FILE UNDER: Your child is not a genius.

Today’s parents seem to be overwhelmingly of a mind that their progeny is a special little sunflower or is it the next Einstein? This manifests itself as blind devotion and a failure to acknowledge the little monsters are unformed adults capable of infinitely more transgressions than the parent would believe.

Consequently, children can never be ‘at fault’ and when I say at fault, I mean in the sense they mirror much of our culture today in they cannot accept responsibility for their actions and the consequences of those actions to themselves, people and the world around them.

Whether it’s in school, on the playground or just out and about, children are undoubtedly much more privileged today than in years passed. Gone are the days of the old saw: “Children should be seen and not heard” because today’s parents embrace the popular belief that every issue from their brats mouths is jewel for the ages.

In that vein, I came across this article the other day:

The suit that Justice Wooten allowed to proceed claims that in April 2009, Juliet Breitman and Jacob Kohn, who were both 4, were racing their bicycles, under the supervision of their mothers, Dana Breitman and Rachel Kohn, on the sidewalk of a building on East 52nd Street. At some point in the race, they struck an 87-year-old woman named Claire Menagh, who was walking in front of the building and, according to the complaint, was “seriously and severely injured,” suffering a hip fracture that required surgery. She died three months later of unrelated causes.