Don't.

Laws exist not to irk you personally. They are not created to annoy you, raise your indignation levels or... to be broken by you- just because.

There are legal rules to follow and there are moral laws. Both need respect- and both need to stay unbroken by you. I am not advocating living the life of a perfect saint. We've all broken a law- at least once. But most of us do it without realising or through a lapse of attention. Few of us set out deliberately and with the full intent of committing a crime- in jest, no less.

The other night (close to midnight) Dyls got a text from Boyd: "Can your mum pick us up, we had to hop off a stop early as ticket inspectors were on the train."

I am who I am. We jumped in the car and drove along the rail tracks looking for them. It was a cold night and Molly was... underdressed as usual? I heard police sirens on the other side of the tracks- I won't lie, the thought entered my mind that I may, in fact, have been aiding 'fugitives' from one minor crime or another.

"They shouldn't fare-evade mum. And they shouldn't sneak into movies."

"I know."

"Risking hundreds of dollars in fines- when all they need is to top up a Myki card with a few bucks? And then calling you like twelve-year-olds- to come get them?"

"Fines aren't real to them babe."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, they get a piece of paper- but they don't equate it with a debt owed. Or money, for that matter. They see only 'injustice' and bad luck... them getting caught!"

I thought about what I said- my comment left unexplored since we'd spotted them and I'd picked them up, Molly shivering.

I know I am using Molly and Boyd often as examples of late. This, because our home is suddenly... out of sync. We never lived with rules. Now, we had to impose them on guests?

Last Friday was a public holiday. Dylan and I were sitting on the 'new' lounge suite at the back, (purchased feeling rather chuffed at the fact we'd got it from someone who'd featured in some show called "Picking Wars" or something- as the bloke who'd delivered it had explained.) We were clocking Spyro 1- this because he'd discovered some hidden levels online.

Molly emerged in a crop top, midriff bare, and thin black tights with... white/black spotted knickers clearly visible. She may as well have emerged just in her knickers. She was also stoned. At 9.00am. My father was making his breakfast. His face- he came to my room later and said: "If they're not out of here in two days, I am calling the police. This is a home, not a half-way house."

It would have been hilarious- the idea of dad picking up the phone and dialling 000 to complain about the lack of female decency. But I stood with him, understanding his distaste. Not so funny.

Her total disregard for the fact there were adults (as in elderly, conservative adults in the house - never mind this adult) and her wave of the hand disrespect... I was mighty miffed.

A friend of theirs came and... off they went, to the nearest mall. The money owed to me forgotten. The agreed-to 'plan' to put money aside in a special account and keep the rest as cash so they can see what money is left... forgotten. The chat about 'giving back' in other ways- since they were paying no rent... ignored. Every conversation ignored. Every bit of advice disregarded.

"How much of your pay do you have left, Boyd?" This, when they returned and they came in asking to "borrow some weed". (I'd purchased $100 worth the day before which would normally see me through a few weeks, at least, given I smoke one or at most two joints of a night-time.)

"I dunno? Maybe a couple of hundred bucks?"

"Where did the rest go?" He'd been paid the day before. A fortnight before his next pay stretched ahead.

"Ummm... bought some weed and-"

"Ye, but you're gonna sell some of it-" This from Molly. Hackles raised in his defence.

Whoa! The alarm bells in my head began their now-usual chime. Only much louder. More like the police sirens passing outside again.

"And the rest? Where did the rest of your money go?"

"Food?"

"Bullshit."

"I dunno?"

Off they went to buy some fish and chips for dinner before I could pursue it further yet again.

In came Dylan. "Mum, you have to speak to them. Lay down some rules. Like, no breaking the law. If they continue like this we'll have the police at our door."

"What the fuck have I done? I've brought discord into our home!"

"Well, do something about it now. It's affecting everyone."

"What do you know babe? Talk to me."

"They steal. Everyday. Like snacks or drinks or clothing and other stuff. Did you know, when we took Molly to Savers (a privately-run thrift shop we frequent) she stole a heap of clothes and jewellery? Boyd told me."

"Huh. No wonder I didn't see her buy anything! You saying she stole with me there? She didn't care?"

"Exactly! Plus, they fare-evade daily. They use and deal drugs- you see them, off their faces from the moment they wake. He drives unlicenced. And what do you think happens when these so-called friends turn up here, huh?" (This in reference to the array of different 'scruffy' dudes  in hoodies introduced as 'friends' showing up for a short visit almost daily...)

"He's dealing drugs out of our home?"

"Duh?"

"Fuck."

"It's the culture. They don't understand what theft means- or what their behaviour is exposing us to. They think it all a joke. Or not even that. They think life is this, that this is normal."

"Won't be a joke when I get called to bail their asses out!"

"Exactly. You need to sit them down and... let them know this is a home! You took them in, and instead of being grateful, they are using you."

