What the hell is wrong with kids these days - AND their parents

Today the weather was beautiful. A nice day for a cookout. To throw the ball around with the kids. While I caught up on some housework the kids were outside with their dad, playing football. I saw 4 kids come in the yard and were playing with Cain. I went on about my indoor work while they enjoyed playing. A few minutes later everyone came in and my husband explained that the boys were ganging up on Cain, calling him stupid, several tackling him at once, and slamming him into the woody/rocky area at the edge of our yard. Cain was scratched up and my husband yelled at the kids and sent them away.

A few minutes later, Cain said "where's my football mom, I put it right there." I told him to go look around the yard, in the woods, and in his room before he assumed someone stole it. After both of us searching, I realized it was not here and those boys took it. I got in my car and drove around the neighborhood looking for them, as I didn't know their names, or where they lived. These were not kids Cain had ever played with before. I circled around and didn't see the kids, but Cain said he knew where one lived. I drove with Cain to the house where an older woman was sitting on the porch, and a 20-something man was just walking out.

I stopped the young man and asked, "does a young boy live here?" He seemed hesitant to answer, but said "yuh". I explained, "I'm not sure if its the boy who lives here or not, but there were several boys playing in my yard, they got too rough, we asked them to leave, and now my sons football is missing" He said, "yuh". I said, "well, would you mind going and checking to see if he has it", he looked annoyed and walked inside. Two minutes later he came out and had the football in his hand and tossed it to me. Didn't say anything, nor did the older lady on the porch. I said, "maybe you should take this opportunity to talk to the boy about not stealing" he replied with, "yuh".  With the blatant disregard, I let him know that if anything like this ever happened again, I wouldn't be so cool about it, and I would call the cops. "Keep the boy off my property".

By this time there were around 15 boys ranging from 6 to 14ish standing around laughing. I asked them if they thought stealing was funny. They said "yuh, dis funny". I said, "son, how would you feel if someone walked into your yard, and stole your stuff", "aww nah man, it'd be a fight". I said, "look, stealing is wrong, and sitting back laughing about people stealing is no better, God does NOT like ugly". They apologized and went on their way. An hour later, the kids who stole the ball were hanging out in the street - unsupervised - again.

If the situation was flipped and Cain stole something - ANYTHING - from  ANYONE, not only would Cain be apologizing to the person he stole from, he'd more than likely get spanked (and I never hit my kids), along with being grounded from EVERYTHING for a month. Cain knows this, so he wouldn't even consider taking something that wasn't his. I would be mortified if someone came to my home and said my kid stole something. I sure as hell wouldn't sit there nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened.

This leads me to wonder how people live like this? You just go through life and don't give a second thought as to where your kids are and what they're doing? Most of the kids in our neighborhood are unsupervised in the street from age 4. I've had to yell at kids for darting behind my car when I'm backing out of my driveway. For not moving when people are driving down the street. I don't even know these kids, its not my responsibility to get onto them, yet I do it, because I don't want them run over.

I just wish more parents would take responsibility for their children. I wish that they would teach them right from wrong, supervise them, and guide them to do the right thing. My kids are NOT perfect. I am NOT a perfect mom. I make mistakes, and they make mistakes, but I know that my kids know right from wrong and they know the consequences of their actions. If a child doesn't KNOW that he'll get punished for _______, he will not care. He will act as he wants to and think about the consequence later. I have high expectations for my sons lives. I just wish every parent would realize that THE most important job they'll ever do in their lives, is raise their kids.