"No, you cannot get a toy. You have toys you have never played with."

"Why should I buy you another pair of shoes when you already have good shoes?"

"You think you deserve a new one just because you don't like the one you already have because of the way it looks?"

"Oh, this one isn't good enough for you?"

"You most certainly will not get a second plate when the food on your plate is untouched."

Sound familiar? Maybe from your parent's mouth or maybe you have uttered something similar.

Those very words, in my mother's voice, came to mind after hearing of the latest request for a new youth center in Kankakee. Of all the needs this community can suggest to address youth violence, additional safe, fun, affordable and comfortable recreational opportunities and facilities do not make the list. How another rec center has become a top priority for teens is beyond comprehension.

One of the oldest and grandest buildings in the city, the Old National Guard Armory, has been turned into a community center with an emphasis on youth programs. After a multi-million dollar rehab, it has been operating less than two years. It provides day and evening activities, all year long. Sitting just feet from the police department, can it be in a safer location?

Plenty of additional youth-oriented havens exist, too. The Kankakee Public Library downtown, the City Life Center on the east side, the YMCA on the northwest side, the Ice Arena and Water Park on the south and the Garden of Prayer Youth Center, which operates various satellites within the city, all are within reach. During the school year, the Kankakee School District offers a homework lab and some mentoring programs. And some churches offer their own youth programs. And just beyond the city limits, our neighboring communities have some exceptional youth facilities. So, please, convince me again, just what is missing?

Something smells completely disingenuous about this whole request. For starters, the demands that the new facility be provided by the city and include tutoring, mentoring and free food, doesn't sound kid-speak. And how do these kids plan to sustain such an operation? Oh, right, federal and state grants, and corporate and church donations.

The government trough is running dry. Local corporations, those that remain, are generous givers to existing community programs and events. And what churches specifically are these kids hoping to receive donations? Churches that will, and can give, already are giving.

There is another move afoot in Kankakee to maintain a constant conversation with local youth. This effort is leaning more toward listening to the kids and speaking to them, not through them. Trying to communicate with a generation that seems to have its own language can be a daunting task. But, more on that next week.

It would be silly to respond to the kids who are being used by adults to push an agenda of entitlement. But I would remind them of the few individuals who put a lot of sweat equity and money into turning a building destined to become a parking lot into a youth center. In the early 1990s, the founding men and women of the Kankakee Community Development Corporation decided the youth of Kankakee needed a place to call their own. A place thousands of kids throughout the past two decades would vouch for its comfort and safety.

But to those adults seeking a new facility with all the bells and whistles at someone else's expense when one sits right in the center of downtown, another southern idiom comes to mind. "If it were a snake, it would have bit you."

There are plenty of positive activities for kids in this community. There also are plenty of negative things kids can find to do, too. It's not about what's available. It's about what kids are looking for. A new building is not the answer.

"Out of the mouth of babes," this plea for a new segregated welfare center did not come.