"I love Boyd- I... Dyls, I am conflicted for the first time. If I speak, I won't be heard, you know this. They are not open to my advice, that's bloody obvious. But if I throw them out- it's only a short hop to the streets and hard drugs and two young lives ruined. I couldn't bear it!"

"Ye, but they are both naive. You have to explain what it means, being invited into a home. This is a chance for them to sober up and change direction, not to use us as they please. We shouldn't be cleaning after them or saving their asses. The outdoor setting is full of empty bottles and cans of alcohol and cigarette and joint butts everywhere. Go look! I have to clean all that up before grandma and grandpa see- you know how that's gonna go down!"

I looked. Sure enough, there'd been a party out there- for some days, judging by the quantities of empty alcohol containers and other rubbish left behind. I'd been too busy still arranging our belongings inside to venture out to the very back porch where they'd conveniently placed our outdoor setting and used it for themselves.

The crunch moment, though, came on that Saturday. Boyd had informed us three of their 'friends' would pop over. But he lied. He snuck them in through the back door after midnight and they spent the night; two girls under 18 and three guys in one room with a double bed in it and nothing else save for some random rasta prints tacked to the walls and some incense sticks to mask the smell of weed and stacks of clothes on the floor since the three-door timber wardrobe sitting out in the shed was nose-upped as "too old".

This, after I'd already explained that I needed them to stay quiet for a couple of weeks and that they were welcome to have friends over- but not have them staying the night- me battling a side-issue with mum which was being exacerbated by the added tension.

He snuck them in. He lied to me. Mid of the night I woke to doof doof and loud merriment. Dylan's room is right next to theirs- so I could foresee a bleary-eyed kid with dark circles under his eyes in the morning. Again.

I now must tell them to ship out.

It pains me.

Not only for the lost opportunity offered them - let's face it, I'm about as gracious, generous and tolerant a host as you're likely going to get - but also for the sheer disregard of what 'family' is. MY family.

I ran it past him, seeking an adult male perspective: "What do you think?"

"Get rid of them," was his stern response. "If they are caught with drugs in your house or dealing out of there, you will probably all become implicated."

"I know."

I do know. What I have to do. It still doesn't make it any easier.

Young lives have always mattered to me. Broken lives, frozen lives, spiralling lives- I want to save any who cross my path. Because sure- sometimes parents and to some extent the communities they are born into do fail their kids. Sometimes, parents plain suck at parenthood. My heart aches. My own childhood rears up- and I want to do anything I can to improve theirs.

But. That does not give licence to kids to live as though laws are a joke and purely optional. I hate laws, truth be told. I hate abiding them myself- least some of the more nonsensical ones. But they keep society and the immediate community safer- that's what I believe. We owe it to each other; this common respect and decency, backed by a set of shared rules.

... There's a small grocery store the other side of the railway tracks. We often walk there to buy the odd forgotten thing from our daily shopping at the much larger supermarket. It is run by two Chinese gentlemen. On the wall behind the cash-register are over a dozen pics taken off their surveillance cameras. They show various young people in the acts of stealing. Their faces clearly visible; some of them openly grinning.

"That's good!" I'd said one day. "Shame them!"

"No good. They come back, do it again."

"What, even with their faces displayed like this?" I was shocked.

"Yes. They do it on purpose. And they are young, so I cannot touch them. I will be the one in trouble if I try to stop them. They run away, laughing at me."

I hmmm'ed all the way home.

I knew Molly and Boyd had also stolen from there, at least once. My boys no longer go out to buy the odd fish and chip or pizza dinner with them because they're both next door to the grocery store and they know the owners have seen our guests steal- since they'd both boasted about it. Guilt by association- it's a foreign concept to them, and one they are steering well clear of.

Why do it?

Why steal? Why fare-evade? Why risk driving unlicensed and therefore uninsured and therefore serving as a menace to every other driver on the road? Why insist that every law be broken- just because?

What consumed me was this 'accepted culture' of living on the edge. Edgy my ass!

It's cool? You think robbing someone of their livelihood is cool? You think 'getting away' with stealing this and that is edgy? You think hooning in the wee hours and speeding and fare-evading on toll roads and public transport is an adventure? You think you're living some "Catch me if you can" thriller?

You're not.

I am no friend of authority. In fact, both boys have grown up anticipating some measure of challenging authority; never blindly accepting it. But there's a difference- one can challenge authority without breaking the laws within it which apply equally to all. It is this which frustrates me: Young people somehow thinking these laws were put in place as an option for them or... a personal dare, or means to a thrill.

I was you once. But there were fewer laws in place "back in my day" and... far fewer but greater tragedies as a result: Too many young lives lost on our roads. Too many young lives ruined by drugs- cocaine, heroin and later speed, hitting our relatively innocent burbs and wrecking homes. Too much crime and a police force handicapped by lack of surveillance, computing power and of course, the internet.

