When kids simply go bad

Author's Note: The following column was published in today's ediiton (Oct. 5) edition of the Collin County Opinion Pages of the Dallas Morning News.
In this world, there is no such thing as a complete and iron-clad guarantee. I once had a roof installed on a building I owned and it came with a "lifetime" guarantee. Of course, when it needed fixing, and the reputable firm was no longer in existence, there was no more "lifetime" guarantee.
Not every car runs perfectly. Not every garment is stitched exactly. Not every battery starts each time.
And not every child turns out to be good. Some of them do bad things, no matter how good of a job their parents did. They lie, they steal, they cheat. Some they do very, very bad things … including murder.
There are probably thousands of incidents that plague today’s society — where those referred to as "good children" go so terribly wrong. When it gets as bad as it can, with kids killing kids, it doesn’t just happen in America’s inner cities, which most of us would just as soon forget about. It occurs in small towns involving young people easily described as "All-American."
In many cases, perpetrators come from broken homes without the proper parental guidance to steer them away from heinous criminal activities. In many cases, these children find solace and mis-guidance in gangs or cliques, leading to greater lawbreaking. History also begets history; it is well documented that the children of abusers themselves often (not always) become abusive. Just think of what happens when they begin to "raise" their own children?
But often parents do everything society has asked — all the proper family values are taught time and again. Yet the sad stories persist.
So what’s a parent to do? Parental responsibility can only go so far. At some point, that "child" must assume his or her responsibility for their actions. The concept of "if you do the crime, you do the time" can’t be wiped away because of a perpetrator’s age. At some point, a person has got to know better. If you rob, you’re a thief; if you kill, you’re a killer … at 16, 26 or 60.
In my extended family, there’s a couple that we adore, and they are as good as the day is long. For all their lives, they have respected others, helped people and been nary a burden upon anyone.
However, one of their sons is locked in a mental institution because of drug abuse, and another son is imprisoned for life for murdering his wife while under the influence of drugs. Yet their parents raised them correctly.
Parenting really involves throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. In their children, a parent can only instill proper morals, the knowledge and spirit of what’s right and wrong, and the importance of treating people with love, respect and kindness. You can teach them proper work ethic, the value of sharing and helping others and then, through example, you live that kind of principled, "Golden Rule" life. You can provide all the creature comforts and make the home shine with love and caring.
Then you cast them from the nest and hope, and pray that the spaghetti sticks.
Most of the time, those efforts are justly rewarded; sometimes, nothing you do matters. You can’t continue to bang your head against the wall and live with a permanent mental (or actual) ulcer about "what did I do wrong?"
Actions affect more people than realized; the pain is extended to many victims, including parents and family members on both sides of tragedies. But it would be wrong to simply go around and blanket-judge parents without garnering the full picture, just because their children followed the wrong paths of life.
Because sometimes, some kids merely go bad and there ain’t a darn thing you, or the spaghetti, can do about it.