The Unsupervised Teen Mob...

I'm sorry to all those that it's been so long between posts will do better this year, promise. I know this probably dates me but when I was a teenager I was never allowed to just go up to the biggest mall in the area, just because I could on a Saturday afternoon. The few times I would ask to do that I was given this response: are your chores done and is the homework done?? Usually my response to this was no but I have tomorrow to do it, but funny thing my parents come back was: no if you have things to do here then I don't need to be wasting the gas to take you somewhere else. Yet I go to the malls on the weekends now as I have gotten older and have found that that's what parents will do. They will drive whole groups of 4,5,6,7, etc number of kids to local malls pullover and say 'bye calling when you want to be picked up...' Or 'you have enough for the bus right?' This completely floors me everytime I see it or hear it. These are usually the same adults who complain about the number or crimes committed by juveniles. I'm always like wanting to turn around and give them a a Gibbs head smack saying 'hello your contributing to it by dumping your kids at the mall instead of keeping them home doing something constructive like reading a book or cleaning their room.' People can't comment about the delinquency of minors of they are going to enable them by expecting shopping malls to be their children's babysitters and soul source of engagement. That's not what the malls job is nor is it the people who work the stores in the mall. I worked retail at several of the local malls for a number of years and I hated and dreaded the weekends and it wasn't the traffic or the fact that there was never enough parking it was that I would see groups of teens roaming the mall just going from store to store using products, trashing the stores, disrupting displays and mannequins leaving clothes and product scattered everywhere and they would never have a parent with them nor would they buy anything because they were only given enough for a coffee in the morning and some cash for lunch and maybe a movie later. These kids would be there for HOURS! I was always like I don't remember it saying in my job description I'm to clean up after groups of roaming, wandering parent-free children. It would drive me crazy. I was always like don't these kids have homes with chores for them to do and be at? So a ask to all the parents out there who do this please put yourself in the shoes of the mall cop, or the sales clerk, or the makeup girl at ugly or Sephora and ask yourself are they responsible for my teenager or am I and can't I come up with something other then the mall for them to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon? Just another thought from the Cop Mom