Those messing up then, remained messed up. It was an expected part- this 'element of lawlessness' and, any aftermath - like homeless people and druggies and life-crims -  was treated as such. You did the crime? Well, you either ended up doing time, living as a fugitive/misfit... or dead. We got it wrong back then. We never allowed for true rehabilitation. We never believed young people, especially, could rise up and break the shackles and stop the cycle and... redirect their energies (and their nous) towards good, not bad deeds. 

I lost quite a few people I knew. Lives taken, lives destoyed, lives wrecked before 'life' had even  begun in earnest. One had his head decapitated- getting involved with the drug underworld. Another, a gorgeous young girl, overdosed on heroin. Someone else died abusing psych meds. A few suicided- spiralling to where there appeared no other solution.

... And a dad lives not far from here - still in his mother's house, still using and toying with the law as though he is... still eighteen. Having had no contact with our boys for several years now. He blames 'life' and his childhood. I blame him- because he definitely was given every opportunity to rehabilitate- and he chose not to.

So, listen up: If life has got you in a mess and suddenly there's a rope for you to grasp and pull yourself out- grasp it tightly. Recognise your good fortune and don't shit where you sleep. Or elsewhere not deemed appropriate.

Time moves you on. It doesn't stop and wait for you to have a light-bulb moment and catch up. Where it moves you to - be it a second chance, an awakening, an opportunity to better your circumstances - grasp it damn it! They don't come often, these positive changes in direction. When they do, heed! Listen and SEE the lives you impact with your presence and your actions. There are legal and moral laws. Breaking them at a time you are supposed to be 'cleaning yourself up'... where's the damn logic?

I hate what today is bringing. I have to throw Boyd and Molly out. I have to act to protect MY family. My heart aches and the words - despite doing the round and round thing in my head - will be reluctantly passed on. I hate that I am forced to do this. I hate that I must assume the role of bad guy- in their minds.

Comes the day you too will have to choose; when a generous, caring soul (or three) reach out to help you sort out your mess. What will you do huh? Shit all over the goodness offered you? What? Are you too edgy for rules? You bloody idiot!

These years- they determine the rest of your life. What you do, how you behave- patterns established now will follow you till you die.

"Mum, I still don't understand how they can't see this as an opportunity. And if they refuse to see it- then they don't deserve it."

"It hurts babe? That your friend is out of control?"

"Ye."

"I'm sorry. I wanted... you know me! I can't ignore young lives destroyed, the need to help-."

"They're never going to listen. You've given them three weeks now. Enough."

When your kid says enough - about one of his closest friends - and your kid is hurting... you do what you must as a parent: Protect HIS well-being ahead of everyone else's.

He got really upset the other day. It was a weekday and Boyd had stumbled in at 2 am. He had to be up by 5.30 to get the bus then train to his work. He knocked on my door at 7.45:

"Elise, can I borrow your car for the day? I slept in, and I can't be late again."

"Sorry, I need the car to take the folks to the doc." (Like hell I'm getting my car inpounded!)

"I have to drive mine, then. Won't put the P plates on."

"You don't want to do that, Boyd. They know your car around that area. You understand, if you get caught again, there's the risk of them crushing it? Not just impounding it."

"Yeah. But I got no choice. I might lose my job."

"Boyd-"

"Hey, do you mind waking me next time- if, you know, if you don't hear me get up by a certain time?"

"Sure." (My ass I will!) "But Boyd, I still think-"

He was gone. Lucky, this time, he and the car both returned. But the next time? When his endless supply of luck finally runs out? A car crushed, with a substantial debt still owed on it. Public transport fines piling up... And he, evading his messes by drowning his supposed sorrows and 'hard life' in drugs and alcohol. A perpetual state of denial. That's so damn edgy!

I wish that Molly and Boyd would wake to a different future come morning. What they will wake to- it is heartbreaking for me. Maybe it won't be for them, who bloody knows? Maybe they will laugh at me and move on to another room in another house- till they're thrown out of there too.

Who is at fault? Their respective parents? The culture surrounding them? A society bound by rules- often misread as optional by these young, troubled minds?

"Dyls, understand this- and I must use your father as an example here: Me sitting them down and dishing out some rules... I'll just be placed on the 'authority' side. I'll be part of what they rebel against- much like I was for your dad. My words will bounce off, they won't be taken in. How many conversations, how much effort-"

"I know."

"So you understand, there's no other solution here."

"Mum, I am the one telling you to throw them out!"

"And what happens to them after this..."

"Hey, you gave them the opportunity! They not only use you and the rest of us, they abuse every privilege. Boyd knows us, knows how important family is. He's changed, mum."

"Yeah, he has."

