- Who in this thread has found it acceptable behavior?
- Given your Internet Warrior machismo, talking about the violence you would commit against this kid, why should I value your child-rearing opinions?
Daniel
Ah, and now we come to the part of the pit thread where Left Hand of Dorkness takes us all on a self-righteous tour of the land of the over sensitive. It was fun while it lasted.
Better yet, make him paint a new painting to replace the one he vandalized. 
Seriously, though, I tend to agree with George Kaplin. But I also agree with you guys who are saying, “$1.5 million for that? WTF? If I had an extra $1.5 million to spend, there’s no way in hell that that’s what I’d spend it on.”
Heya, cretin! The thread started with someone freaking out over a piece of gum on a painting, something that’s easily cleaned up. We’ve never been out of the land of the oversensitive. But if it helps you to fantasize about me, have at it.
Daniel
Exactly. Twelves is plenty old enough to know better. Jesus Christ.
Left Hand, tell me, have you ever worked in a museum? It’s not just the gum stain. The saliva will also contribute to the damage. Yes, they may be able to remove the chemical stain, but over time, it could still fade and show up again. And they’re lucky it’s only a stain-the gum could have peeled off some of the paint, or torn the canvas.
Museum employees can’t even touch artifacts without wearing special gloves. Yet it’s not a big deal for some dumb punk to stick his fucking gum on it?
No. Have you ever restored a painting? If not, I’ll take the word of the professionals over your suppositions, thanks much.
Hmmm…naw. I want him to have to work at restitution. Fifteen minutes with a palette and a bottle of cheap gin won’t cut it.
Daniel
Twelve year olds are not idiots. They are not lacking in mental function. They are capable of evaluating situations, weighing good and bad, and making decisions. Sure, sometimes 12 year olds make stupid decisions. I’m sure I did when I was 12 as well.
Sticking a piece of fucking gum on a painting in a fucking museum is not a ‘stupid decision’. It’s a malicious, idiotic, deliberate action, for which he should have known better, and his age in no way shape or form excuses him. Left Hand, I almost always agree with you, but I think you are so far off on this one.
The kid needs punched in the throat for vandalizing it, and the museum curator (or whomever bought it) needs punched in the throat for paying $1.5 million for that piece of shit.
So what do you propose shoudl be done about it? Or are you instead suggesting that, from this one incident, we may conclude that this child is an asshole, a prick, a thug, etc.?
Yes, it was malicious, idiotic, and deliberate. It’s also not out of the range of normal adolescent behavior. THAT’S WHY WE DON’T TREAT KIDS LIKE ADULTS: they lack adult judgment capacities, they lack self-control, they lack experience.
No, not all kids have done this. Some kids have punched someone in the nose, a far more seriously antisocial behavior. Other kids have done other stupid, malicious, idiotic things. In fact, I"d say that every one of you did something stupid, malicious, and idiotic when you were a kid–anyone denying that?
I’m not saying to ignore such behavior: I’m saying to use appropriate consequences. I am saying it’s stupid and idiotic to make judgment calls about a child’s personality based on the stupidest thing they do.
Daniel
I guess you’ve missed all those kids being prosecuted as adults in the last 15 years?
My secret was that I was a good kid, and not a little jerk.
I did stupid things as a child, and as a 45-year old adult I am able to admit that I still do stupid things, but I can honestly say I have never purposefully damaged something that wasn’t mine.
I am more than happy to cut a kid some slack when they do something not-so-bright without thinking. Sticking gum on a painting does not fall into that category for me.
How many 12 years olds was that out of interest? I never heard of a twelve year old being prosecuted as an adult.
Jim
I hope he got a good spanking.
You have a very low opinion of adolescents. I knew from the age of FIVE that littering is bad. This is worse than a kid getting in a fistfight, at least in that case the kid would have a reason (even if it was a stupid one) for doing what he did. There is no good reason for doing this, and I think 12 is way old enough for a kid to know this isn’t something you should do. If it was my kid, he’d be paying the total restoration costs AND volunteering at the museum AND writing letters to the painter and the owner of the painting telling them he was sorry. And just to drive the point home, I’d kick his ass.
I kind of like the painting. But I don’t 1.5 million dollars like it.
Sticking a piece of gum anywhere is idiotic. Every person, twelve years old or not, should be made to eat all the stuck gum in a one mile radius for each piece they put anywhere besides a trash can.
I think the painting is fugly, and kind of useless, but that’s IMO. I do think the kid should have known better. I did, and many other kids in my classes did. We went to museums all the time and didn’t damage anything.
By no means is it a comparable case, but,
Michigan v Abraham
…Nathaniel Abraham. Abraham is on the trial for first-degree murder in the 1997 shooting death of 18-year-old Ronnie Lee Greene, Jr. Michigan prosecutors claim Abraham, only 11 at the time of the shooting…
I actually did mean figuratively, not that it’s particularly relevant. And while I appreciate your parenting advice, I sincerely hope that when/if you have your own, you don’t take quite such a laissez faire attitude toward their wanton destruction of property that is neither theirs nor yours. I hope that you keep in mind that the ultimate goal of child-rearing is not to create perfectly happy children, but reasonably functional adults.
I think it **should ** be unusual for a twelve year old to vandalize something, what with them being old enough to know better. My daughter would never have dreamed of doing something like that by the time she was five, because I’d long since taught her that other people feel the same way about their things that she feels about hers.
That child needs to pay for the damage, he needs to do some community service, and if he was my child, he would have a prized posession of his damaged or destroyed as he watched.
And it’s sincerely pissing me off that the quality of the painting itself is being treated as somehow relevant. Someone owns it. Someone presumably loves it. Does my assessment of your house as “ugly” diminish it’s value to you?
We obviously drew different conclusions from the article. A stain that requires chemical research doesn’t fall under “easily cleaned up” in my book.
This should be tattooed on the inside of every parent’s eyelids.