I talk a lot about parents who don’t give a hoot what their children are doing, but at the other extreme are the parents who can’t imagine their children doing anything wrong. They consistently cover for them, go to their defense or take the blame themselves, no matter what the evidence indicates. They should, instead, be holding their children accountable for their crimes. Yes, they need to stick with them as they go through the process of establishing guilt and accepting punishment, but from enough of a distance that the child is the one paying the price.
When parents assume more liability than they should, they take responsibility for the misbehavior, leaving none for their children. After all, if the parents are going to make everything “right,” either by taking the blame or by making the problem go away entirely, the child doesn’t have to face it. It’s somehow everyone else’s problem.
A typical example of this was the mother who told the probation officer it was her fault that her teenage son stole her car. She believed the blame was hers because she left the keys on the kitchen table, instead of hiding them from him. Well, for crying out loud, she should be able to leave the keys out in plain view. He’s not a toddler who has to be protected from light sockets and he has normal abilities, so he is well beyond the age of knowing right from wrong. He is old enough to know when he is committing a crime and old enough to take the consequences.
There was a time when the family car was usually parked with the keys left in the ignition, and people didn’t get in it and drive away, including the children. It never occurred to us to lock the doors to the house, either. We didn’t need to. Leaving them unlocked made it easier for neighbors to leave their garden produce in the back porch.
Nor would we consider rummaging through a stranger’s home without an invitation, or pilfering something that didn’t belong to us. We didn’t do those things because we had been taught that to do so was wrong. That’s right – wrong. Not just illegal or unpleasant if we got caught, but “wrong.” And for those who didn’t subscribe to such a moral notion, the parents, neighbors, school teachers, civic leaders and the Church were constantly available to underscore the idea without fear of being politically incorrect.
It’s a different world now, but parents still have an obligation to teach their children not to steal and to punish them the first time they try it. It is an ongoing process to reinforce in children’s minds that they are accountable for what they do. Of course, if nothing happens to you when you steal, what’s the difference? You might as well take what you want, when you want it, especially if your parents, or others, are willing to accept the responsibility because they didn’t make sure you weren’t tempted.
Life is full of temptation and it is a feral nature that won’t resist. I know this is an ugly thing to say, but it’s not progress to make excuses for liars, thieves and thugs, and it’s not fun to share the world with them. Still, as long as we pretend someone else is to blame, that is what we will have to live with.
