I've been allowed to cuss since I could talk, so have my my two younger siblings. My mother drops the "f"-bomb every other word, and so does my construction worker stepfather, so it was pretty hard NOT to pick it up. So no one starts hatin' on my mother, I must add that she believes that words are words, and only hold whatever power you choose to give them; they lose their potency after awhile, and I find that I don't swear NEARLY as much as some of my family does now.
Part of that arrangement is knowing time and place as well, for the repurcussions of swearing at the wrong time are ours and ours alone. I've been tackled and had hotsauce AND pepper dumped down my throat by my father-dearest (when I was little), but my grandparents and the rest of my family cuss too, so I've never been reprimanded by them. My 13 year old brother cusses pretty bad, but knows better than to do it in public, or at school.
I've also been allowed to smoke since an early age, but it was my responsibility to buy my own cigarettes; I bought ONE pack when I turned eighteen, and ended up giving them to my mother. I experimented with smoking at an early age, and found it really gross, so it never stuck~
As far as drugs are concerned, I've never done any, and my mother knows this, but isn't ignorant of "the way things are". I've been around drugs AND alcohol, and I won't claim to have never done some illegal drinking, but she knows that, and just tells me to be safe. She would rather me call her to be picked up, than try and hide my actions and wind up wrapped around a telephone pole.
I kinda take offense to people saying that boy is going to wind up in jail though... I dress in a less than typical fashion, and I have to put up with closed-minded idiots all of the time.
Just because I dye my hair crazy colors, pierce my face shut, tattoo my body, and decide to wear a lot of black, doesn't mean that I'm a bad person.
Just because my mother has smoked since she was 12 (and was also allowed to do so), doesn't mean SHE's a bad person.
Just because I say a few bad words, doesn't mean that I'm a bad person.
Just because 95% of the teenage population has tried drugs, doesn't mean that THEY're bad people.
They're just that...people. We all make mistakes and do stupid things, and the teenage years are perfect for that, but what matters is the type of person you turn into at the end of all the crazy.
To sum it up, that teenage boy is a cookie-cutter image of almost every boy I knew in school, though styles may differ.
