One thing she did do right........

I was a "bad kid". Sure, I made good grades in school and I never got in trouble for skipping school, or for fighting. But I did a lot of drugs and I began having sex at the age of 15. However, shoplifting was not one of the behaviors my parents had to deal with. And why was that?? Well, it goes back to an incident that occurred when I was just four or five years old.

I was with my mother at the wal-mart in the town we lived in. Now, at the time my parents were relatively poor and I was not spoiled at all. While we were standing in line to be checked out I asked my mother for a pack of gum and she said "no". I wasn't allowed to eat much junk food and she had only a few dollars to grab whatever it was she was buying to make for dinner that night. Unbeknownst to her I snuck the pack of gum in my pocket and walked out the door with the stolen gum. However, I wasn't smart enough to keep it hidden from her once we started our journey home and pulled the gum out of my pocket to grab a stick to chew on the way home.

My mother yelled "Young lady, where did you get that!"

I replied, with a stupid smirk on my face, "I put it in my pocket.....But they didn't see me.....".

"You stole it from the store? Don't you know that is wrong?"

I started to cry, and told her I was sorry--thinking that was all I'd have to do make amends. I was wrong.

"You don't owe me an apology. You owe the store an apology...." That is when she whipped the car around and started back towards Wal-Mart. I remember feeling shear terror as the car got closer to the store. "Where are we going mommy. The house is that way" I pointed in the other direction hoping my fearful expression would cause her to turn back around. But she didn't.

My mother made me walk back into the store, to the cashier who had just checked us out and tell her what I had done and that I was sorry. I was in tears and overcome with embarrassment.

Moral: When your kid does something like this make them face the consequences immediately!!! Worked for my parents. That was one thing she did right.