Notre Dame football recruit dies in fall from hotel balcony

When parents try to be their children's best friends, that cost usually extends well into the adult life of the kids.

 

I hate it when I hear of stories like this that make situations more tragic than some inner-city kid killed in a drive-by. You always hear about what a "great kid" the former is - while the latter is somehow a statement on our society.
That this was a Catholic school is even more laughable.
Thoughts and prayers to the family and friends, I imagine a situation like this, kind of like the Natalee Holloway deal, will be haunting them for years.

 

But it's a good way to get killed.

 

Apparently we have way too many people around here who have never seen the movie Beach Blanket Bingo.

High school kids have been jetting off to Florida & Padre and other locales for damn near 50 years.

To act like this is a new phenomenon and this kid's death is his parents' fault is the height of stupidity and has no place in this discussion.

 

Right on it not being new. Wrong on parental responsibility.

 

I know when I went to Catholic school partying on Good Friday was out of the question. Maybe St. Xavier has a different interpretation.

 

So it's the parents' fault the kid is dead?

 

Yes, because he shouldn't have been there in the first place.

 

It's partially their fault for allowing a 17-year-old to put himself in a dangerous situation. Their part is extremely tiny, because it was mostly just bad luck, but choices have consequences.

 

When the guy throwing about terms such as "the height of stupidity" is basing a large part of his argument on "Beach Party Bingo" I'm tempted to wonder if I'm being put on ...

But assuming I'm not. Look, I went to high school long after Beach Party Bingo, in a relatively large, relatively affluent school system, and I didn't know anybody - not a single person - whose parents would let them travel to Florida for spring break, even with some parents as chaperones.

I've also literally covered thousands of kids as high school athletes and been in a lot of high schools and - again - never heard of such a thing.

Reasonable people can disagree about how often this goes own, but to throw around the idea that so common it can't even be debated ... and to use the terms you used ... well, I'm left wondering if you're having a bad day.

And, yes, the parents are at fault.

Parents have a responsibility to protect their children from situations they can't handle. If I let my 3-year-old cook his breakfast - and he'd happily haul a chair over and try - and he gets burned, I'm at fault. If I let a 16-year-old drive when she's clearly too immature, and she crashes, I'm at fault.

And if I let my 17-year-old party in Panama City or Aruba ... yes, I certainly bear a large share of the responsibility for what goes wrong.

 

People who think high school kids going on spring break is a new phenomenon haven't been paying fucking attention for the last 50 fucking years.

 

If it was one of the parents, the line from Blues Brothers comes to mind. You know, when the officer tells Jake and Elwood "Boys... you're in big trouble."