When Did Our Children's Safety Become Optional?

Lately I've been wondering if our busy lives aren't causing us to sacrifice the safety of our most precious resource - our children.

Every morning I drive through three school zones, and every morning I see lots of drivers speeding and weaving through traffic in those school zones. All while the children are walking along the sidewalk or standing at the curb waiting to cross. Are we so busy that we can't slow down for a minute or two to make sure our children are safe? Is getting to our destination really so important that we have to put our children at risk?

I've even seen police officers speeding! If our police officers aren't going to obey speed limits in school zones, how do they expect the rest of us to?

But that isn't all, and this is why I am concerned. Today as I was leaving work for lunch I saw a woman sitting in a van while she sent the three young children she was with into our office building alone. The oldest couldn't have been more than 9 or 10 years old. You can't see inside our building from the parking lot, so once the door closed she had no way to supervise those children or see who they talked to or where they went. I wish I could tell you that was the first time I've seen that. But it isn't. I've also seen children left in cars while the adults with them ran into stores and offices.

A co-worker had a terrible interaction with a mother one day. We saw two young children sitting alone in a car outside our building. No adult was around. After looking around for an adult, even going so far as to ask the building receptionist to make an announcement for the parent to please call the front desk, he began to talk to the older child through the window. As we tried to talk to the little girl, her mother came flying out of the building and started screaming at him. She told him to stay away from her children, and told him that she had been watching her children through the window and that they were totally safe. Meanwhile, we had been standing next to the car for over 15 minutes. If she was so concerned about her children and if she had really been watching the children, why did it take her 15 minutes to come out after we approached the car? Someone out to hurt those children could have broken the window and taken those children in those 15 minutes.

I know we are all busy. I am, too. But, we can't put the safety of our children behind our busy schedules. They can't be replaced.

Today I got an early Christmas present, a man who was speeding through a school zone was pulled over and ticketed. I think there is hope for our children after all!