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Girls “Unremorseful After Stealing from Girl Scout”
To recap, two teenage girls in Florida stole an envelope from a 9-year-old Girl Scout who was selling cookies in front of a Winn-Dixie. One distracted the Scout while the other grabbed the envelope containing $164. One of the teens is in the same grade as the Scout’s sister. The two teens were later apprehended, returned the money, and were charged. Later, they were “hanging out” in the supermarket parking lot and were interviewed by the local new channel. They expressed no remorse; in fact, they were angry that they were caught and felt it was “unfair” to charge them since they were already made to return the money.
This story really got my blood boiling. What the hell is going on when these girls not only feel no remorse for stealing from a 9-year-old Girl Scout, but they seem to enjoy the camera time they use to display their callous disregard?
I think there are several issues highlighted in this story, some more obvious than others.
- Disregard for others. The teens in the story had no thought about the victim.
- Disregard for the law. It’s STEALING, for fuck’s sake. It’s WRONG. No matter how the 9-year-old got the money, it’s NOT YOURS TO TAKE.
- Misunderstanding of the value of money. They stole $164 off the cookie table, and were expecting to buy new clothes and new cell phones. Um, really? With $164? For two girls? $82 each? C’mon. Give me a break. Unless they were planning to buy the entry-level phone (probably not) and shop at Wal-Mart (again, doubtful), they were not going to succeed in the lofty goal.
- Lack of creativity. Holy crap, stealing is about as uncreative as it comes. Want to really surprise someone? Earn the money on your own.
- Laziness. Those girls could easily have earned the money in a few days at even a minimum-wage job. Ultra-motivated kids could have done it in a day. And NO, I don’t mean by selling drugs or selling their bodies. There are plenty of stories of kids who worked through high school or college by working for themselves.
- Stupidity squared. If you read the follow-up, one of the girls was nabbed a couple of weeks later for walking out on a $28 bill at Denny’s. (Surprise, surprise.) At court, she claimed that she was “misunderstood.” Damn right you are. I cannot understand why you think you deserve less than the maximum time available (which was the judge’s sentence, to her lawyer’s surprise).
Being a parent, I can’t think about this without thinking about the mother’s role in this girl’s life. I would daresay a lot have questioned the mother’s morals and ethics. I’m one of them. But I can’t say it’s all due to parenting. I have a different spin on that question from a personal experience.
Some time after my son was born, my mother and I were out shopping for furniture. I made a choice to change his diaper in public. My mom was horrified that I plopped down in the floor behind a sofa and took care of his business. She said, “Well, I certainly didn’t raise you to do that.” She had a point. I could have walked to the car, done the job discretely, and rejoined her in the store. I was too lazy and scatterbrained to care. Her words stuck with me, though. She was washing her hands of my actions by telling me that she was not the source of that behavior. In essence, she took away my ticket to Jerry Springer. Thanks, Mom. Now I’ll never be involved in a midget chair fight.
Speaking of Springer, the media is not blameless in this, either. The girls are almost rewarded by the attention lavished on them by the camera crew. In this Facebook/MySpace world, it’s “see and be seen,” and the more scandalous, the better.
The thing that most disturbs me is that society as a whole seems to be at a loss as to what to do. Kids keep trying to “out-do” each other with their shocking behavior. At what point do we stand up and say, “Enough!” How many have to be injured or die before we stop spoon-feeding esteem to our kids into adulthood and start teaching them how to cope?
