Missing Elements

My wife and I took a long weekend trip to Chicago last week. Caitlynne was a trooper. Leaving Paxton for 4 days is no easy task for a stay-at-home mom. It's always hard for me but with work I'm traveling some so I've become a hardened and cold soul.

Chicago is a beautiful city. There's so much energy. So much stuff to do. It was a great experience all-around. Took in a lot and didn't have to worry about a remote being launched at my head or taking the time to make a PB&J while cutting it into small pieces only to have it thrown on the floor for the dog to eat.

There was something on the trip that I've been thinking about ever sense. We were on the "L" on the way back from a show. There was a young guy, probably in his 20's, that got on. He stood at the front of the train cart and began his speech about everything that was going wrong in his life. He had a major fight with his dad and was kicked out. He didn't have a job and he was sleeping on the Blue Line with the other homeless people. He was looking for food and money for a bus ticket.

On the last day of our trip we had the same thing happen agin. Another guy, around the same age, got onboard and started asking for food and money. People started giving him half eaten sandwiches and, thanks to my wife, a package of crackers.

I started thinking about what it takes to get to that point. In OKC it's seldom that you see a homeless person that young, so this made an impact on me. What are the missing elements in a person's life that pushes him to this point?

Let me preface this with the fact that I'm a firm believer in taking responsibility for your own life and not blaming others for your problems even if you feel like you've been treated unfairly.

Despite how I feel about that, there has to be a common trend in their lives. Something deeper than drugs or alcohol. How did they get to a point where their decisions for remedy were so destructive that their livelihood is dependent on begging on a commuter train?

I've read several articles lately about the percentage of crime committed by those who didn't/don't have a dad in the household. To me, and this is not based on any social science findings, it has a lot to do with the parenting. Our kids are so impressionable throughout their whole life in our households. Everything we do is molding how they will handle themselves in the face of diversity.

I had a teacher that had the same question at the end of every test. "What is integrity?" His definition was doing the right thing when no one is looking. For parents it's expanded to doing the right thing when your kids are looking.