Responsibility

It is my daily morning routine to read the news on several web sites as I have given up the paper version! I was doing this yesterday with an eye for a subject for this week’s blog since I didn't have anything specific in mind.

One piece of the new caught my attention which was the ruling by a judge that the New York Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" crime-fighting tactic supported by Mayor Bloomberg was unconstitutional.

It also reminded me of another case where Mayor Bloomberg's controversial plan to make large (over 16 oz.) sugary drinks unlawful was rejected by a state appeals court, which said he had overstepped his authority in trying to impose the ban.

This is not a political blog and I don’t have anything against Mr. Bloomberg or the City of New York. My observation here is why our lawmakers spend a lot of time to come up with laws that are just a Band-Aid for the problem and are very controversial. It seems like a waste of time of our system.

Another news yesterday was about The Obama administration unveiling plans to fix what it considers the longstanding unjust treatment of many nonviolent drug offenders, aiming to bypass tough mandatory prison terms while reducing America's huge prison population and saving billions of dollars.

So what do these issues and laws all have in common? In my opinion, they do not deal with the root cause of the problem. These issues and laws put a temporary fix on a problem and they don’t deal with the underlying issues.

Stop-and-frisk is not the ultimate solution to reducing crimes. Banning large sodas is not fixing the problem of obesity, and reducing prison time for drug offenders does not reduce the use and dealings of the drugs.

All of these issues need to be further evaluated so we can find permanent solutions to these and other social concerns.

In my career and personal life, I have always tried to understand and find the root cause of any issues I am faced with. My goal has been to find the root cause and fix it so it won’t happen again rather than finding a temporary solution. This is not very easy but it’s the only way we can get better. This process was very important to utilize in improving customer satisfaction in my business.

In my opinion, the underlying root cause of some of our social issues is tied to our family values and family upbringing. Parents are the front-line teachers of right and wrong, and the first defense against their children breaking the law. I believe:

• It’s the parent’s job to set the values and teach their kids the right from wrong not the government.
• It’s the parent’s job to monitor their kids and ensure they are becoming the good citizens that our society needs.
• It’s the parent’s job to make sure their kids are staying in school and excelling rather than joining the wrong groups
• It’s the parent’s job to teach their kids the proper food diet and why drugs are bad for them.
• It’s the parent’s job to teach them the value of work and making an honest living.

And so on, I think you get the message.

We as the parents have a lot to do with some of the issues that we have in our society. We should not expect our government keep making laws that are hard and costly to enforce and are only a Band-Aid for the real problem.

We, as the parents can make a BIG difference.