Maybe the friend’s mom doesn’t realize that instead of the community centre, that could have been her house that they were breaking into with an axe. Would she have called the police then? Christ, how would she feel if your son had witnessed a break-in at her place and done nothing ‘because he didn’t want someone to get in trouble’?
And that’s the way public property gets looked after - people see someone messing with it and they call the cops. Unlike a house where someone lives there, or a business which has security guards, the public who own the space have the responsibility of keeping an eye on it.
This ‘don’t get involved, don’t get someone into trouble’ attitude is bullshit.
I’m guessing friend’s mom is the type of person that doesn’t like to get the police involved for anything. I’m going to guess she’s the type of person that is “nervous” when cops are near her. Paranoid that she’s going to get in trouble for something (that she may or may not have done). If you don’t mind, and you certainly don’t have to respond to this, I’d guess she’s lower middle or upper lower class and blue collar. That seems to be the people I hear this from the most. The people that have a hate for the cops because they or their friends were constantly getting picked up by the cops as teens for no reason (other then, ya know, breaking the law, usually, possession, underage drinking, vandalism, driving with a suspended license, DUI…but “it’s not my fault, that cop hates me”). ISTM the most the kids could have gotten in trouble for was being in the park after hours, but I think in light of the situation, the cops would have (and did) look the other way on that one.
With how mad she was after the fact (instead of just an "I told you I would take care of it, why’d you have to go and dot that) makes me think that there could be more going on here. Either the kid who was committing the crime is already in trouble and now he’s going to be in a lot more trouble or their family is this way too.
Another thing, part of the reason friend’s mom didn’t want the cops involved could have been (if anything I mentioned above rings a bell) that she was more worried about having two cops in her driveway and in her house.
I don’t know what her rationale for not calling the cops was. You’re incorrect with her profile though. The family is decent, middle class, educated, she owns her own business. I think she knows the family in question and was worried about the kid getting into trouble with the authorities. Like I stated though, I would be more than happy if someone called the cops on my kid if it came to that. Fuck, I might call them myself if I found out my kid was pulling B&Es.
She said something to my son like “He’s a good kid who got in with the wrong crowd. He goes to church every Sunday!”
Ya. Good reason not to report vandalism. Scare the little cocksucker straight, I say.
Aargh. That’s what cops are for. And I have no fait that parents will actually make their little monsters, you know, pay up!
When I was a teen growing up our Hindu temple was broken into and robbed one day. It was all the community could afford at the time; it was a barn we had purchased and completely renovated, and it was set off the road a bit. They didn’t take the idols, but they smashed up a bunch of stuff and took the stereo and a few other things they could hock.
If someone saw that, I would have liked it if they reported it! As it is we certainly never got any closure.
(It’s not all bad news, though. It made the community band together and donate money and now they have a brand new huge temple on the main road.)
The Devil is in my ear about using church as a mitigating statement about character, but it seems to me that nearly ALL crooks start out as good kids who become influenced by their environment (i.e. the wrong crowd). This lady is seriously missing the point–he’s no longer a good kid, no matter how unjust she feels that transition has been. My teenager is running out of friends because they’re becoming “the wrong crowd” and she wants nothing to do with their shenannigans.
Okay, so then it’s more or a “I’d rather the parents dealt with this on their own then for him to have something on his permanent record that could cause problems for him later on in life.”
I used to shop lift quite a bit (and I was a good kid, other then the typical teenage hijinx) , I got caught and arrested once…never ever did it again. A nice brush with the police before a hobby turns into a lifestyle might be just what he needs.
Your son stood up and did what was right, even when authority figures told him not to. Good for him. That sort of integrity will make serve him well and, sadly, bring him into conflict. The friend’s mon is a real prize. I would be reluctant to allow him over then anymore except that it appears you can trust him to do the right thing.
She’s not thinking about this clearly - it’s not egging a house, it’s a serious felony. If they’re in “major trouble,” it’s because that’s what happens to felons, even juvenile ones.
Well, they live just down the street. It’s not a question of if, but rather when, we have the talk. We were on friendly terms. Be interesting to see how this unravels.
No. My son and his friend talked to the perpetrators. One of the perpetrators is friends with my son’s friend’s brother. It’s going to become very obvious who called the police. Stay tuned for the fireworks.
Oh man… I know how hard that is to watch! Same thing happened with my daughter. She went for over a year with no friends until she got to high school. She just couldn’t handle the fact that they were becoming sexually active and partying and lying to their parents.
When my girl was 12 (that’s not a typo! :eek:) one of the neighbor girls, let’s call her D, lied to her mom and said she was walking over to our house, she actually went to a guys house to get drunk and laid. My daughter, not knowing that D had told her mom a lie, walked over to D’s house to hang out for the afternoon. D’s mom said, “She’s not here, she went to your house 3 hours ago.” My kid tells her, “Well, she never made it” then walks back home all worried about D and thinking the police should be called. :rolleyes:
Meanwhile, D walks up to my house (we were 1/2 between D’s house and the guy’s) and bumps into my daughter just getting back. D tells her what she did and is laughing about it. My daughter got VERY angry and told her not to ever use her in a lie to her mother again. After three days of agonizing, my kid decides she just can’t hang out with someone that has so little integrity and zero respect for her parents.
She goes to tell D she can’t hang out with her. D’s mom is there and wants to know why. My kid tells her “Because she used my name to lie to you about where she was and I don’t like that.” Mom blows a gasket!!! At MY DAUGHTER!!! Screaming that “D didn’t lie, it was just a misunderstanding and she isn’t that kind of girl and you need to leave if you are going to say such hateful lies about her!!”
A few months later a not quite 13-year-old D went to “stay with relatives” for 6 months. During the school year. :dubious: Pretty much common knowledge that she went to have that guy’s baby and give it up.
Now they are all in 10th grade and my kid has tons of friends, is in marching band and beta club and drama while D has tons of guys sniffing around and laughing about (and I overheard this myself at the pool) how they “tore that little ass UP!” and discussing her various… talents?
Anyway… that year and a half between 7th grade and 9th were very lonely for my kid. Tell your daughter to hang in there. It gets better, I promise. And she’ll be glad she maintained her own high behavioral expectations and kept true to her own beliefs.
What gets me is that she not only didn’t call the cops, not only did she say that they shouldn’t call the cops, but trying to intimidate* your son and his friend from calling them by implying they’d get in trouble, too.
Nice family values, there.
*Okay, in fairness, maybe she actually believed that. In which case she’s an idiot, too. Moreso.
Same thing happened with my daughter. She went for over a year with no friends until she got to high school. She just couldn’t handle the fact that they were becoming sexually active and partying and lying to their parents.