Remove the whole tree
October 2002
by Michael Walls

Parents need to take responsibility for their children's actions

I saw and read some news about a gang of teenagers in Milwaukee that beat a 36-year old man to death with baseball bats and shovels this week.

In the brief coverage about this, there's been some finger pointing at the parents of these teenagers, but no serious proposals of placing responsibility on them.

I don't understand why these parents aren't being dragged into court and subsequently throw into prison for failing to control their kids, or at the very least, failing to teach their children the fundamentals of being human beings.

I mean, a 10-year old child does not have enough years under his belt to blame an "oppressive society" or to develop "hate" or "rage" against anything. He simply didn't know that killing another person was "wrong".

What a shame. There might be some good kids in there, but since the people that brought them into the world obviously have no respect for anyone else (including their own children) they had no chance, right from the beginning.

They don't even know that if you simply respect your fellow humans, adhere to the basic laws of society (don't kill, don't steal, don't park within 5 feet of a fire hydrant), stay in school and get a basic education, you stand a good chance of living a long, relatively happy life.

It is apparent that most of these children obtained their perspectives on life from other kids - older kids - gangs. They are taught that drug use and disrespect of others is the norm.

The even more shameful part is, these parents probably have other children at home. So while the system punishes these child offenders, their siblings are at home being taught the exact same things by parents that don't care.

I realize that it's a vicious cycle. These parents were probably raised the same way. Never taught right from wrong. But if a tree is dropping poison fruit in the forest, maybe killing other trees - why do we just throw away the fruit? Why not remove the whole tree?

In California, a man's dog mauls a woman to death, and the man goes to prison for 10 years. Meanwhile, we watch young children on trial for murder, while their parents sit in the back of the courtroom.

The parents needs to take responsibility. Even more, we, as a society, need to show that there are penalties for not taking responsibility of your children.

(Michael Walls is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine)