What the hell is happening to our “utes”

While watching Good Morning America this morning for a few minutes, I saw a segment about flash mobs. How social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace can incite riots and have hundreds of people showing up to a “party” or a location and most times it ends up in violence and vandalism.

Take the parents in Boston who left for a trip to Paris and left their 18 year old son and a key to their home with a neighbor. Apparently, the 18 year old was “talked into” having a party – posted about it on facebook and then four uninvited guests re-posted it as a let’s destroy this house event. You can read about it here:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/25/party.vandalism/index.html

When you read what they did – I can’t help but feel that they are animals. They should have to sit in jail for a day before bail is allowed and think about their behavior – is this not steps away from physically hurting people?

My God, I know this makes me sound old – but there is no way in hell even with all the modern conveniences we have now – would I have done this. My parents would have beaten the holy crap out of me. I was terrified of them but you know what – it made me a responsible kid and a responsible adult. My father put most of the fear in us. After he died, it was too late for my youngest sister. My mother let her go wild and now she is a crack addict. Just saying.

I think it is great that parents friend their children and children are comfortable to be themselves. BUT, do these parents have their heads in the sand?

Even kids in our neighbor at 10 p.m. and later – walk up and down the block screaming and yelling and tipping over trash cans, throwing pumpkins (in the fall), throwing rocks at cars, etc. Have they nothing better to do? These kids appear to be in the twelve to fourteen year range. If I even thought about knocking over some one’s trash can – that belt of my fathers would have been all over my ass. But then again – I was allowed outside of our house alone after dark especially at that age.

I think kids need a little fear — not of being beaten – but kids today just don’t give a shit. They get whatever they want, they dont‘ have to work for it, there are no consequences, they have no conscious. I’m not saying every child is like this – but from news reports, my own observations … it sure seems like more than not.

My oldest son will be 25 (yes, I have a 25 year old and a 5 year old – I wanted to be well rested before I had a second child) and he never did anything of this nature. In my 25 years of raising Bryan, I raised my hand to him maybe twice – once when he was ten and told me “f^%k you” – I slapped his face and he never said that again and I can’t remember another time – but I want to be fair and say there were two times. I did feel like dirt after I slapped his face – but he wasn’t allowed to talk that way and especially to his own mother. He still feared me. We played basketball, I had his friends over, we did fun things – but he knew who put butter on his bread and he never tested me. I’d have no problem with him spending a couple nights in jail – if he ever behaved like the animals in that Boston scenario.

This doesn’t even take into account the bullying cases – the suicide in South Hadley, Massachusetts. What gets into a child(ren) that makes them be out and out mean to other humans. As adults – I can almost understand stress and pressure and telling someone to booger off and that they are ugly and you slept with their mama. But what causes teenagers to terrorize other teenagers. Not all of them were abused – don’t give me that excuse. I had plenty of abuse as a child – not talking about beatings with a belt, but beaten over the head with a wire hanger and told by my mother not to tell my father or he’d get mad at her, made to stay in my bed for an entire weekend because I “did something wrong” – like asked if I could go on a school trip and other things I’d rather not mention here…and I didn’t terrorize or abuse anyone else in my life. My husband begs to differ – but that is just nagging. 🙂

PEOPLE pay attention to our “utes” – they are the ones that will be in charge of flipping our motionless bodies over every two hours so we don’t get bed sores. Wake up parents of America (I’m not going international with my plea just yet)!!!