How can we fix this mess?

We ended the age of the baby boomers.  "Anyone who was BORN in the 50's, 60's, 70's... We are the last generation who played in the street. We are the 1st who played video games, the last to record songs off the radio on a cassette tape. We walked over a mile with no worries on being taken... We learned how to program the VCR before anyone else, we played from Atari to Nintendo..We are the generation of Tom and Jerry, Looney Toons, Captain Kangaroo. We traveled in cars w/out seat belts or air-bags, lived without cell phones. We did not have flat screens, surround sound, iPods, Facebook, Twitter, computers or the Internet...But nevertheless we had a GREAT time."

This quote was sent to me by a friend to my inbox. Though it sound grand and makes us smile and feel proud, there is another side that we need to consider.  If we reflect on our past, some of us didn't give our children the tools they needed to raise their children to be sensible, productive, and wise.

We were too busy having fun, engrossed in self aggrandizement.  We forgot from whence we came.  We spent so much time enjoying ourselves and the new freedom we were given from our new civil rights and our new ability to integrate that we forgot the struggles of our ancestors.  We forgot that they didn't want us to read, so many of us rejected education.  We forgot that our families were really all we had, so we rejected familial and community unity.  In many cases, our children grew up but we forgot to raise them and now they have to teach themselves how to raise their children.  We forgot that we weren't allowed to sit in the same restaurants and go to the same theaters, and in many case even walk on the same side of the street so many of us rejected our community stores to shop in theirs.  Our men forgot that they'd be lynched if they even smiled at a woman from another race so they embellished our faults and rejected us for the other that is no longer taboo.  We forgot to teach our children, we forgot to take care of each other, we forgot that what we need to know is hidden in books, we forgot that we were all we had.  We forgot so much, we rejected so much, we neglected so much. 

 When I introduce myself to a group of hard youth I open by apologizing for being a part of the mess, they immediately soften and I have them eating out of my hands.  Think about it, be honest, and look around.  Look around our communities, wherever we are in droves.  We have a very serious problem.   How can we pick the baton back up and begin to pass it to our children?  How can we fix our mess?