"Look at his friends. They are all the same- living day to day and believing life owes them. Bullshit. I thought... when he moved in... I thought he'd see how far he's strayed and pull himself back. Where's a better place than here to do that? I'm pissed at him!"

"Me too babe."

I will be giving them a week- to clear out of here. That should be ample time to find a couch at least. Their parasitic lifestyle will continue- and you know... they believe NONE of this is their fault. It astounds me, this systematic lack of foresight:

"What?"

This yelled by Molly, over the hair-dryer the other day, as I'd listened to mum say, "She took out Dylan's washing and dumped it on the floor. Then she put theirs in and forgot all about it. I put it all in a basked but I'm not hanging it up for them!"

"Your washing Molly... it's gonna get mouldy and badly crushed, sitting in the laundry basket. Hang it up, the sun is out!"

"Oh ye, sure."

I knew this response well. It was the "Ye, thanks for nagging me again, I will now go out and totally disregard what you asked me to do. Just because." She promptly left, wearing more make-up than clothes.

Boyd came home after work and hung their clothes up eventually. This, because I'd hefted the basket and placed it right in their doorway. We watched him raise a foot over it back and forth a few times before it sunk in: That basket wasn't going to move unless he dealt with it.

But that's no reason to rejoice. Or even a glimmer of hope. He did it because he had to.

I am so, so sorry.

I said to Dyls last night: "I need to process this, I need to write it out."

"Molly and Boyd don't read, mum. Knock yourself out. But maybe some others out there might learn something?"

"That's always in my thoughts babe."

"Tell them... never mind, you know what to say."

"I know."

So I wrote the bulk of this. Then, at about nine in the morning, Boyd knocked on my door: "Can I borrow your car to go grab some snacks?"

"Why can't you walk?"

"I wanna go to Chelsea."

"Then take the train, it's one stop away!"

"It'll take too long."

"Well, then how bout you come along when we go out?"

"Maybe. Hey, can I also borrow a ciggie?"

"You run out?"

"Yep."

"You run out of money too?"

"No? I still have some but... I'm not telling you how much!" (Molly you silly girl! Offsetting my advice with... anarchy?)

They were both obviously broke again. With nine days to go until next payday. Fuck. It meant our daily shop would now include supplies for two extra people... again.

I tried to say something. All day. I should have spoken up when I found the tissue spotted with blood sitting on top of the bin in the bathroom. I knew those tiny pinpricks of blood- what caused them. Someone had injected something. Or when I walked past the cardboard box full of empty alcohol cans- sitting on the inside of the back door, hour after hour till I chucked it in the recycle bin. Or when Boyd gave Dylan fifteen bucks to "buy us some snacks, Molly wants to cuddle," when we were heading out - the list on Dylan's phone wayyyy over that tiny budget - and him replying "Whipped!" to Boyd. Or when they said they were going to the movies at 9 pm - meaning they were sneaking in - and could they "borrow some ciggies, thanks".

I tried. I didn't say anything because-

"I need to speak to Boyd alone babe. We have the "Don't listen to her, it's none of her business, what we do," thing going on with Molly. She's withdrawn from me and rebelling. And he is listening to her."

She has. He is. Her initial interest and enthusiasm at moving in have been replaced by abject disregard. Of me in particular. I have morphed - in her mind - into the 'enemy'. The stern mum. The authority figure. The rule-imposer. And she is feeding him this crap. She is making me the enemy. Me!

Me?

Listen up! These years - from teenage to young adult - are for exploration and discovery. An entire possibility of futures to choose from in the relatively blank canvas of your lives. But each time you place yourself in the position of breaking a law, you narrow down these possibilities. Stack up enough small crimes- suddenly your future is a narrow, constricted one. Why do this to yourself- and to others? Why deliberately rob yourself of a possible thriving future or... ten?

I get some of it. The need to rebel; thumb your nose at authority. But what doesn't click in simultaneously is the deliberate sabotaging of future possibilities. This, you are blind to. Yet it is this, you will mostly regret: The days of thinking you were above everything and all was for your taking.

Don't enter adulthood carrying the follies of youth. Too many closed doors, too many unattainable possibilities await you. Break the bloody short-focus instead, and look further ahead. Is what you are about to do at any point beneficial or potentially hindering your progress? Weigh up the thrill against the credible outcome: Getting caught- paying your dues.

You will get caught.

Technology- what affords you all this ease, is also your nemesis these days. 'Electronic eyes' are everywhere and if you are seen by them, a black mark is placed against your name - and your future - indelibly.

The "Who the fuck cares, I just wanna chill and thrill" attitude... one day, maybe sooner than you anticipate... it will bite your ass. Else, you might find yourself needing protection in turn from the very laws you are breaking. It happens.

Life is not a bitch per se. It's what you do with it that gives it this definition.