A nightmare is currently playing out in the case of the Sylvania teenager who allegedly threw her newborn into a dumpster. This is truly a horrible event, but it is horrible in ways that the media, and perhaps none of us, have even begun to consider. Along with the horror, there is a challenge and an opportunity for us as a community to recognize our own culpability and take great care to make the right response. This tragedy is a sign of our times, and we have no less than the next generation riding on the outcome.

The obvious horror here is the act, which has been publicized in the media: a teenager gives birth, alone, and then apparently throws the baby into a dumpster. The baby is then miraculously discovered and saved by a passing stranger. How could she do it? What was she thinking? Was she thinking rationally? So many horrified questions immediately come to mind.

With a little deeper reflection, there are many more troubling questions. This didn’t just happen. This child-mother didn’t just decide to throw her baby away out of convenience. This child (yes counselors, this is a child) was already living in a tormented hell of shame, terror, and isolation, and it was a hell of her own and our making. How awful a hell was it? Well, it appears, awful enough that throwing away her own baby seemed like the best option.

Who created that hell? Was it the child, or was it a society that insists to its children that they must be, or at least appear to be, perfect. We adults are just now emerging from our hangover after the “roaring nineties”, living the delusion that we could be ever stronger, ever richer, ever more productive, ever more flawless, ever more perfect. The last two years, culminating with September 11th, have shaken us awake that, as a society, we are very flawed and very vulnerable. For us it was a decade. For our teenagers, it has been their lifetime, and we are still telling them that they must be perfect if they want to be successful. We hold our apparently flawless facades up to them and say, “be like us”, or better yet “be like Mike”. Yes, be the greatest athlete, or musician, or artist, and, oh yes, perfect academic performance is a given. Without these things, or if you make any major errors, you’re finished; you are trash ready for the dumpster.

So, what isolated this child at her fateful dumpster? Could it have been this message that we have it all together and she was not free to admit, much less seek help or forgiveness for, any failure that might tarnish the illusion of perfection? Well, here’s a memo for the new millennium: This is not Pleasantville, and we are not Ozzie and Harriet. We have problems. There is a lot of darkness in our world, and our kids are inheriting every bit of it. The 9/11 tragedy has shown us that we can survive and that we have eachother to help eachother. We have to realize, and we have to get the word to our children that we are not here to be more perfect than the other person. We are here to help eachother with the mistakes and the tragedies that are intrinsic to every life. We should rightly be horrified with ourselves if this event is in reality a tragic example of a child who just couldn’t ask for help.

Which brings us to the next horrible facet of this saga: our legal response thus far. We are told that this child is an adult. And not just an adult, but a cold-blooded, calculating adult who will feel the full force of the court’s fury. Well, no, this child is a child. And not just a child, but a child in crisis. This was not an act of terror, it was a terrified act. This terrified child, personally and as a symbol of so many other children in so many kinds of trouble, needs our help desperately. This is a child, not a photo-op, not a way to sell papers, or make national headlines, not a plank in someone’s get tough re-election platform. As parents and as a community we are caregivers. We have an opportunity and a challenge to get this right, to save a child, and not to do something as horrific as the action that started all of this. We should ask ourselves a question that is obvious but difficult: does this child need prosecution or does she need all the emotional and psychiatric help we can give her?

What is our capacity and commitment to offer this kind of help? Actually, we have made a lot headway in our fight to gain back our children from the threat of teen pregnancy, depression, suicide, drugs, and other specters. Toledo Parent, who correctly points out that teenage mothers are “babies having babies”, recently highlighted an effective program a Central Catholic High School. Prosecutor Julia Bates has advocated programs to save children from such tragedies, and it is ironic that she now finds herself in a position to either save or destroy this child’s life. What impact will this case have on these programs? What message will we convey to our children? That we care? That they have our permission to have fears and problems and to make mistakes? That they can come to us for help? That we are committed as a community to fight the things that threaten our children rather than fight the children who are being threatened?

Or, will we send another message? That they are quite correct to feel alone and isolated. That they are really the cause of teen problems and that they threaten our image of the perfect society. That our goal is to preserve that image, and if they are a threat, we will judge them and do so with vigor.

I am holding out some hope for this community. We are a community with values. Whether we are Jew, Muslim, Christian, something else or even nothing, we have a community sense that our values come from somewhere and one of those values is that it is good to help someone in trouble. I think we are smart enough not to take the “If we do something for you we have to do it for everyone” cop out. We have enough humility to know that we can’t solve every problem, but, by God, we can solve some of them. We can’t save the world, but we can save part of the world, and that part is the part that any one of us encounters on any given day. Yes, there is a lot of darkness out there, and this horrible tragedy certainly makes this clear. We can either shout about it, or we can shine some light. We can’t light the whole world, but we can light where we are and right now, that’s right here.

So, what will it be? There are two children in this tragic story. One was miraculously saved from dying in a dumpster by an alert and compassionate passerby. The other is living in another kind of dumpster, a personal hell of shame, and terror, and isolation. This second child doesn’t need a prosecutor, she needs a savior. Ms. Bates, it is within our power as a community, and within your power as a community servant, to pull her out of her dumpster. So far, we have only heard a stated intention to slam down the lid and screw it tight. In her life, this young person may never spend another restful night. If you proceed with your stated plan, and if we allow it, what will that make us, and how will we sleep at night? And what will the next teenager do when he or she is terrified, and fallen, and alone?