12.06.2006

Holy bad parenting, Batman!

Can you believe this?

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A fed-up mother had her 12-year-old son arrested for allegedly rummaging through his great-grandmother's things and playing with his Christmas present early.

The mother called police Sunday after learning her son had disobeyed orders and repeatedly taken a Game Boy from its hiding place at his great-grandmother's house next door and played it. He was arrested on petty larceny charges, taken to the police station in handcuffs and held until his mother picked him up after church.

If you possibly can bear reading more, find the rest of the story here.

Um, there are so many things wrong with this, my mind is literally stuttering. All I can say is:
We're all doomed.

6 comments:

litlove said...

I've got a good one for you: last year the emergency services sent out a reminder that people should NOT call 999 unless in a case of serious emergency. Apparently this was in response to someone who'd rung up because they just could not get an answer they needed to a crossword....

Heather said...

I read this article. I sympathize with the mother but for goodness sake wasn't there another route for her to take?????

LK said...

Litlove, sounds like a similar story of a woman in the U.S. who called 911 to try to find the name and number of a cute policeman who had given her a ticket.

Heather, I know, I feel the same. I just get this sense that the whole family has been completely obliterated by all of the pitfalls of this culture: materialism, impulse control, substituting the government for a reliable authoritarian figure, etc. etc.

Stefanie said...

That's a bit over the top. If I'd done something like that when I was a kid, my parents simply would have returned the present to the store and told me I was out of luck.

LK said...

Stefanie, it sounds as if your parents were practitioners of what is commonly known as "common sense."

Anonymous said...

Doomed indeed. How could a parent possibly feel that this response was appropriate? She must feel awfully powerless -- which is crazy when you think about it. After all, the big people (aka, the parents) are in charge. And they don't get to subcontract their job to the police.