommon or unheard of for human beings to inflict unimaginable harm on the weakest, most vulnerable of the population. How many stories of child abuse are we subjected to on a weekly, even daily basis?
There are so many cases, so many incidents of abuse and neglect out there that it no longer astonishes us to read about them in the newspaper. We almost come to expect it the way we expect obituaries or sports scores.
We are a country that has turned its back on God, on His Ten Commandments, on the Beatitudes of Christ, and on Biblical principles. America has turned from God in the name of tolerance.
But take a good, hard look at the results of that tolerance: Pervasive and widespread drug abuse and addictions, because people have no God of their own, so they invent one to worship and foolishly cling to it as though it is going make all of their problems go away.
Relentless pursuit of pleasure, because serving others and attending to their needs first before our own is a waste of the one life we have to live. Consequently, America is suffering from its highest concentration of communicable diseases ever in its history; spread either through intravenous drug use or sexual contact.
Intolerance toward temperance and restraint. To advocate and insist that we practice self-control is to be intolerant of others, because we are trying to impose our morality on others.
Is it ironic, a coincidence, or perhaps justice that the degeneration of American society and the degradation of her traditional values was accelerated from a point in our history where millions of Americans in one voice declared their independence from God? When the Sixties generation gave God the "up yours" sign, that's when America's social fabric began to unravel at an alarming pace.
Today, people by and large do not practice restraint or temperance. They've been told by previous generations that it's okay to do your own thing however you want to do it, and regardless of anyone else; to heck with the consequences. Messages of doom and gloom have been ingrained into peoples' heads as they conclude that life is a hopeless mess, and all that's left for them is a pile of ashes upon which to weep. So, they turn to drugs, casual sex or any number of self-pleasing and self-promoting activities as their coping mechanisms, because life is already too fouled up to deal with; too far gone to do anything about anyway. Who should care whether a person fouls his or her life up further with drugs, sex, gambling or other potentially self-destructive behaviors?
Today's younger generations have taken the "me first" attitude of the Sixties to a whole new level: "Who cares?"
Yes, indeed.
Who cares?
Who cares that I screw my life up with drugs, sex or violence, then screw the life up of my children? It's not your problem; it's mine, so leave me the heck alone.
The trouble is that one person's problem can easily become a community's problem.
Child abuse, neglect, and endangerment; drug addictions, abandonment, exposure and exploitation. These all become society's problems, having stemmed from one or two peoples' personal problems.
Children in foster care are often the result of self-serving, hedonistic, licentious, negligent and careless behavior. We've only ourselves to blame.
It may sound as though I am blaming the Sixities generation for current child abuse incidents. I'm not. But I do hold that generation responsible and accountable for the destructive messages that it sent to succeeding generations; some of whom have interpreted and taken those messages to violent extremes, such as child abuse.
In more ways than one, today's generations are reaping the consequences of the seeds sown by the counterculture revolution from 45 years ago. The way that some adults today treat their children is a result of the self-centered messages propagated and pushed by that generation.
So, it is up to each one of us to fix the problem, one person and one family at a time.
Children deserve better. They deserve to know that there is a God who loves them. They deserve to know the truth about life: That it isn't about them, but about serving others. They deserve to be given a chance to right the wrongs of their parents and preceding generations.
When I look at the new infant in our home, I tear up, because one more child like him in foster care is really one too many. Sadly, there are thousands more with stories similar to his. So, even though the numbers are going down, in my humble opinion, the number of children currently in foster care is still unacceptably high.
One more abused child in the system is one too many.