Legions of people have blamed the parents. Many have cited the absence of acceptable role models/fathers in the child's life as a reason for the poor behavior. I agree for the most part, however, I think the most blame lies in the fact that these kids have poor self-concept. You have to have a poor concept of self to want to wreck havoc on others. Something is not fulfilled or missing from you inside to make you make better decisions.
A group of 9-12 year olds from Southwest Philadelphia beat a 41-year-old woman in a horrific game of "catchin wreck" several months back. They even taunted the woman when she begged for mercy because she lost her son and can't take anymore pain. These were the same group of kids who also almost killed a 73-year old man previously when the assaulted him and stole his money, causing him to have a heart attack. Oh, and one of the 12-year-olds was pregnant. So what type of child do you think she will raise? Unfortunately, in that case I doubt you could even rely on the child's mother as clearly something was allowed to go on that resulted in this child's pregnancy. And if you know your child is pregnant at that age, why continue to let her go out and get into more trouble?
(Disclaimer: when I say "they" or "kids today", I don't mean ALL kids, but many. I know there are good kids out there) There is a generation gap; the new kids have a lot more anger in them than ever before. They're mean, they're ultimate bullies and clearly have no concept of right and wrong. All kids make mistakes. When I was a kid in the 90s', a mistake was cheating on a test, hitting your sibling too hard, breaking your mom's vase, sneaking out the house to go play, drinking underage. It wasn't beating people to death, robbing, raping, assaulting, etc. The phrase kids make mistakes goes out the window with this.
They know what they are doing. The argument may be that their brains have not fully developed yet and they do not have the best judgement. I am much wiser now than at 15, and probably will be wiser (hopefully, lol) at 32 than now. BUT I knew what not to do at 14. I knew that causing harm to someone could get you put in jail, that my mom would be mad at me and I'd be embarrassed.
Many kids though, don't care. They have no concept of "what happens after I do this?" and it's scary. I could cite all the disturbing incidents of teen violence, even stats from the suburbs as well, but I'd be here all day.
What I will say is that we've lost our way. Especially with some inner-city youth. Many rely on ugly stereotypes about people of color to guide the way they act almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You live in Philadelphia and you have nothing better to do than cause problems? I lived in a small town where many things closed after awhile except for the local WaWa and the diners. We would drive around just talking, sit at the river or chill somewhere, so I don't want to hear the excuse they're bored. Yes, there probably aren't enough activities geared towards keeping teens busy, building leadership, etc., but what they are doing is ridiculous, causing people fear and is just downright embarrassing.
Sure, some parents probably had no idea where there kid was, they may have lied about where they were going, as many of us probably did as kids when we didn't want an argument. However, some of these parents are just as belligerent as their kids. Some of these parents are ready to fight or cuss someone out for what they deem as disrespect in a second, so what can we expect? Some of these parents encourage their children to fight someone who disrespected them. I wish I didn't have to say that, but there is an influx of parents who really don't "parent". I won't pretend I know what it's like to have kids because I do not have any yet, but if you can't properly teach your child to be a contributing member of society, don't have any. There's enough problems with children running around thinking they are invincible because no one checks their behavior at home.
