A while back I wrote about a kid I had in juvenile court. He’s the bright kid with the parents holding him back. He’s also the one that everyone (meaning myself and everyone on the State’s side) realized his potential and bent over backwards for him.
Unfortunately, he screwed up again.
He had a really good placement for him and he didn’t want to go. I certainly understand why he didn’t want to go. Who would really want to go someplace they had never been, away from their family, because a bunch of people you don’t know say you have to? So the really good placement is out the window and instead the judge has ordered him to boot camp.
The kicker is, when I talked to him before court, he didn’t give me the usual “why is everyone picking on me” B.S. that most of my kids give me. He knew he messed up and that he was going to have to pay the piper and he’s smart enough to know that trying to weasel out of it isn’t going to fly.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to him after boot camp is over. He needs to go to school, he’s easily smart enough to go to college and (for the most part) he’s got the drive to make something of himself. I just hope that he gets the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.
I suppose with Grand Theft Auto IV coming out last Tuesday, this is an appropriate post.
Let’s review here. We’ve got a 7 year old who:
Looks like he’s ready for a triple-bypass.
Has friends who smoke.
Jacked a car, causing plenty of property damage.
And tells the reporter that “It’s fun to do bad things, drive into a car;” “I wanted to do hoodrat stuff with my friends,” and suggests an appropriate punishment would be “No video games for a whole weekend.”
Is there any doubt this kid’s future is the doing time in the pen?
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — A couple fighting about which gang their 4-year-old toddler should join caused a public disturbance that resulted in the father’s arrest, Commerce City police said Thursday.
…
His girlfriend told police that they had been arguing about the upbringing of their son and which gang he should belong to. The teen mother, who is black, is a member of the Crips. Manzanares is Hispanic and belongs to the Westside Ballers gang, the woman said.
“They have different ideas on how the baby should be raised. Basically, she said they cannot agree on which gang the baby would ‘claim,’” Sandoval said.
OK, I understand that being a parent isn’t easy. Do you give the kid a normal name, or something like Moonbeam? Do you send the kid to public, or private school? And of course, what gang should the kid join. If I had to guess, the baby will end up joining CPS.
I’ll admit that most of my gang knowledge (at least prior to doing this job) came from listening to Dr. Dre and playing the Grand Theft Auto videogames. I would have just assumed that two members of a rival gang can’t hook up.
Of course, the Colorado is just now just getting around to allowing liquor stores to open on Sunday and be able to sell, heavens-to-Betsy, full strength beer instead of 3.2 beer. What a strange state.
In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t have kids, nor do I want them. And I’m at the age where my friends start having kids on purpose (unlike college where they had kids on accident). I have two reasons for not wanting kids. The first is very selfish. I like my lifestyle, and having a kid would mess it up. The second is that I can barely run my own life half the time, I can’t be held responsible for another life.
Where am I going with this? I was in juvenile court today, and if you’ve never done juvenile court, its an interesting experience. Matlock had a good post earlier this month covering just how absurd the juvenile court system can be.The kid today is a good kid. And that’s not some defense attorney B.S., he really is. He screwed up once, got put on probation and has been doing fine since. He’s smart, he gets good grades, he’s a good athlete at school, and he wants to go to college and do something with his life.
The problem is the kid’s family. They’re poor and live in a rural county. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being poor and rural, not my lifestyle of choice, but there’s nothing bad about it. But my kid is determined to not to end up being poor and living in Hicksville, Texas. The kid looks at the way his parents live and says “I don’t want to be like that.”But I swear that these parents don’t want to see their kid succeed. I can’t prove it, but deep down I know it. They have these subtle ways of trying to screw the kid up. I have no idea why they wouldn’t want their kid to succeed. I would think if I was poor, I’d really push my hypothetical kids to be the best they could be, so they can make money and take care of me.
It frustrates me to no end, because this is the only juvenile I’ve ever had who’s told me that he wants to go to college. The majority of them have no interest in anything outside smoking dope and petty theft. When I see one kid that A) has a ton of potential and B) actually wants to do something with his life, it’s just sad that the only people encouraging him people like myself, the juvenile probation officer, and the judge. Basically, people in “the system” not his family.
Every so often I get a kid from a good family who decides to screw up. But with most of the juveniles I get, the parents are well know to law enforcement and the kids are just following in Mommy or Daddy’s footsteps. I know its not feasible, or legal, but every time I go to juvenile court, it makes me think there needs to be some of licensing program to be parents.
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