Swearing is another lower level example of caving in. Quite a few Baha'is do it, perhaps rationalizing it as a minor sin, and they are doing it only because others do it, and it makes you fit in. Smoking is another. As far as I know, all young Baha'is take up smoking because others do it and they want to fit in. To take up smoking to be cool is a very stupid move (of course it's also condemned by 'Abdu'l-Baha in such vociferous language that one should never want to take it up), and, in my experience, most of the youth that violate laws, such as the laws related to sex before marriage and drugs, are smokers. A lot of them also have tattoos or body piercing, which again they have probably done just to look cool. How much you care about what others think is highly related to how good a Baha'i you are, and I tend to find that non-smoking Bahai youth are better Baha'is than those who smoke. I would be interested in getting views from others on this subject, as I have limited data, referring only to people I know in New Zealand. Lamentably, a number of young Baha'is have begun smoking at youth camps. The smokers have their own area, and they want to be cool and so they go there and smoke. Also, I don't think getting into an addictive habit is of any help spiritually to the young. Perhaps smoking helps in stress relief, but they should learn to deal with problems on their own, and of course they could exercise to reduce stress, which would be far better for them. Those who care most about being cool seem most inclined to seriously transgress Baha'i law. These people often fail to obey the admonishment to "eschew all fellowship with the ungodly." I don't know if all the young are familiar with this, and I'm not sure that this is touched on enough by parents and children's class teachers in general. The one common thing you notice about those who violate laws related to sex, alcohol and drugs is that they have bad friends, ungodly friends. Think for a moment. How many such people do you know of who hang around with goody-goodies all the time? I don't know of any. If those whom the person hangs around with don't do such things the Baha'i won't do them either. The Baha'i would never try drugs if no one else was around to see. They do it just because others will see, and think they are cool. So I think this teaching about avoiding worldly people needs to be emphasized more, and we need to bring young Baha'is to the state where they would feel aversion to the idea to having such people as their friends. We need to reduce their ego's, so that they aren't overemphasizing being popular, have Baha'i ideals first, and choose good friends. If that is done we will have happier Baha'is, less young people will drop out of the Faith, and the workload of the local and national assemblies will be greatly reduced. Members of these bodies have to spend a lot of their personal time addressing such problems, when they could be doing better things, like, say, teaching the Faith. I might also note that many who take up smoking to be cool die a couple decades earlier because of it. They lose a couple decades they could have spent doing services to the Faith just because they wanted to be cool, going against the wish of 'Abdu'l-Baha at the same time.
I want to now raise the issue of who is responsible for the actions of the youth, and for their caring overly much about what others think of them. Let's consider the options (1) The youth are at fault. Their parents may have raised them perfectly and their children's classes and pre-youth/youth classes may have taught them well, (2) The parents are at fault, and any child, or at least most of them, who does things wrong, must not have been taught well enough by his parents. While it may be their fault as well, the parents didn't raise them well enough to necessarily protect them. I suppose I could bring children's classes into this as well. From the Writings it seems that if the child is raised properly they will turn out good. I guess this allows for exceptions for people who may go bad. A person can always go bad, doing something wrong by choice. I'm guessing that Mirza Yahya was raised well. I suppose if they are raised well they would more likely go bad later in life. I heard (this is many years ago) someone who had served in Haifa say that a few kids of House of Justice members were the worst behaved Baha'i youth in Haifa. In my experience, most problem youth come from broken families, living with only one of their parents. If we ignore exceptions for the moment, while the youth may be at fault, I think that the many cases of violation of Baha'i law amongst the young does reflect back to the parents. I think Baha'i parents aren't doing as good a job as they could, and wonder what others think can be done about this. Speaking personally, I think I was raised well, and though I have always obeyed the laws, I did still have some stress related to what others thought when I was growing up, and indeed, like others, I haven't eliminated it. The thoughts I did have about what others think were less than others, however. But I could had a better time if some teacher, whether Baha'i children's class teacher or other, had touched on not worrying about what others thought and not worrying about popularity. This seems to be a sadly neglected part of children's class curriculums, and guess what, we are failing to prepare a lot of the children for the tough years because of it. Maybe there is some material in there that might help make them selfless, but it's not doing enough, and I think more can be done. I would be interested to hear from others what they have noticed in regards to how the children have turned out in relation to how good their parents are, and whether some children have turned out differently to others in the family and why. We need to prepare children early on, because once they start down the wrong path it's difficult to turn back.
Regards,
David
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