Parental loyalty....

This morning I was watching the news and came across this story. In a nutshell, a man went to a local call center and shot his girlfriend to death at the front door. He was, of course, ultimately arrested. His parents were arrested as well for helping him to get out of the area. Their reason? "We love him".

It got me to thinking about the extent of parental loyalty, how far parents might go to protect their children. Even though I am not a parent, I can understand the impulse to protect our children, even when it might not be in their own best interest.

I've seen this first hand as well through a friend whose son has financially devastated her ~ and still she wants to believe he will come around and do the right thing even though his history makes it evident that he has no desire to change.

At what point do Mr and Mrs Rivera ~ or even my friend ~ have to say "enough is enough" and allow their children to take responsibility for their own actions?

Knowing I will never be confronted with the situation, I am fairly certain that I would not help my adult child escape from the area if he murdered someone. I would not be willing to help a daughter with a history of making bad choices to a point of financial devastation. She would know from a very young age that certain choices would make her life very unpleasant. She would know it because I would teach her. I would teach her that if she got pregnant as a teenager that she can toss all of her future dreams out the window because the next 18 years of her life would be devoted to raising a child on probably very little money and few resources. I would teach her that making decisions based on emotion is going to lead her down a less than satisfying road. I would teach my children that not learning to control their anger will lead to possible violence. I would teach them that they are responsible for the consequences of their choices and while I would support to the best of my ability their opportunities to make new and different choices, they would have to fix the fallout from bad ones.

These are very basic things.

So what of the Rivera parents? What say you? How far would you go to protect your children from consequences? Or would you?


Peace,


~Chani