Brought Up

5 But behold, my sons and my daughters, I cannot go down to my grave save I should leave a ^ablessing upon you; for behold, I know that if ye are ^bbrought up in the ^cway ye should go ye will not depart from it.

6 Wherefore, if ye are ^acursed, behold, I leave my blessing upon you, that the ^bcursing may be taken from you and be answered upon the ^cheads of your parents.

2 Nephi 4:5-6

This is Lehi talking to the children of Laman (Lemuel's and Ishmael's progeny are included). This scripture is as comforting as it is distressing. The underlying message is that all children are born to return to their Heavenly Father. It was their plan when they left their heavenly home. Not one soul among us was born to fail, was born "that way", whether that way is a thief, a predator, liar, cheater, or any other number of sins.

Being a parent is hard. There's no such thing as a perfect parent. You can be golden one day and completely screw up the next. You can get up and make decisions that today you're going to be better and then someone drops the gallon sized pitcher of Tang and watches as it explodes all over the floor and cupboards and then walks away like it's someone elses problem (not that this has ever happened here). I'm sure that Lehi saw the irony in blessing his grandchildren by cursing his own. You know. The ones he, himself raised. Did he feel like he hadn't brought Laman and Lemuel up in the way they should go? Did he make the mistakes so many of us make in our efforts of parenting our first children before we understand a little bit about how kids are? He obviously spent a lot of sleepless nights praying and crying over his wayward sons.  Nephi records that it made Lehi and Sarah sick and perhaps brought on an earlier death.  Lehi was feeling the effects of the curse.  He felt the weight of the sins of his sons.  Yet, he was a righteous patriarch.  Dan pointed out to me that even though we think of Nephi as this great prophet, he did not have the power to keep his family together.  It wasn't until after Lehi died that the brothers divided physically as well as dogmatically. 
This all brings me to my musings on the rape case in Ohio. 
Where in the world were the parents for all of what was happening?!  The boys are being punished and rightly so, but why aren't the parents being held responsible?  All of them.  Each and every one of them that hosted a "Safe drinking" party* and either allowed the kids to drive from one to another or drove the kids themselves.  Did all of this happen in an adult vacuum?  Did the girl, sitting out in the middle of the street completely drunk and without a shirt on garner no response from the adults in the neighborhood?  Did the parents of the girl really think that she would be heading out to a safe Disney themed adventure after they watched her down a glass of slushed vodka before she left home to go out and drink some more?  If they didn't watch her do that, where were they when she accessed so easily their hard liquor?  Where were the parents in the house that this took place, because even if they believed that safe drinking parties were legal, the whole idea is that the parents have to be home?  Why didn't they have any idea that rape was happening in a room that was open enough for kids to be walking in and out of?  Who hears even not intoxicated kids giggling and doesn't check out what is going on?   Clearly one of the boys who saw the rape happen had the sense to grab the keys from another schoolmate and keep him from driving, but no parent thought to teach these kids that sex without permission (we're going for a worldly view here, not an abstinence view) is wrong and a violation?  Why weren't parents aware of what their children were posting on public internet boards?  Why did the quarterback think that his coach would cover this up?  Why is all of this landing on the heads of these boys?  Why is a culture of high school football hero worship being encouraged by parents who are reliving or living adolescent glory days through their children?  Why are the adults not acting like adults?  Why are they throwing their hands up in the air and sighing that they don't know how this could happen?
Rarely do curses work in the way the world thinks of them-- a voo doo incantation,  a lightening bolt, or Voldemort speaking in Parseltongue.  Heavenly Father doesn't even have to sit up in heaven like a vengeful god.  He just allows the natural consequences of our actions.  Now a community is torn apart.  A young woman has been violated and doesn't remember it, but in an almost out of body experience, she has seen what happened to her unconscious self.  She has to live with that vision for the rest of her life. Boys who could'a should'a would'a been better and had lives ahead of them are reaping the consequences of what they assumed was normal teenage behavior, because through action or word that's what they'd been taught.  They will be branded as predators for the rest of their lives.  The parents of this community have watched their children be hurled into an adult situation (in all senses of the word) and will watch them suffer in ways they couldn't imagine.
I can't help but thinking (in my incredibly judgemental way) that all of this could have been prevented if the parents would have taken a moral stand and taught their children "the way [they] should go."  What will happen to this community?  How will they shake off this curse?  How will I keep my children from being anywhere near these kinds of mistakes?  How will I teach my children?

*Yesterday I read the comment section of an article written about this.  A female commenter actually said that "safe drinking parties" are legal in Ohio, so it wasn't wrong for the parties to have been hosted by parents.  I thought "What the.....?!"  I looked it up.  Here is the Greenhill, Ohio police force's official view on the matter:  http://www.greenhillspd.org/?q=node/53/print.  I thought so.