A 26-year-old arrested for carrying 20 grams of shabu back in 2010 said in a media interview, “I wouldn’t be in trouble if my mother did not leave us to work abroad.”
Listening to this young man of legal age faulting his mother except himself depicts that everyone seems to be playing the blame game.
Why not? The blame game is played by politicians, officials, advocates, celebrities, and ordinary citizens. Children see them in their peers, adults, and in the news.
It’s a sad reality that we live in a culture of blame such that it comes as a surprise when someone owns up sans excuses and alibis.
I muse why parents always take the blame for their children’s behavior and misdeeds. Whenever a child behaves in an irresponsible, or dangerous way, many are always quick to ask, “Where on earth are his parents?”
Such is the case of the recent arrest of Juanito Jose Remulla III on 11 October with P1,304,800 worth of kush or hybrid marijuana in Las Piñas City.
Justice Secretary Crispin “Boying” Remulla, who happened to be the father of the 38-year-old Juanito Jose III, has immediately been blamed for what his son is, by detractors who perceive themselves to be righteous and experts in parenting.
Some even called for the Secretary’s courtesy resignation to ensure an independent investigation and trial, while others said he has lost all moral authority to be Secretary of Justice.
Let’s admit that Secretary Remulla is just like you and me, and all other parents confronting or have been confronted with the stressful task of parenting children struggling with poor behavior choices.
The task has become increasingly difficult in the wake of varied influences available on television, the internet, and peer pressure, among other sources. Whether we like it or not, technology has taken over traditional play and has inevitably been shaping people’s lives and habits rapidly. So much so that it has affected daily lives, especially children who imitate what they see and exhibit foreign behaviors that we frown upon in the past.
Should parents be held responsible for the crimes committed by their children?
Parents, according to studycorgi.com, are not the only stakeholders in a child’s life thus they are not exclusively the only ones who should be responsible for the crimes that children commit.
Children are brought up in a society of different kinds of people and external factors that influence their actions, morals, and character. They learn from everyone and everything around so it would be unfair to hold a single factor responsible for their behavior.
As our children get older, they are given more responsibilities toward independence. Independence, however, comes with choices and responsibility. It may be scary to let go of the caregiving role when children become adults but that is just life.
Children, when they reach emancipation age like Juanito Jose, have a choice to behave in the way they deem fit, and holding them responsible for criminal behavior is a way of instilling good morals.
Hence, holding parents responsible for their crimes is tantamount to shifting the blame, which does not seek to address the problem. This only makes it much easier for children to engage in misdemeanors because they know that their parents will take the blame.
The same study said the engagement in crime by children does not always signify that their parents failed to inculcate good morals in them. It added that some children could have been raised well but their misdeeds are attributable to such factors as negative peer pressure.
Balancing his parental and official responsibility as Secretary of Justice with his eldest’s son’s accountability, Secretary Remulla said life is short for us to not act now on current problems.
As he vowed to help the country move forward through judicial reforms and fighting the huge drug problem that has affected families like his, let us stop the blame game.
So, let us not focus on debating if parents are responsible for their children’s crimes or not. Instead, keep the focus where it belongs – the immense drug problem unless we allow illegal drugs to reduce our families and society to a deplorable state.