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I once read somewhere that in North Korea, if that's the right clime, that if an individual commits a crime, three generations in his family are punished. My jaw dropped cause that's wild. If it were in countries with high crime rates and considering that anyone could do something unlawful, then maybe almost every household would go through the pain.
I think this scenario is similar to punishing anyone for the sins of a member of their family. I never planned to table my debate in this fashion but I will since it readily came too mind when I saw this prompt and it aligns with my opinion.
In the Bible, the book of Ezekiel 18:20 reads: "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself."
This is my answer to the prompt. I know that somewhere in the book of Exodus talks about visiting the iniquities of the parents upon the children but that was far behind in the earlier book.
I believe that children should not have to suffer for their parent(s) mistakes and vice versa. However, i think, in most instances, it is unavoidable for the child to suffer some consequences of the bad choices their parents have made, especially if their parents continue making bad choices.
Whether or not the child suffers publicly or
privately, is a matter of the crime or notoriety of the crime committed. Either way, there are psychological effects on the child that are not from the child's own doing. Depending on how the situation is handled, those effects can spiral out of control and be damaging to the child, or the effects can be used as tools for building character and strength and integrity in the child.
The condition that I might agree that the children joins in to bear the brunt is if the children knew what the parents were doing and were happy to benefit from the proceeds. If they did nothing to stop the crime continuing or encouraged it, they should face the consequences.
But the innocent should not be tarred with the same brush as the guilty. It is not the fault of a seven year old if her mum killed someone in a drunk driving.
Nor is it her fault if mummy is cooking the books at work. The child should be able to grow free from any stigma.
And even if the parent committed the crime to benefit the child (stealing when the family is in poverty) the child had no direct influence over the parent to commit the crime.
If the parent committed the crime before the child was even born then why on earth should the child carry the burden?
The only other time I would answer differently is if the child is in fact an adult and the parent was acting under duress caused by their child, or was suffering dementia and was being influenced.
Some people might disagree and I think I understand. But this is just my stance.
I hope that this was interesting to read. Thanks for coming around.