c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister who has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ It wasn’t supposed to happen to them. Young, attractive and intelligent, Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson Jr. were expected to fulfill the American dream. Yet tragically, with the alleged abandonment and subsequent death of their newborn son, the once bright futures of the former high school sweethearts are now in peril.

In many ways, the saga of Grossberg and Peterson _ she a freshman art major at the University of Delaware and he a freshman at Gettysburg College _ is a reflection of America in the 1990s.

A generation ago, the apocryphal tale of Mr. and Mrs. BoJo Jones cautioned pre-Roe vs. Wade teens about the responsibilities and liabilities of sex outside of marriage. Forced into a shotgun wedding, the Jones’ were obliged to delay college _ at the cost of BoJo’s football scholarship _ as they wrestled with the hardships that resulted from a passionate night on the beach.

More than 30 years later, the all-too-real account of Grossberg and Peterson _ hiding the pregnancy from family and friends, allegedly delivering the baby in a motel room in Delaware and leaving him in a dumpster to die, then driving back to their respective college campuses _ illustrates the slippery slope to which the doctrine of sex without consequences has brought us.

But if the alleged events in that motel room represent this young couple’s confused attempt to get on with their lives, what does this say about the environment that influenced their decision-making? What signals did they receive from family, friends and society to suggest that their situation was not acceptable, that it could better be handled through secrecy than honesty?

Both Grossberg and Peterson come from well-to-do families and upscale communities. Were the pressures on them too great, the expectations of success too high? Did desperation blind them to the value of the life they created?

Was Grossberg, a promising artist, too ashamed by her pregnancy to confide in family and friends? Did Peterson, a star athlete whose parents are divorced, panic in the face of responsibilities for which he was not prepared?

We may never know. What we do know is that, despite all the advantages of a privileged upbringing, the God-given talents of these young people are likely to go unfulfilled. Like an increasing number of their peers, they apparently believed themselves to be trapped in a nightmare in which violence was the only way out.”A wise son brings joy to his father,”says the book of Proverbs.”But a foolish man despises his mother.”What this suggests is that the standard by which a child’s character is judged is the degree to which he (or she) reflects his parents’ values.

This assumes, of course, that the parents’ values are godly, for wisdom is obtained only through a relationship with God. It also implies that parental values are consistently communicated in word and deed, so that the child has no doubts as to the parents’ expectations.

We may never learn what Grossberg and Peterson were thinking and the values that influenced their apparently brutal decision. But as a parent, I’d sure like to know.

MJP END ATCHISON