Where were the parents?

Awful news on Sunday, about young teenage children getting drunk late Saturday night and one or more of the boys assaulting the girl in the group.
It appears a sordid mess, and we can’t help wondering, “Where were the parents?”
The youngsters were in a car stopped by police about 2:30 in the morning, apparently due to errant driving. The driver was 16 years old, violating the driving curfew (11 p.m.) and the rule against having passengers (not until he’s had his license for a year), not to mention drinking (he’s five years short of legal drinking age) and driving while under the influence of alcohol (always illegal).
Hey, we know kids do stupid things (so do adults, but that’s a different commentary). It’s their parents’ job to help them avoid the really stupid things, like those we’ve just listed, and to help them learn from their mistakes.
We wonder whose car it was. And who pays gas and insurance, There are lessons aplenty here for this boy’s parents to teach him. Of course, they can’t wait until he’s 16 to teach him to respect authority, to follow the rules and to keep his mind clear. Those lessons start in the home at, say, day ten.
Now we understand that not everyone has committed, attentive parents in the home, and we understand that some youth seem impossible to discipline; our comments are not meant to denigrate any specific person involved in this incident, whose full particulars we don’t know.
Yet what about the parents of the 15-year-old? Or the pre-teen? A 12-year-old has no business hanging with 15- and 16-year-old boys, with cars, after midnight, unsupervised.
And of course, where were the girl’s parents, letting their 14-year-old daughter be out all night? She shouldn’t have been drinking – that’s both illegal and stupid, especially in the company of older boys.
Most disturbing of all is the idea that the boys thought it was okay to assault the girl. Do they not know to respect women? Do they not know that violence is abhorrent? Do they not know about self-control? We don’t expect or necessarily even want the government schools to try teaching morals, though it’s tempting to call for that when parents are letting their children down. There are parenting classes. There are faith communities where they can participate, with their children.
Respect. Kindness. Honor. Self-control. American society as we’ve known it cannot survive without those characteristics.
Deferred gratification. There’s a capitalist instinct appropriately applied to social circumstances.
Our society blares the message that life is about getting what you want – now! But it’s a false message. Life is, ultimately, about sacrificing for others: for your spouse, for your children, for your friends, for your customers and for those whom you would lead.
The sooner we can teach our youth that lesson, the sooner we can avoid the tragedies that come from lack of discipline or even oversight. In our view, that’s where the parents should be, teaching that lesson.