Can An Evil Kid Be Excused As “Just A Teen”?

Nasty incident #1

There was a little incident this weekend.  I’m not going to go into great detail about it, but this is it in a nutshell:

There is a teen living in the area with some unmanaged and serious anger problems. It has been that way for years, and his anger escalates with his age.  A very public incident took place on the weekend between the boy and his family to which the entire neighborhood was privy, because it took place outside and was extremely loud.  I happened to be on the way out with Raegan and her friend as this incident was unfolding.

The incident was significant enough that the police needed to be called (and were), but in the meantime I tried to talk to the teen to calm him down.  I shouldn’t have wasted my time because there has never been any calming him down.  He didn’t appreciate the fact that I stopped, and so he screamed, “Why don’t you just go die and join your husband!” (Might I point out that this is not a child who doesn’t understand what he is saying.  This is a teen.  Not a young teen, either.)

Fuck you, kid.  Fuck you.  You sad excuse for a human.  You are a waste of air.  (I didn’t say that. Not out loud, anyway.)

I got back in my car and drove away with Raegan and her friend.  When I turned to look at Rae, the tears were streaming down her face.  Raegan rarely, rarely cries.  She was absolutely wounded.  And although I hate to admit that the random words of an angry, asshole teen with a history of violence and significant other issues could hurt me, they did. Maybe it was more seeing Raegan cry than anything, but boy did it hurt.

Nasty incident #2

Today I became aware of something that took place at school within the last few weeks. Again, I’m not going to bother elaborating (and in fact I can’t elaborate because no one from the administrative staff at the school ever contacted me to tell me what happened), but it involved one boy bullying another boy via text.  The victim of the bully is very close friends with one of my daughters.  The bully, in an attempt to hurt the victim, wrote something extremely nasty about Ben. Yes, that’s right … he wrote something awful about my beloved Ben to try to hurt the victim.

The bully didn’t know Ben.  I don’t even know who the bully was because this only came to my attention today, and even when I found out my daughter made it very clear she did not want to discuss it with me.  (Why did the school not contact me you ask?  Well I don’t have an answer to that.  They certainly should have.)  But I do know that the bully was trying to hurt the victim, and he tried to do so by texting something quite horrible about the father of the victim’s best friend.  Who happens to be my sweet girl.

The text had something to do with Ben / death / victim.  This little shit took the worst thing imaginable that could ever happen to my daughter and used it to hurt her friend. Which in turn hurt her.  Which in turn hurt me.  AND WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT ASSHOLE KID THINK HE IS TO DARE TO EVER TALK ABOUT BEN????  (burst of fury here).

The victim showed my daughter the horrible text.  Another teen intervened and ensured that the text made it to the administrative staff who then suspended the bully.  Big deal.  I can think of way more appropriate consequences, but none of them are legal.

I just want to know this …. when do we stop saying “they are just teens … they don’t know what they’re saying … they will grow out of it.”  I’m not really down with that.  Sometimes people are just evil, and I don’t give a flying shit if they’re a teen or not.  Who the fuck does shit like that??  

No one can ever begin to contemplate the agony my kids have gone through for the last year.  It takes a special kind of evil person to want to hurt them more.

The irony of the whole thing is that Ben would have been the very first person to help either of those teens if they had needed it.  They don’t even know that the world lost one of those rare heroes who would have been there for anyone … even them.  And no matter how horrible Ben may have thought they were, he would have given them respect. Because Ben gave everyone respect whether they deserved it or not.  And that’s why he was so loved.  Neither of those boys will ever be loved and adored the way My Man was.

It takes a really special type of nasty, vile, evil human being of ANY age to try to hurt someone who has just lost their Dad.  And way down deep inside, there is a really horrible part of me that wants to hurt them both very badly.  Teen or not.  

I guess I answered my own question.  “NO.”  An evil teen cannot be excused as “just a teen.”  Sometimes they are just fucking evil.  I feel sorry for the people who love them.