If you live in Minneapolis, you’ve probably read the recent news item about a couple of teenage burglars who beat an 85-year-old man nearly to death in the process of stealing a few bucks from his modest home. The man has survived, but the photos they show of him on the news are sickening — red bruises all over his face, and stitches around and over the top of his scalp, the result of attempts to relieve swelling in his brain.

This is the kind of thing that makes me sick and angry, and I don’t have any sympathy for what will happen to the two young men who will hopefully be tried as adults and receive serious punishment. I doubt that their lives are redeemable to us — the prison system is nowadays more about keeping them away from us than turning prisoners back into fully functional human beings again. Maybe at one time there was hope that the man walking out of prison has soberly considered his actions and wants a new life, but now our hope is that he feels as much discomfort as possible and, for a given period of time, he can’t hurt anyone else.

But what may be the most disturbing aspect of this story is a quick soundbite that a reporter got from the mother of one of the suspects within a few days of the crime. Why the mother would show her face to the camera is a mystery, given the shame she ought to be feeling regarding her son — who, with his partner, were caught at the scene. After a quick, flat apology to the victim’s family, she said that the assailants were just kids who had “made a mistake.” I hope those photos of the elderly man on the receiving end of her son’s mistake are as haunting to her. But there’s no doubt how those kids learned to excuse their own behavior.

Mama Tried (performed by Merle Haggard)
Written by Merle Haggard

The first thing I remember knowing
Was a lonesome whistle blowing
And a young’un’s dream of growing up to ride

On a freight train leaving town
Not knowing where I’m bound
And no one could steer me right but mama tried

A one and only rebel child
From a family meek and mild
My mama seemed to know what lay in store

Despite all my Sunday learning
Towards the bad I kept on turning
Til mama couldn’t hold me anymore

And I turned 21 in prison
Doing life without parole
No one could steer me right but mama tried, mama tried
Mama tried to raise me better but her pleading I denied
That leaves only me to blame ’cause mama tried

Dear old daddy rest his soul
Left my mom a heavy load
She tried so very hard to fill his shoes

Working hours without rest
Wanted me to have the best
She tried to raise me right but I refused

And I turned 21 in prison
Doing life without parole
No one could steer me right but mama tried, mama tried
Mama tried to raise me better but her pleading I denied
That leaves only me to blame ’cause mama tried

Merle doesn’t say what crime landed his character in jail, but “life without parole” suggests that it was serious. (Merle himself focused on armed robbery, which is why he got to have a recording career and a few great songs about being an ex-con.) The key line in the song is, of course, “That leaves only me to blame ’cause mama tried.”

It’s an old-fashioned notion, captured in a 1970s country-western song, that you are responsible for your own actions, especially the awful ones. Maybe the problem was that these children weren’t raised on Merle Haggard. Or maybe it was, in their case, mama’s lack of trying.