By LILLIAN RIDLEN, LAPLACE

DEAR EDITOR: I applaud Councilman Dale Wolfe for his honesty and insight into what St. John’s budget does not cover.

Has anybody ever asked teen-agers why they dropped out of school? Or where they so easily get all the crack cocaine some are out on the street selling, or other drugs? Who got them hooked on dope?

Why are so many area teen-agers drunk and getting home at 2 or 3 a.m. on weekends?

Just who is giving them so much freedom, too much at times, to hang with those who, in the long run, have dragged them down and ruined their lives?

Why were the streets and gang members allowed to bring the lifestyle into the parish’s schools? Why did the bullying and vulgarity go on, day after day, unchecked?

What kind of adults emerge from teen-agers who shoplift, steal from their neighbors, families and unsuspecting victims? What parent with a child who has no job to earn money can’t see their child with far more than they give them to be spending?

There are a lot of good, caring parents whose children don’t follow the pied piper into becoming alcoholics, drug addicts, thieves, bullies or murderers. Who call their parents strict. Who know where they are, whom they are out with and set curfews on them as what time to be home. Who make their education a priority, care if they struggle and try to help them cope with their failures and praise their successes.

A teen-ager’s life should not have to begin in a rehab center or in a drug court. They should not be made to live in abusive homes where domestic violence is everyday fare. Where there is no peace to study, and to learn, so they can fight their way out of poverty and go out in life and become somebody. A good wage-earner, a business owners, a councilman, parish president, governor, judge, state representative.

Others not born into poverty let to run loose all too often, get into the wrong crowds, can just as easily wind up dead on a sidewalk or wearing the duds at Angola.

But don’t expect their drug dealers to show up at the funeral or be there for them as a show of support when the judge’s gavel comes down on the long-term sentence. For the trouble brought on by booze or drugs and too much freedom and time on their hands unsupervised.

Too many teen-agers and younger children are left home alone four to seven nights a week as their parents are out partying and leave them at home totally unsupervised. Some are on the phone the minute mom and dad pull off, calling dozens of their buddies over to party hearty and clean up before the parents get back.

It’s hard to do schoolwork the next day in a daze from the night before.

Some parents expect teachers and others to straighten out and shape up their wild, unruly children at school. No! That is the parents’ job to do before a child enters the classroom. Children learn more by the examples their parents set at home. Trying to push off that responsibility on everyone else just does not wash. You can’t mess up your child by neglect and bad examples then expect someone else to undo the damage.

If your child or teen-ager is ruling the roost at home, just who was it then who allowed them to take over?

Shouldn’t it be worth the effort not to become better at excuses, but to change what’s wrong at home and not need to make excuses, and not just talk the talk but walk the walk?

It isn’t up to social workers, teachers or rehab personnel to know where one’s child or teen-ager is or what they are into and up to. That is still the parents’ job.