Whose Fault Is It Really?”

I don’t know if it’s you or not, but somebody needs to hear the truth today. Half the problems our children are wrestling with did not start in the streets. They did not start in the schools. They did not start on social media. They started when too many grown folks forgot one simple thing: We are our children’s first teachers. Class does not begin when the school bell rings. Class begins at home.

Before a child ever meets a principal, a coach, a preacher, or a teacher, they have already been watching us. Watching how we speak. Watching how we love. Watching how we fight. Watching how we treat one another. Watching how we respond when life gets hard. And whether we realize it or not, every day we are teaching.

If our children are growing up angry, disconnected, disrespectful, and without discipline, then somewhere the lesson got lost. Because babies are not born full of hate. Babies are not born lazy. Babies are not born broken. Somebody taught them. Or somebody failed to teach them.

And I know that may not shout good, but it is the truth anyhow. We cannot keep blaming teachers for everything while some parents have abandoned the classroom of life. You cannot hand a child a phone, a television, and the internet, then act surprised when the world raises them instead of you.

Our children are watching us every single day. They are learning from how we talk. How we vote. How we treat people. How we handle adversity. How we honor God. How we carry ourselves when nobody is clapping for us. So the real question is not just: “What are we teaching with our mouths?” The real question is: “What are we teaching with our lives?”

Because children can hear a sermon… but they will imitate an example. And church, this is not the season to be weak. This is not the season to be silent. This is not the season to be distracted while the future of our families hangs in the balance. This is the season to stand. Stand for truth. Stand for justice. Stand for your children. Stand for your family. Stand for your future. Stand for the generations that are depending on us to get this right.

Because there were ancestors who stood when dogs were turned loose on them. Ancestors who stood when water hoses knocked them to the ground. Ancestors who stood when they were denied the right to vote, denied the right to learn, denied the right to simply be treated like human beings.

And now the baton is in our hands. So, when the dust settles…when history looks back on this moment…let it be said that in 2026 we did not bow down to fear, we did not surrender to confusion, we did not run from responsibility— We stood. And because we stood, our children learned how to stand too.