Friday, January 21, 2011

No Cure For Crazy

Do you think that parents should be held responsible for the actions of their adult children if they turn out to do something crazy? I was listening to the Adam Carolla podcast the other day, and when he discussed the Arizona shootings his position was blame the parents. By his belief, if you made parents criminally responsible for their adult children then that would provide incentive for people to be better parents; that if any offspring goes on a shooting spree, there should at least be an involuntary manslaughter charge.

Sometimes it is difficult to tell when Carolla is being serious and when he's kidding, but obviously you can't charge the parents unless they actually somehow aid or participate in the act. It is insane to suggest a parent go to jail because their offspring goes nuts. Bad parenting can lead to crazy, but even with good parenting, crazy can find a way to take hold. If you are a bad parent, that may increase the probability of their offspring engaging in nefarious behavior, but crazy does not prove bad parenting. Many families with multiple children will have one that's in and out of trouble while the others lead noble and prosperous lives. There are many factors outside of how good of a parent you are that have a major impact on the sanity of your adult child. It is a bad idea to always blame the parents. In this case, I disagree with Mr. Carolla.

4 comments:

  1. A parent that is aware of illegal activities or dangerous behaviour from a child, adult or otherwise should be held responsible to some degree if they have ignored it, hid it or not pursued assistance.

    It is my belief that generally,parental human nature would be to expose dangerous tendencies of a neighbour or even stranger before a child. So yes, they must assume some responsibility if the child resided with them and they even had an inking of doubt.

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  2. The only thing he has to go on is the neighbour's testimony that the Loughner's were "weird" and that they were a reclusive family. Last time I checked, there are a lot of people that may seem "weird" and a whole lot more people who are reclusive, loners etc..

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  3. Bec, like the Somali parents who are blaming the police, in Edmonton, not their kid for potentially being involved in dealing drugs.

    The mom of the dead kid was asking for the police to apologize because they said that the community was not co-operating. They of course are going to be SHOCKED when another Somali kid is mysteriously killed, and they will again blame it on our police not their own culture of drugs, welfare, and dropouts.

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  4. As all children are required to attend schools that are run by the government about 1/3 of the time. Should the government not be held partly responsible as well or at some point do people have to take responsibility for their own actions?

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