Lets NOT Do It

Let’s NOT Do It

Commentary

By Richard E. Noble
Cole Porter wrote a wonderful song years ago, that has served us all well over the years. “Birds do it, bees do it, even little fishes in the sea do it.” Cole goes on to encourage us all to get involved and ‘do it’. But I am inclined to think that this cutsie little message has gotten somewhat out of hand. It should be fairly clear to all of us that this world of ours is pretty much bursting at the seams. The human race appears to be ‘doing it’ to the point of its own peril and inevitable destruction.
Babies are being produced who can’t be fed; with no prospects for a future, or a present. In our own country, we see child abuse, unwanted babies, abandoned babies found in trash cans and plastic bags. We see the prevalence of divorce turning the commitment of marriage into the indulgence of a passing fancy.  More than fifty percent of American marriages fail. And the children of these failed marriages are clearly a mess. They don’t learn the meaning of commitment or the value of loyalty. They don’t believe that love is forever, but is something that can be turned on and off as the mood warrants. It shows in their work habits, in their values, in who and what they respect, or don’t respect and in the way that they conduct their lives, treat their friends, do their jobs, play their games and conduct their politics. Teenage pregnancy is running rampant, and no one seems to be embarrassed. We not only have divorce in abundance, unwanted, abused and even abandoned babies, but we have mentally handicapped, diseased, damaged children that are brought into the world by people addicted to drugs ... crack babies, they are called. Single mothers trying to raise their children in poverty is one of the U.S.A.’s major problems. And this is all happening in the home of the free and the land of the brave.
As we travel around the world, it gets worse. Babies crippled and uncared for, sliding around in orphanages on urine drenched floors; illicit adoption; babies being marketed and sold for profit; poor parents selling their kids; some people having babies specifically for the purpose of selling. In Asia young girls with drug addicted parents are being sold into lives of prostitution and crime to support their parent’s habits. In England and Europe we have once again the descriptions of Charles Dickens returning; Fagan and gangs of pre-teen pickpockets roaming the streets. In India we have children living in garbage dumps. In Brazil the abandon children problem is so bad that the adults have turned to shooting and murdering the street children as if they were rats carrying the plague. All over the world children are living in sewers and on the streets, being chased by police, and in some places beaten to death by upright citizens who find them a nuisance - children living as the Hoboes of the 1920’s and 30’s, and no one with a solution in sight.
So let me be the first to suggest that maybe we should ponder the thought of ... not doing it. Even if the birds, bees, and fishes seem to be having fun at it. And if we find the ‘urge’ impossible to resist, indulge it with at least some fore thought of the natural consequences. They tell me that children are inevitably prone to rebel against their parent’s example. Okay kids let’s show Mom and Dad how they should have not done it. Let’s don’t do it as they have done it. Let’s do it better, more responsibly, and with love and respect and not self-indulgence and indifference. Or maybe even not do it at all.