Question of the Month: If your parent or child committed a major crime, would you turn them in?
I’m participating in this blog hop hosted by Michael at A Life Examined. Visit his blog to read more about the blog hop, find other bloggers participating, or to sign up.
My initial response was an absolute Yes. Justice must prevail. If they did something horrible, like murder, they need to be removed from society and pay their dues. Then, I hesitated. Some “What ifs” came to mind. Many great stories, real and imagined, have come from those What ifs. What if your child was married to an abusive man and the only way your daughter believed her children would be safe would be to kidnap them and never let him see them again? Now, imagine you’re the daughter. You’re in hiding, but you can’t resist contacting your parents. Your abusive husband knows you will eventually talk to them, so he presses your parents for information. He uses a lot of force. They know how smart, manipulative, and unrelenting he is, so they come up with a plan. They send him off into a dangerous environment, but to ensure he never makes it out, they sabotage his car.
Of course, my brain is going off on a wild story idea, but the truth is, I don’t know. Most likely, I’d turn them in. But, certain circumstances might give me a good reason to keep the truth hidden. Back in college the moral question was circulating about whether or not you would steal an expensive drug, say it was a million dollars, if you knew it would cure your loved one? Extend that to ask, “Would you turn that family member in for stealing it, even though it saved your child’s life?”
(I’m on a road trip this week, so I won’t be able to do much blog reading. Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll visit your blogs when I return to better WiFi territory!)
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Journaling Prompt: How would you answer that question? Have you ever been faced with that moral choice, even for a smaller offense?
Those are some good questions. As I said in my answer, it depends. Something like murder though, I would.
Safe travels!
Thanks, Alex.
“What if your child was married to an abusive man…?” That is a very good “what if” to consider. In that case, I would probably help my daughter/mother/sister get away from him.
These are great what-ifs. I don’t know that I would turn my daughter in for causing harm to an abuser because that would be more of a self-defense issue, but then again, if you knew of the situation, perhaps there would be a safer, legal way to get the daughter and her kids away from the abuser.
This is easy. Unless it involved animal, elder or child abuse or neglect, probably not. I just don’t believe in snitching. Makes enemies & seems the cops don’t do much anyway, unless the “perp” is unarmed &/or helpless.
Great response, Maxcine. We need to protect the most vulnerable.
I love it when the answers get complicated 😉 Everyone so far has been great in not just giving an absolute yes or no.
In the end, it was not a black/white issue.
Have fun on your road trip!
I like your what if.. sounds like a good story idea!
You raise a lot of good questions here. We’d like for everything to be black and white, and while some things are, most of the time we actually operate in the gray.
I must do the right thing because to live without a moral compass is impossible for me. That said, I would stand by them and face the consequences with them, letting them know they are not alone.
Anna from Elements of Writing
There’s always what ifs, but the problem one has unfortunately isn’t going to go away.