Cute Little Baby Criminal?

“Cute little baby criminal” would be an accurate way to describe some babies, if only we could look into the future and see what they would become… Or is it, what we would cause them to become? Do you really believe that some children are born with components in their DNA that pre-determine that they must pursue a life of crime, or for that matter, a life of righteous, upright living?

In every culture that I can think of, children are precious to parents and to the community at large. Oh yes, they look cute and helpless and satisfy our deepest subconscious desires for control and superiority. But beyond that, there is an implicit understanding that the future of the world depends on procreation and the raising of children.

Now this does not mean that there are not some demented persons who abuse children, and even relish the idea of detaining helpless, vulnerable children in cages, and separating them from their parents, even permanently.

But those persons are in the minority. After all, abuse of children by a demented minority is nothing new. When Jesus was still a very young child, the king ordered the wholesale murder of every boy child in the region who was two years old and younger, in his futile attempt to kill Jesus in the process.

 Is it not remarkable, that having escaped the murderous intentions of the demented Herod, Jesus grew up to be the man who would rebuke his own adult disciples as they tried to block the children’s access to Him. “Leave the children alone, and don’t try to keep them from coming to Me… Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”

And long before Herod murdered baby boys in an attempt to kill Jesus,  Pharaoh ordered the murder of every Jewish baby boy in Egypt, as his means of controlling the Jewish slave population in his country.

Were it not for the pain and agony and anguish of both the murdered babies and that of their parents, I would find it ironically funny, that Pharoh’s own daughter, not his wife, took a public stance against the king’s order and not only rescued one of the Jewish babies earmarked to be murdered, but brought that baby into the palace and raised him as she would her own son.

That child’s name is Moses. What can I say… this is God’s way of reminding us that whether Trump or Obama or Putin performs in the Presidency, ultimately it is God who presides. So why does He allow children to be murdered and caged by maniacal despots? That answer is for another video, at another time.

Thank God, the overwhelming majority of persons in every society and culture, cherish and celebrate children, even though we often fail to constructively cultivate them. We clearly indicate the importance that we place on children by the extent to which men and women will go to have them.

 Unfortunately, in too many communities, some men see getting children as a badge of honor to be worn… They don’t see the children as a badge of honor. It is the successful donation of their sperm that they see as a badge of honor. The result is that they care very little, if at all, for the child after its mother has conceived, let alone after the child is born.

Some women are also guilty of using their ability to have children as a validation of their womanhood and value. In most cultures that I have studied, being barren was considered to be a curse, and a stigma of inferiority that was shamefully bourne by a woman.  

Examples abound in the Bible. Sarah, Rebekah , Rachael, and Hannah were all barren and suffered socially, until in answer to prayer, God opened their womb, and in every instance, they gave birth to mighty men of God. 

On the other hand, after David’s wife and Saul’s daughter, reviled King David for dancing in worship before God in the sight of all his people, God shut up her womb and made her barren as her punishment.

Today, there is no limit to the extent to which many women will go to reverse and overcome what they may suspect is their infertility. And when by medical or miraculous means they succeed in conceiving, their joy is literally unsurpassable.

And even when men choose to cohabit and have sex with men, and women choose to cohabit with women, they do not willingly accept the fact that their chosen homosexual and lesbian life-styles disqualify them from producing a single child.

Instead, they go out of their way to prey on the offspring of heterosexual relationships, and will adopt a child, and then, as “good parents”, will influence that child to emulate their homosexual lifestyle.

And then it is time for the mother to go into agonizing, painful labor, and a good father labors with his child’s mother. But in a relatively short period of time, albeit too long for any man to endure, she gives birth, hopefully to a healthy baby boy or girl, and her pain gives place to peace and palpable pleasure as another child is born… even in the ghetto.

Of course, at the birth of the child there is as much festivity as the family can afford. Well decked out rooms with pink or blue décor and matching color crib, bassinette, diaper bags, perambulators and the works, await the arrival of the new-born baby.

But here is the rub.  Things happened or did not happen after birth that resulted in our cute little babies becoming callous criminals, or even just socially deviant perverts. What happened to cute little baby Adolph Hitler… cute little baby Osama Bin laden, cute little Charles Manson or cute little Jim Jones? Neither “Killer”, “Rapist”, “Terrorist” nor “Thief” was written on the faces of any of them, nor were their evil manifestations an irresistible part of their DNA.

But when we understand that children live what they learn, and that at birth,  all children are equally predisposed to do good or evil, the responsibility for what the child grows up to be, rests very heavily, if not entirely on their parents, guardians, care-givers, teachers, and community in which they grow.

The next time you see a cute little baby… just consider that you are looking at a new life full of potential for exceeding good or exceeding evil. Which it turns out to be, rests heavily in the hands, and on the shoulders of the adults that influence that child. Even if you cannot be a positive influence on that child’s life, you can pray for that child and silently dedicate that child to a life serving God and doing good.

In my next videos in the sub-series -“cultivate your Child”, we will take a clinical look at the foundation for the critical task of cultivating that cute little baby in the way it should go with the guarantee that when he or she is old, they will not depart from their training.