Is it normal to hate when people use "just kids" as an excuse?

79% Normal
8 Comments

You know I really dislike this excuse. I mean it might work for small things but it bothers me when people apply it to everything.

She got pregnant at 15 "Shes just a kid". 5 kids beat up one child and stole his lunch money "They are just kids". They harassed a retarded girl till committing suicide "They are just kids". Yeah maybe spilling coffee on your dads shirt is excusable with the fact you are a child.

Leading a retarded kid to suicide for laughs is clearly just fucked up. I mean shouldn't there be a line between "being a kid" and "This is serious"? Also not all children end up doing this stuff. I really don't think it should be encouraged with the excuse. "They are just kids".

You could find the worse possible crime and it will be defended by "Just a kid" as an excuse. I just don't think adding that to any mistake is helping when the issues are something severe.

Voting Results
79% Normal
Based on 24 votes (19 yes)
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Comments ( 8 )
  • Couman
    10 years ago

    "She got pregnant at 15 'Shes just a kid'."

    Huh. I can't decide if this is illogical or not. On the one hand only "kids" (by some definition) can get pregnant at 15 in the first place. So it's kind of silly to say. On the other hand, the position that becoming a teen mom is a terrible thing seems based on the assumption that teens are less competent, which also implies we should be understanding when they screw up.

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  • dom180
    10 years ago

    I think there are lots of common misconceptions here.

    The first is the misconception that an excuse absolves someone of all personal responsibility. It does not. It may absolve part of it, but the size and nature of the part is dependent on the relevance of the excuse.

    The second misconception is that excuses are somehow an encouragement. They are not. Withdrawal of a stick is not the same as the introduction of a carrot. Very few people want to do evil, and those who do probably will whether there is an excuse in place or not. Those who do not want to do evil will not be persuaded to become evil by seeing those who do receive light sentences. A light sentence is not an incentive if there is no desire in the first place.

    The third is that accepting an excuse is an admission that such behaviour is acceptable. It is not so. Excuses for actions should be considered objectively. They should not be considered with bias just because the consequences of the actions were terrible. Why should the impact of an action have a link to the apportionment of blame for it?

    Do you believe in all honesty that the mistakes we make as children, when we do not have the mental capacity to understand morality as our society has constructed it or our role in society, should be tied to us for the rest of our lives? Saying "no" to this question is not saying that the acts are not terrible, it is merely accepting the reasonable and well-supported premise that children are not like adults.

    EDIT: I hope this isn't the same OP I think it is.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      10 years ago

      If you kill someone as a child because you were stupid enough to think "Hey beating a retarded kid was funny" than yes you should be punished to the full extent of the law. Not all children do this sort of thing and this is never ok.

      Now if lets say you were given orders to do something a child is not very capable of doing and mess it up. Well that should be taken into some consideration when regarding the issue.

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  • [Old Memory]
    10 years ago

    I agree that "just kids" is not an excuse.

    I've actually never understood people who say kids don't know what they are doing.

    When I was a kid I wasn't a bully but I did do some bad things such as throw rocks at houses, throw stuff off cliffs onto cars, steal from stores, and many other vandalizing behaviors.

    I knew damn well what I was doing.

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  • pacinoharmon
    10 years ago

    I agree. If you know that a certain action is wrong, regardless of age, you shouldn't get away with it. I think bullies know how awful they're being, but they want to feel better about themselves so they put others down or pick on someone less fortunate...just my opinion.

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  • [Old Memory]
    10 years ago

    Correct you are. Under the current status quo, "responsibility" is practically a bad word.

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  • Energy
    10 years ago

    What? I never had that "he's just a kid" excuse when I was little. And I was ALWAYS in trouble. They actually were pissed off at me that I wasn't as mature as the other 'kids'. So I can't relate at all. And I've never heard someone use that phrase for important stuff like that. I am baffled by this knowledge. I guess I'm a bit jealous I was always hardcore scolded for my mistakes, but others have experienced different.

    On a side note, I don't know where you're from, but if you bully a retarded kid too death here...it won't be pretty at all. Kids with special needs always got special treatment at our schools. If ANYONE was to harm them, in ANY WAY.. there would be a lot of shit going down.

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  • thr
    10 years ago

    I think the example of someone getting pregnant at 15 is a bit odd in this context, since I would think that someone saying 'She's just a kid' would be saying that she's not ready to handle having a child, not commenting on how her immaturity let her make the mistake of getting pregnant.

    More to the matter, I think of saying 'they are just kids' in cases where 'they' have effected some tragic outcome as an explanation rather than an excuse. It may then be that there is also some degree of exoneration that goes along with that explanation.

    Children, teenagers and adults sometimes think and feel differently in a way that influenced by their age. I think one should not judge the actions of a child entirely as you would those of an adult.

    In cases where children do bad things, you can also ask the question of what could have been done differently by those, who had an effect on their upbringing.

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