Adultism and School Shootings of Children by the Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox

 

June 3, 2022

A psychologist offering advice in a time of school shootings recently advised parents to "Reassure the children that adults are there to take care of them."

But they AREN’T!  That is the problem.  Adult politicians with their priorities frozen have proven that they are married to the NRA no matter what happens to children.   Many adult politicians go into denial about murderers and their guns and instead talk on about mental health without a word about getting military assault weapons off the streets. Three days after the slaughter of childrenin Uvaldo, Texas, before the childrens' bodies were even buried, NRA held a gathering. Voiceover of Ted Cruz speech to the 2022 NRA convention, days after the Uvalde school shooting, with a montage of family photos with assault rifles and other guns. Tweet video by @CWebbOnline (you may need to turn on the audio).

Texan senator Ted Cruz spoke there and offered his solution to gun violence–purchase more guns—this time for teachers.  Nothing about limiting assault weapons available everywhere.  (Ted Cruz has accepted over $450,000 in donations from NRA over the years.) Many politicians are clearly not there to take care of the children.  Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has received over $350,000 of donations from the NRA over the years, responded to the Texas massacre by criticizing the Miami basketball team for running an announcement to ban assault weapons!

Emma Gonzalez, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people died in a 2018 mass shooting, calls out President Trump and the NRA by name at an anti-gun rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Report by CNN. Neither are senators McConnell, or Governor Abbot or 47 other senators there to take care of the children.  They are there to coddle and love the NRA for the sake of their adult ambitions.  They have made that abundantly clear.  Their one priority is that money not cease flowing into their political coffers.

Adultism reigns when adult agendas—”keep me as senator,” “keep me as police chief”–prevail over children’s lives.  Would banning assault weapons help?  When America banned such weapons in 1994, shooting deaths fell by 43% in the country.  When the ban was lifted ten years later, killings increased by 243%!  So it seems like politicians can offer more than “thoughts and prayers” after all–if they choose to.  But those in idolatrous relationships with the NRA do not choose to do so.

The health of Mother Earth is another case of adultism.  There too, many politicians prefer to turn their backs on children and on future generations to surrendering their cozy relationship to the fossil fuel industry that awards them as generously as does the NRA. The Earth is a children's issue since they live on it too and might one day have their own children to do the same. "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,’" climate activist Greta Thunberg tells world leaders at the 2019 UN climate action summit. Guardian News.

But many are the politicians selling out the future of the Earth for the sake of filling their current political coffers.  Adultism compounded. In contrast, Jesus said, "do it to the least and you do it to me."  He also advised adults to "turn and become like children."I think he sensed the sacredness of children.  As opposed to the idolatry of adultist agendas.