I find Goodsell patently offensive. "When my son is out, I leave my phone on". Like, hello mother of the year. Other mothers know where their kids are, (or at least think they do, by checking) and they wait up for their 15 year olds to come home. I have no sympathy for the teens who were also involved, and uninjured. I have great sympathy for the one who is now paralyzed, but none for those who were also involved in the beer theft from Walmart, the frequent drinking and partying, and then getting into his truck knowing this boy was blind drunk. Where is the reality? Where is the mother of the girl who needed tampons who should publicly apologize for her daughter not having the sense to call Mom or a friend or an older sister, etc? Where are the apologies from the other guilty parties - the other kids and their parents - rather than everyone acting like only Ethan and the Couch family is at fault?
Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I was a teen way back in the 1950s & I can guarantee that my very strict parents did not know where I was or what I was doing at all times. They would have killed me if they had known. There wasn't any danger of me being drunk because we lived in a dry county. The only liquor readily available was beer & I couldn't stand the stuff. BTW, I still can't. That being said, I was out with a boy who had a souped up car & outran the police one night. He had not been drinking. I also remember the night when some of us were out joy riding & stopped out in the middle of the highway & danced for a while. Teens are not known for always making good decisions & parents can't keep them locked up in a closet.