In yesterday's post, I talked about everything that happened the day I was taken into police custody. I will now let you know what happened the day after and beyond.
As expected, the boys who had seen me being detained at the store did blab to everyone about me being arrested. I could hear people talking behind my back. In my English class, someone made the comment and the girl in front of me asked me, "That's not true, is it?" I muttered it was true. She tried to get more information out of me, but I ignored her.
Some other boys made jokes like inviting me to go with them to shoplift stuff. It was a really hard day to get through. But when the day was over, no one really ever brought it up again.
Getting through that day in school was the easy part. I still had to go see the juvenile officer with my parents. That took place a week later. We went after school. When we got there, I saw the officer talking to someone I knew from school. This person was someone like me, somewhat geeky. He was there by himself. I never saw him as the type of person who would have gotten in enough trouble that he would be getting a solo meeting with the officer, but I guess if your parents give you too much time to yourself, you eventually get into trouble on a regular basis.
After the officer finished with the previous appointment, we went in and sat down. Mom started crying right away. The officer didn't treat my shoplifting like it was that big of a deal. He said that he didn't think I was at risk to do it again and getting caught probably scared all the criminal out of me. He told them to never talk about the incident again and everything would be okay.
I don't know that I wouldn't have shoplifted again. I had a decision to make right there and then. I knew what my mistake was: I was aware that I was being watched and I chose to ignore that. I would have known in the future when people were keeping their eye on me and could avoid being caught with evidence on me. As it turned out, I decided to be the good little boy and not shoplift ever again.
In the end, it was the right decision to make. I'm certain that despite my intuition, I would have been caught many more times and there would have just been more humiliation at school.
20 years later, my Mom and I discussed the incident. When I was arrested, Mom was under the impression that I had only shoplifted that time and one other time before because it was on the police report that the cashier had previously seen me take something. I told her that I had actually been shoplifting for six months before I was caught. Since it was 20 years later and she was on depression medication, Mom didn't treat it like a big deal.
This incident made me realize that it must be tough to be a parent when your kids do things that you didn't do yourself when you were their age. My parents claim they never stole anything, so they didn't know how to react when I told them I got caught. Are other parents who stole in their youth better equipped to deal with their children going down the same path? If it weren't for that juvenile officer giving them a positive outlook, I probably would have lived under their scrutiny for the rest of my life.
Okay, so I stole. If my son steals and gets caught, I have a pretty good feel for how the situation should be handled. However, I don't know what I would do if he starts doing drugs, gets in a gang or does harder crimes. I don't have experience with that. This is probably the scariest aspect of parenthood.
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