Posted on 02/18/2006 9:59:54 AM PST by SmithL
Carole Dean got a shock when she drove up to her house in upscale Moraga on New Year's Eve. She estimates there were about 120 teenagers swarming the place, "drinking, making out and smoking pot.''
"I had to push them to get in the house,'' she says. "I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. I yelled at them to 'Get out,' and they just disappeared, ran away or drove off.''
They left her to walk through her home in amazement. Someone had punched holes in the wall. Two doors were destroyed. The back deck was torn up. The floor was littered with bottles, some she couldn't help but notice from the expensive Opus One winery in Napa Valley, where a bottle can set you back more than $100.
When she found her son Ben, he was so shell-shocked he didn't even make excuses. He'd lied to her, he admitted, when he said he was going somewhere else for a New Year's party.
"I was organizing a small party for my friends,'' he said. "Then it got big, and I got scared.''
It was not unlike the huge party that drew more than 100 teenagers to a house in the Berkeley hills on Feb. 10, where one boy was stabbed to death and three others injured.
Of course, the out-of-control party has been a staple of high school lore since the days of Ozzie and Harriet. But that's not the story here. Dean, her friends and other parents feel something more important, something more pervasive, is happening.
This isn't about crazy parties.
It is about the culture of teen entitlement often found among, but not limited to, children from well-to-do families. Dean calls it a "dictatorship,'' and she's not talking about the parents in charge.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Bad parenting.
And these kids will grow up and become part of the White House Press Corp? LOL!
I was a reveler at such a party, about 30 years ago. Boy were that kid's parents FURIOUS when they came home. We all got thrown out.
And no wonder, the very next day their lovely home was being featured in the Sunday NY Times Magazine.
Ah, NY in the 70s.
Parents. They're gone all the time. They have no idea what their kids are doing, and don't much care, as long as they don't have to deal with it. Then, they're surprised when Johnnie or Suzy get themselves in big trouble.
Kids need parents who are involved with their lives and who set rules and enforce them.
There is NO substitute for adult supervision!
Rural kids are conditioned by Leftist policy and media to be ashamed of pride and decency, so gangster rap is their default culture.
Where's the father?
A rightly trained teenager is fine without an adult, better off in fact.
Not to mention that your teenager would call you an incomprehensible loser if you made that call.
"My daughter just makes me feel like I am a total nut," says Reilly
When did parents turn into such big wusses?
I would bet that young Ben's punishment will be no more severe than having his BMW taken away from him for a day. That'll teach him!
Sounds like my place now. Ha ha.
The problem is a lack of respect for other peoples property. The kids could have used a few whuppings when they were younger.
Moraga isn't rural at all. It's a country club community near the Bay Area. Buncha rich democrats.
That's not entirely fair. You can have a full-time, stay-at-home mom and an involved father, but some kids are so devious that they'll get into trouble anyway. Believe me, I know a lot of wonderful church-going married parents who make their kids work for anything special they wanted, insist on curfews, check with the other parents, and do everything else right--but the kids are still sneaking doobies, going to school drunk, and screwing anything that moves. The culture today is rotten, and it is very seductive.
You raised him so enjoy him
Rich dweeb snot with money coming out his ass ruins high society mother's mansion as his drug-crazed moronic friends trash home. That should cover it!
I have a login for myspace, and registered over a year ago to see what it was about. I realized what was going on with the site, and gave my login to several parents so they could check it out for themselves and decide if they wanted their kids using the site.
Not one parent bothered to take a look.
Only months later when our community police officers, during a neighborhood meeting publically warned parents to "get their kids off of myspace" did these parents take action.
And as far as parents not picking up the phone and finding out if the parents will be supervising a party...too bad...if that bothers the kid, well so be it.
"Believe me, I know a lot of wonderful church-going married parents who make their kids work for anything special they wanted, insist on curfews, check with the other parents, and do everything else right--but the kids are still sneaking doobies, going to school drunk, and screwing anything that moves. The culture today is rotten, and it is very seductive.
"
There are always individual cases where parental supervision doesn't work, and always have been. Those stories about the preacher's kid didn't come from nowhere.
Still, parental training and supervision, on the whole, will prevent most of this nonsense. Here's the deal: This party, in a wealthy suburb in the Bay Area, involved 120 kids. Where were the other kids in that town that night? Most of them were at home, on a date, or otherwise peacefully occupied.
Do we hear about those good kids...the majority of kids in that town on that night? We do not. We hear about this bunch of rowdy kids who are up to no good.
Taking a small sample and then judging an entire society based on that sample is a logical error.
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