I bought a CD recently by Mindless Self Indulgence, and it has this paragraph in the insert;

A warning for those of you lazy, self-absorbed and/or just plain inattentive parents; all the cencorship in the world won't make up for bad parenting. If your child is more influenced by our music than by mommy & daddy, both you and your offspring have much bigger problems than our lyrics. So before you go hauling us or any other artist into court, look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you did the best you could. Because if you're considering taking us to court, you didn't.

The above paragraph can easily apply to games too. Unfortunately, you do sometimes see bad parenting, or at least form an opinion about some parents. It's only natural for us to form opinions (even if they are misguided sometimes). I can't say I've ever really delved into the nature vs. nurture debate.

I think my parents did a great job in raising me, and I thank them greatly for it. I believe I am both mature and responsible. I certainly act immature sometimes; I like dirty humour and stereotypical humour, and my curiosity can border on the morbid side at times. However, I don't break stuff, don't steal stuff, or do anything to intentionally hurt myself, or other people for my benefit. And hey, I play video games and shoot dudes in the face. I'm far from a socially corrupt individual.

But maybe it goes the other way too. What I'm about to describe is second hand knowledge and I don't know the people involved, but it is a true account and illustrates my point. There was a teenager who was a hooligan. He was into theft, stayed out all night, vandalism, violence, etc. Apparently someone asked the parents how they could let their child get that way. Their response was that they had done everything they could, and friends of theirs backed them up as being good parents. Unfortunately since he had been given more freedom, he had turned to crime. So can you blame the parents in this case? By all accounts they really had tried to be good parents, leading by example. No parent can restrict their children from being exposed to the rest of the world forever.

It does seem there is a correlation between perceived bad parenting and youth crime. Of course correlation does not necessarily mean causation. If you see a misbehaving youth and the parents behaviour appears to fit what many would consider to be 'bad parenting', it is very easy to point to them as the factor that made their children that way. But what if the parents are model citizens? Then who is to blame? One could say society. I don't know.

I'm rambling a bit now; I didn't really have a point to make, just expressing some thoughts. So I will leave it there and let others discuss.