Silly to hold parents accountable for bad kids

To the Editor:



So, the government, in its infinite wisdom, is considering a law that will have parents be made responsible for their children's crimes. Hmmmm. Let's think about this.

First of all, what age does the government consider a child to be? Could it be the one-and-a-half-year-old who pulls a carton of eggs from the grocery store shelf and lets it fall to the floor, breaking the eggs?

Or could it be the 14-year-old who steals a car and goes out for a joyride, injuring or even killing an innocent bystander?

The government seems to think that 14-year-old is a child because it punishes him with just a slap on the wrist and a moderate time-out.

Next, there's the fact that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. If the opposite were true, couldn't we blame the teachers if we can't spell or do long division in our heads? Or point the finger at our dentists if we don't brush and floss regularly?

We, as parents, can only try to point our children in the right direction. We can't force them to live with morals, ethics and common sense.

Then we can consider the fact that we, as parents, by law, aren't allowed to punish our children in a way that promotes a fear of wrongdoing. Tell me this: did you, as a child, ever feel a wooden spoon on your tushie? I know I did.

I learned pretty darn quickly that if I did something bad on purpose I was going to feel the wrath of that wooden spoon. I didn't do it again. I really don't think I grew up emotionally scarred because of it. I grew up knowing there's a punishment for wrongdoing.

Today, when a child is bad or breaks the law, we as parents can't do anything substantial to enforce a sense of "that's wrong, don't do it again." And the law, well, we know how they deal with youth criminals. Enough said about that.

What a child knows today is that if he or she does wrong, they'll get a time-out in their room or a serious talking-to. Oh boy, I'm really scared.

That 14-year-old knows he or she might get a few months’ holiday in a luxurious youth detention center. That's just another form of a time-out, only with digital cable and a swimming pool. I don't know about you, but that really scares me.

Seriously, though, how can the government even consider making parents responsible for our children's crimes when we, as parents, don't have the authority to teach our children that for every wrong action there is an unfavorable reaction?

I sure hope the government has the common sense to consider that before they once again pass a law that gives the youth of this nation another reason to do whatever they want to do.



Shelley L. Joudrey

North Alton, NS