Judge Passionately Tells World '3 Things You Can Do To Guarantee Your Child Goes To Jail'
Lists of rules guaranteed to positively impact followers’ lives have been with us for a long time. Just think back to Moses’ descent from Mount Sinai with the tablets of the Law cradled in his hands to get an idea of just how long.
Recently, though, we seem to have experienced a resurgence of morally focused list making, thanks in no small part to the success of Canadian psychologist Jordan B. Peterson’s book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.” The internet seems awash in meme mandates designed to make things better, and even better-known names are getting in on it.
Bloomberg columnist and author Megan McArdle got into the game with suggestions such as “be kind” and “always make more dinner rolls than you think you can eat.” Ryan Holiday, who wrote “The Obstacle Is the Way,” even tried his hand at distilling Stoicism into a dozen suggestions.
Now a judge from the Houston, Texas, area has penned his own list of rules — only his come with a twist. However, understand that Justice of the Peace Wayne L. Mack didn’t always seek a legal career.
He started out working as an unpaid church intern and took a job as a janitor to make ends meet. “I always tell people my memoir is going to be called, ‘From Janitor to Judge and all the mess I cleaned up along the way,’” Mack quipped to Community Impact Newspaper.
Later, he went on to work for a police department and only began serving as a judge in 2014. “The only office I was interested in serving in was justice of the peace because that’s the one position where you can literally make a difference and help people every single day,” he said.
But lately, Mack seems to have realized that the justice system can only do so much, particularly when violators of the law are young. After dealing with numerous probable cause hearings during this year’s spring break, hearings where most of the defendants were in their late teens, the judge decided that he’d had enough.
While in the courtroom, “I just thought, ‘There is no way your mom or dad knew where you were,’” he said. “The majority of juvenile cases I deal with have to do with inattentive parenting.”
So he posted a video on his Facebook page that laid out some of his own rules for life. But according to Mack, this trio of rules are guaranteed to land teens in the slammer.
What are they? First, “Don’t hold your child accountable.
“Don’t know where they’re at, don’t know who they’re hanging out with, don’t know where they’re going. Just let them go anywhere they want to (and) do anything they want to do.”
Next, “Don’t teach them the greatest ability of responsibility.” And finally, “Let them lie to you.”
Mack’s video has since gone viral, and though the judge acknowledges that not every situation is the same, he’s thankful for the largely positive response. “I hope it encourages people to keep doing the right thing,” he told KCCI.
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