My parents are amazing people but they would have beat my a$$ like no other if i pulled this and i would be better for it. My parents never had to beat my a$$ because i never did anything like this.
I never did anything like this to a person. I was busted for property damage when I was a teen, for doing something so utterly stupid that I'm not going to disclose it here for sheer embarrassment, but it ended up costing a few hundred in damage (which I had to repay).
The worst thing about it wasn't that I was actually booked by the police, it wasn't that I was convicted and put on probation, it wasn't the community service or the weekly visits to a probation officer for a year.
The worst thing about it was that my parents were disappointed in me. Terribly, terribly disappointed. The ride home from the police station, which I figured would be full of yelling and trauma, was stone silent. The look my mom gave me when they walked into the police office to pick me up may have been the single worst moment of my life.
I think the reason it was so terrible was that I respected my parents so much. They are/were great people. It's punishment enough almost to have them be that disappointed in you, especially knowing (as I well did) how they had raised me NOT to even think about doing something like that. I'll probably remember that disappointment for the rest of my life. And it's inspired me to be the kind of person that my kids would respect, so that if a kid of mine ever got into a situation like I did, the fact that my example has shown them not to do such things would be enough to make them consider, and not do it. It's the parent's job to model that person for the kid.
Maybe these parents did, and the kids just ignored their upbringing. I know I did. But maybe those parents didn't, and they have some work to do on their own behalf.
