We had a woman two houses away from where I grew up who’s son, about 9 or 10 years old, was beating up the other boys in the neighborhood, stole their bikes, other things, was a little terror and all she ever said when confronted with this information by mothers of these boys was ‘My Johnny would never do that’.
It is WHY Johnny did that.
A permissive parent.
Huh, maybe we lived in the same neighborhood?
Lady around the corner from me had two hoodlum sons, a year apart, and they terrorized my family and several others. She never took any responsibility for her boys’ transgressions. They got away with all sorts of stuff. Even started a fire in my side yard, really close to our wooden fence. I was lucky to get it put out quickly.
One time, when one was caught shoplifting, she turned to another boy who was with him, who didn’t know that the one had stolen anything until it was too late, and she said, “why didn’t you stop him from doing it?”. Hey lady, he didn’t know your son had taken anything. He wasn’t in on it. Your son was a thief and got caught finally. The owner of the store called the cops, and the cops called her. All they got was a chance to sit in the cop car while the parents were called.
The kid grew up to be a used car salesman, no lie.