I remember being very young the first time I heard that children don't go to jail. I believe this topic came up because I was terrified of unwittingly doing something illegal and being separated from my mother and sent to jail, but otherwise I don't remember the context of this conversation.
My mother told me I didn't need to worry about being sent to jail myself as a preschooler. "Parents are held responsible for their children's behavior," she explained. "So when a child does something bad, she gets taken away from her parents, and her parents get sent to jail in her place. If you did something bad, I would be the one who went to jail." Cue new and more exotic fears. I don't remember when I learned this was a lie, but it took years.
No comments:
Post a Comment