MY child would NEVER do a thing like that!

Here we go again. The number one reason that kids grow up to be rotten adults: Parents who defend, excuse and otherwise enable them, turning a blind eye to their bad acts and denying it even when their spawn is caught red-handed.

This piece was taken from an article about the violent protesters arrested during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN.

St. Paul attorney Jerome Rudawski found himself in an unusual situation Wednesday when he stood before Ramsey County District Judge Edward Wilson and represented his 21-year-old daughter, Tovah, a college senior who took part in Monday's protest and was charged with third-degree riot, a gross misdemeanor.

He said he was shocked at what her experience showed of the system he thought he knew.

"This has put a terrible taste in my mouth about the law, I'll tell you that," he said. "I'm not sure how I would ever explain to the next generation of lawyers what happened at the RNC."

The criminal complaint alleges Tovah Rudawski and 17 others were in the area of Shepard Road and Ontario Street when they began advancing toward police in opposition to orders. From behind a large corrugated metal sign, they threw fecal matter, rocks, chunks of blacktop, exploding fireworks and other objects at police, the complaint says.

Nonsense, her father said: "She was absolutely peacefully protesting."

Riiight. Dad wasn't there and the police officers were, but he knows better than they do what they saw. And in Jerome Rudawski's eyes, I guess it's "peaceful" for his daughter Tovah (which, ironically, is Hebrew for "good") to crap into a bag and take it downtown to throw at police officers and other people that she disagrees with politically.

This is what happens when you spoil kids and fail to teach them right from wrong. And when you blindly defend them like Jerome is defending Tovah, it only encourages them to go farther the next time.

I'm sure that many of you can remember back when you were young. I know that I can, and I recall my parents NEVER blindly defending me and denying that I did something when another adult told them that they'd just seen me do it. I grew up with the understanding that any other adult witnessing me cutting up was the same thing as my parents seeing it themselves, because my parents knew that other adults weren't going to come up to the house and lie to them about me for no apparent reason. If a neighbor said that I did something, then I was guilty. And looking back, it wasn't unfair, because I unquestionably did the things that the neighbors told my parents that I'd done. But it taught me that it was important to do the right thing even when my parents weren't looking, because they had ways of seeing everything and I was held accountable for things that they couldn't possibly have seen me do.

I think that it made me grow up a better kid, at least better than many of the kids that I've known and dealt with professionally who thumbed their noses at everyone, adults included, because they knew that their parents would take their side against anyone--neighbors, teachers, the police, etc.--who reported any misconduct to their parents and expected the parents to actually correct that kid. we've all heard it:

"MY child would NEVER do such a thing! How DARE you accuse him/her/it of that!"

Meanwhile, the kid is standing right behind that parent, grinning and making faces at you.

That's the kid that usually winds up in more serious trouble as an adult. Mom and dad can't defend them forever and doing so when they're young is only setting them up for greater failure later on in life.

Tovah Rudawski is learning that now. (Or maybe not, since she's still getting free legal defense from daddy even though she's technically an adult now at age 21.)

if there's any justice to come from this, it'll have to come in the form of a judge who slaps Tovah hard enough to get through to her, or potential employers who Google her name, find this story, and decide that it's not worth the trouble to hire someone so immature and spoiled that they throw their own poop at people, just like a monkey in the zoo. The internet is forever, and even daddy can't make this story go away.

EDITED TO ADD: Looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. While most attorneys go their entire professional lives without ever being disciplined, Daddy Jerome Rudawski's been sanctioned and disciplined at least four times by the State Bar in Minnesota and even had his license to practice law suspended twice by the Minnesota Supreme Court, the second time for continuing to represent clients during the first suspension. I guess it only makes sense that the rules of proper conduct shouldn't apply to Tovah when Daddy Jerome still doesn't want to obey them as an adult and alleged professional. No wonder his kid grew up to be a punk.