I know Perri. But a lot of kids
do make things up. Then there are those who fall for it and try to live up to other peoples stories. I know a kid like that. Exceptionally smart kid, always got good grades. She was sort of shy and she thought she was not good looking. So when she moved to a new neighborhood and it seemed like the way to be cool was to be mean and bad, she threw herself into the role. Her mom, at her wit's end, sent her to live w/ an older sister up here near Pittsburgh. I guess she was around 16 or 17 by then. And she was ready for a change, though she probably would not have said so if you'd asked her.
Now she's married, raising a beautiful 1yo son deep in the bossom of suburbia and, I think, relatively happy. While no one knows for sure what might have happened if she hadn't moved out of state, I sort of suspect this kid would have done just about the same anywhere you put her.
Like I've said before, there are damned good reasons why we all get a clean slate at the age of majority. Oh, and BTW, the traditional age of majority for European cultures is usually 21, not 18. The reason why America changed it to 18 was because of the Vietnam draft. The argument was that it was rediculous to force an 18yo kid to go kill and die for his country. Then when he gets home we tell him he can't have a damned beer? So the Nixon admin essentially said "Ok, give them some damned beer!" That was reversed in around `82 or so, just prior to my 18th birthday.
The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.".
--George Washington, Revolutionary War General and U.S. President