Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Parental Blindness
(CNN News) Simpson, a sixth-grade teacher, says she is still tormented by her son's actions [beating a 56 year-old homeless man with bats, leaving him in a 3 week coma] and wonders if her son's irritability was more than typical teenage moodiness.
OK, it's definitely not the kid whose at fault here. Simpson is a 6th grade teacher so I'm assuming (which I know is a big mistake) she has at least a smidgen of common sense. [and I feel so sorry for the kids in her class] I know parents love their kids, but come on lady, your kid almost beat a guy to death with a baseball bat! And you wonder is that's more than "typical teenage moodiness?" Teenage moodiness is having a messy room, not eating your veggies and not wanting to go buy clothes with your mom. Typical teenage moodiness is NOT beating someone to death.
Here in Saginaw we have more than our fair share of "typical teenage moodiness." This summer some 13 year old, already on probation for a weapons charge, was arrested for holding a gun to a policewoman's head. This was of course reported on the news with a background of his mom wailing that her little baby didn't do nothing and why are the cops being so unfair.
It seems all the teenagers around here who are either killing or being killed are completely innocent and couldn't possibly be involved in such things. Well, mom - dad, let me tell you something. They could be, have been and will be involved in such stuff. You obviously have no clue as to what your kids are really doing. The shootouts are Chuckie-Cheese, fist fights at Burger King and near-riots at the mall are being done by teenagers who belong to someone - probably you. They don't come from another planet or dimension, they come from your house.
It's not TPing the principal's office or tilting over an outhouse (not that there are any of those left - maybe a Porta-Potty is a 21th century substitute) - That's "teenage moodiness." It's not piercing their ears, eyes and throats and tattooing their belly buttons - that's "teenage moodiness." Beating people to death, threatening and shooting cops, knocking old ladies into the ditch and stealing her purse - that's criminal, and since it's criminal, those "atypical moody teenagers" should be locked away where they won't do harm.
