General Discussion

My wife would tell our kids, "I worry you'll get shot," and in this case it was a reasonable imposition of Catholic mom guilt. Kids here do get shot, there are a lot of gangsters, kids themselves mostly, who can't shoot straight. They hit innocent bystanders as often as they hit their intended targets.

One of my kids got picked up past curfew by the police once. He had friends in the car, he'd forgot his driver's license and, and he was a little sarcastic to the officers. I got the call to pick both him and our car up. When I got there they were all having a good time, smiles all around. Our police seem to enjoy any incident that's not bloody or violent. But getting a call from the police near midnight shakes a parent up.

I had a feral childhood and a lot of siblings. As teenagers we might get in trouble if we forgot to tell someone where we were going, especially if we were away all night, but usually not. Generally someone in the house (and it was often someone who was just sleeping on our sofa or living on our porch for a few days) knew where a wandering sibling might be and this satisfied my parents.