Friends? Hell, I lived with bad parents, one of whom was my boyfriend, and their absolutely horrific kid.
I used to live in a communal household, along with my ex (a gay man who came out kind of late in life) and the woman who had a kid with him (an incredibly bossy, self-righteous and obnoxious individual). They believed that child oppression is a real thing similar to racism and sexism, that all adults oppressed children, that they must stop doing so immediately, and that disciplining a kid was by nature oppressive. So the house rules were that the kid got whatever the fuck he wanted, did whatever the fuck he wanted to, and was never punished for anything. Because kids are never at fault for anything they do, and when they act horrible it is their justified reaction to oppressive behavior on the part of adults.
Naturally, young “Larva” as we shall call him. took full advantage of the situation and was the awfullest, bossiest, spoiledest brat in the history of children. Anyone who thinks children can’t be flat-out villainous assholes should have spent a week with Larva and gotten a dose of reality therapy.
He got by with it, too.
Jesus H., the stories I could tell…one should be sufficient.
There was this very early arcade video game the object of which was to shoot the animated zombies on the screen for points. Larva (he was nine or ten at the time) saw one of these at a convenience store and immediately got obsessed with playing it. Being anti-militaristic among other things, Ex and Herself didn’t want their Larva to be playing such a violent video game. It was supposedly a matter of principle with them. So they decided not to give him quarters to play it with.
Shortly afterward, Ex found $20 missing from his wallet (and had the gall to look askance at me over it). A day or so later, Herself came up short ten or twenty bucks. Then Ex woke up from a nap and busted the Larva in the act of going into his (Ex’s) wallet. Larva explained to his mom and dad that since he wanted to play Zombie Shooter and they wouldn’t give him the money to do so, he was taking it himself.
You know what Ex and Herself did? They started giving Larva five bucks a day to play Zombie Shooter with! Absolutely no consequences befell the thieving little shit.
That’s not even the worst Larva story I was privileged to watch, but if I were to tell you more of them I’d get so pissed off all over again that my mental health would be compromised.