Why is my teen-age daughter stealing?...

[DanaC]

Dana, why are you trying to position yourself as some kind of modern Jean Valjean when you were stealing lipsticks and trinkets so you could spend your money on weed or other things you considered essential?

*laughs* I am not attempting to do any such thing. The bread example was just the simplest thing that came to mind as a way of illustrating my point, in answer to questions about the difference I perceive in the different types of crime. As to why I was engaging in such nefarious doings: as I have already said, as a youngster it was something me and mates did for kicks. As a young woman it was somethng I did because I and my partner had no income and both were too proud (stupid) to admit we'd utterly failed at the living in the real world thing and go back to our parents houses as we should have done. I didn't have any money to spend on 'other things I considered more essential'. I survived on what I could beg, borrow or steal and lived one hour to the next.

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I am not in any way suggesting that this was the best response to the situation. Were I to find myself in that situation now, I'd handle it differently. Nor do I look back and see some kind of moral thief taking nothing but bread and cheese. It was what it was. I have done things in my life I am proud of, things I am mildly shamed by and things I am pretty ambivalent about. This stuff I am ambivalent about. I was foolish enough at the time to believe my options to be far more limited than they actually were.