I knew a man once who had a couple of sons, and he loved them with all his heart. But he viewed his boys as the sort of noble savages folks say Rousseau described – he figured that, left to their own devices, his sons would naturally choose the best food, friends, and bedtimes for themselves. He asserted that school was mostly damaging and guidance about living wasn’t needed. His job as a father was to love love love.

I exited the friendship before the sad result. I could see something bad coming, but I had to admit that I was completely incapable of achieving any change. I let the relationship end. I’m sorry to report that one of the sons didn’t survive his early adolescent adventuring.

I’ve written about those years before and I’ll probably publish some about them in the future, but for now I’ll just print the sonnet I started in 1997:

The image is unchallenged teens at theft,
their resin-coated fingers in a can
of currency, their eyes conspiring left
and right as they betray an addled man.
An argument for arson tumbles past
that silhouettes emphatic truancy.
The attitudes are frozen in a cast
of kids without a script or fluency.

There’s no one home to guide the children now.
They wake in rigid leather and they limp
through wasted days. Nobody tells them how
to lay their chains aside. Their emblems crimp
their futures and their anthem blocks their song,
but no one’s there to show them right from wrong.