Teach Your Children Well

Recently I stumbled across this article. For those of you who do not click links, I will summarize it for you:

An Ohio seventh grader, thirteen year old Andrew Riley faces 128 felony charges, including theft, vandalism, and intimidation. It seems that when a school-mate ratted him out to the police, he beat him up. When the police searched his house, they found hordes of stolen video games and DVD's.

The kicker for me is when they interviewed the parents for the article. The family said "we suspected a few... but we are baffled by all the charges."

Are you fucking kidding me? 128 felony charges? And he's thirteen years old?

In situations such as this, it's common for people to search out the "why." Why would a thirteen year old commit over one hundred offenses? Why was he able to carry out this little crime spree for over a year? Why is he such a troubled child?

There are several theories on this topic, each which provide different solutions to the why. Travis Hirschi's Control Theory proposes that it is normal and natural to "rebel" against the system, the question is not why people commit crimes, but why they don't. Hirshi theorizes that it boils down to a matter of attachment: how attached you are to your family, community, etcetera. The more attached you are, the less likely you are to commit a crime. In a sense, you have invested time, effort, and energy into these dynamics, and so you're more hesitant to fuck them all up.

Then comes my personal favorite, labeling theory. For those of you still reading at this point, Howard Becker came up with the idea of labeling, and Edwin Lemert introduced the concept of primary deviance and secondary deviance. It works something like this:

Your primary deviance is the first deviant act you commit. After you commit this act, you are labeled as a "deviant," "criminal," or "bad seed." (You get the picture.) From then on, you are treated differently by your parents, teachers, peers, and others in your primary and extended social group. As such, eventually you will internalize your label of deviance, and start to believe that you are really nothing more than a bad kid. It is almost expected that you will fuck up, so naturally you do. This second act of deviance, created in response to your label, is your secondary deviance. Lemert proposes that if we remove all labels (hah) then there will be less crime.

In this particular situation, however, I think it's the parents fault. I think the proper question should not be why, but where. As in: where the hell were the parents when this was happening?

We know why the kid did it. He did it because he was allowed to do it. Simple as that. No one bothered to check up on this kid. No one bothered to find out how he was getting all these video games. No one bothered to find out where this kid was at night, or who he was hanging out with.

No one, in this case, is Mom and Dad.

Children are much smarter than we give them credit for. They will push those boundaries until they find the line, and then they'll push a little more just to make sure you're serious.

Case in point:

I was at the salon the other day, waiting for my appointment when a little girl sitting with her mother smiled and said "hi." I, of course, said hi back, and the mother and I exchanged smiles and started having a typical waiting room bullshit conversation. In the center of the waiting room was a coffee table, featuring several issues of hairstyle magazines, and a wooden bowl with those heavy decorative balls.

The little girl climbed off the couch and headed for the table. She picked up one of the balls and rolled it on the ground. The mother picked up the ball and put it back into the bowl. The little girl picked the ball back up and rolled it back on the ground, a little harder this time. The mother, again, picked the ball up and put it back in the bowl. This continued on and on, each time the little girl would throw the ball harder on the ground, until finally she slammed it hard enough for another hairstylist to stick his head out of his room to see what was going on. At this point, the mother finally said "no" to her precocious little bundle of joy.

Meanwhile, I might add, the mother was talking to me about why she moved from Chicago to Arkansas. Apparently, there are too many thugs in Chicago. And too many "damn Mexicans," as she put it. Meanwhile, I'm thinking "if you don't teach your child some discipline now, lady, she's going to end up in the same boat."

After mother-of-the-year admonished her child, did she stop throwing the ball? No. Of course not. The cycle started all over, again with the little girl throwing the ball down harder and harder. After she finally tired of it, she decided to pull all the leaves off the fake tree and leave them scattered around the room.

I don't blame the child. The little girl thought that her mother and she were playing a game. Roll the ball to mommy, mommy puts the ball away. Fetch the ball and roll it back. I'm sure it was very amusing for her.

It wasn't amusing to me.

I place the blame where it rightfully belongs. Rather than say "damn, that child is one hell of a brat," I think to myself, "damn, that's a piss poor parent right there." The child doesn't know any better, and therefore cannot be expected to behave in any other way. The mother, however, should care enough to teach her child the proper way to behave. It's easy to let your child be a brat. It's easy to turn a blind eye and pretend you don't see your little darling running around the restaurant, knocking waiters over and tripping other patrons. It's easy to just "let them have what they want so I don't have to listen to them scream."

In the situation regarding Andrew Riley, I think the parents should have to foster some of the charges. I think they should provide that child with intensive behavioral therapy and charge the parents with all 128 offenses.

Think of it like this:

If you choose to own a guard dog, such as a pit-bull, rottweiler, or doberman; you choose to take on the responsibility that comes with it. You train your dog to know that you, not they, are the alpha in the relationship. You administer discipline and rewards, and you take great strides to make sure your dog does not injure or harm someone else. If you chose to forgo your responsibilities and your dog leaves your property and attacks someone else, you are responsible. You pay the medical bills, and you can and will be charged with the offense. The same should be had if you choose to bring a child into this world and do not properly train them.

Maybe we should start euthanizing bad parents?