By Jeremy Allen
Michigan Chronicle
https://michiganchronicle.com/
Some – emphasis on *some* – Detroit parents are failing their children, and downtown Detroit is paying the price for it.
There’s really no softer or more politically comfortable way to say it anymore. The recent waves of teenage gatherings that have spiraled into fights, chaos, vandalism, panic, and violence downtown aren’t the result of teenagers suddenly becoming uncontrollable overnight. They happened because too many adults have stopped acting like adults.
If unsupervised children (it’s important to note that these are mostly children under 18 years old) are roaming around downtown after the sun goes down, participating in fights, recording assaults for social media, running through businesses, or contributing to environments where gunfire erupts, we’re not dealing with a city government issue. Let’s call it what it is: it’s a parenting issue.
Detroit can’t keep avoiding this conversation because people are afraid of sounding judgmental. Accountability is not judgment. Accountability is necessary.
Too many parents today have surrendered authority inside the home and replaced parenting with passive coexistence. Children are being raised with phones but without supervision, with internet access but without discipline, with social freedom but without structure. Then when chaos unfolds publicly, everybody suddenly searches for another institution to blame.
Mayor Mary Sheffield and Police Chief Todd Bettison are not responsible for raising our youth. The mayor and the police shouldn’t be the primary disciplinarians for children whose parents have checked out emotionally, mentally, or physically. And “kids being kids” is not an acceptable explanation for what has been happening downtown.
Public disorder isn’t harmless entertainment, and violence is not a social activity. While these “teen takeovers” are billed by kids as “community bonding,” large crowds of unsupervised teenagers flooding downtown streets at night while fights break out and businesses shut down is too often the result. We need to call it what it is, and, at best, it’s dysfunction. Kids are using this to replace what’s missing from them at home, and pretending otherwise only guarantees more of it.
Detroiters are tired of watching adults make excuses for behavior that wouldn’t have been unacceptable a generation ago. Somewhere along the line, standards collapsed. Children stopped fearing consequences because too many adults stopped enforcing them. Now social media rewards the loudest, most reckless behavior imaginable. Teenagers chase viral moments while adults shrug their shoulders and call it culturewhen it’s really just neglect.
That does not mean every young person involved in these gatherings is a criminal or beyond saving. Far from it. Many of these teenagers are clearly searching for connection, attention, and belonging. Some openly said they wanted safe spaces to gather and activities that made them feel included in the city. Mayor Sheffield herself acknowledged that reality after meeting with some of the teens and community leaders following the downtown incidents.
She is right to recognize that enforcement alone will not solve this issue.
Detroit’s young people need more investment, mentorship, recreational opportunities, and spaces where they can safely exist without immediately being treated like threats. The city absolutely has a responsibility to create stronger youth engagement programs and community partnerships. Sheffield has already pointed toward expanded youth initiatives and programs like midnight basketball as part of the broader response.
But let’s be clear about something else: community investment doesn’t replace parenting.
A basketball program won’t teach values if parents refuse to reinforce them at home and a rec center can’t compete with adults who allow children to move through the world with zero accountability. Mentorship matters, but mentors should be supplements to parenting, not substitutes for it.
As a parent of four children, I understand that we can’t be on the clock 24-7, constantly monitoring kids’ every moves. And I also understand that there are systemic issues that create environments where discipline becomes a chore for parents instead of a norm.
That is where some criticism of Mayor Sheffield becomes fair. While she should not carry the blame for these incidents, she does carry responsibility for helping coordinate a serious response. The city can’t justhost meetings, issue statements, and hope tensions cool naturally. Detroiters deserve visible leadership, clear plans, stronger communication with parents and schools, and consequences that are firm without becoming excessive. Balance matters here.
Parents work multiple jobs to pay the bills. Some children are being raised by parents who aren’t savvy enough technologically to keep up with internet usage. I get it and I don’t fault parents who are doing the best they can just to get by. But something’s got to change. And change always starts at home.
I also understand that there’s a dangerous tendency in moments like this for cities to overreact and criminalize all teenagers, particularly Black teenagers. Detroit can’t afford to become a city where every group of Black kids downtown is immediately viewed as suspicious because of the actions of some. National conversations about “teen takeovers” have already pushed many cities toward aggressive curfew discussions and heavier police crackdowns. Detroit should resist fear-driven policymaking.
But resisting hysteria doesn’t mean denying reality. And the reality is this: some – emphasis again on *some* – parents are not parenting. Some children are growing up without structure, boundaries, or emotional discipline. Some adults have become so afraid of upsetting their children that they no longer correct them at all, and other parents are absent entirely. So communities are now experiencing the public consequences of private failures inside the home.
The hardest part about this conversation is that everybody wants to talk about systems while avoiding personal responsibility. Yes, poverty matters. Yes, trauma matters. Yes, underfunded schools matter. Yes, social media has made everything worse. But none of those realities eliminate the responsibility parents have to raise children who understand respect, self-control, and consequences.
Detroit’s village also has work to do. There was a time when children knew that neighbors, coaches, teachers, pastors, and elders would correct them long before situations escalated publicly. Today, many adults feel disconnected from young people altogether, and that’s caused communities to become fragmented and cause adults to hesitate when opportunities for intervention arise.
Shared standards have weakened and too many young people now receive most of their validation online instead of from healthy real-world relationships. Young people are gathering downtown in massive numbers because they are looking for energy, identity, visibility, and belonging. Unfortunately, without guidance, those gatherings can quickly become dangerous. Chaos becomes contagious when nobody is leading.
That is why this moment requires honesty instead of political talking points. Parents need to stop making excuses. The city needs stronger youth engagement. Community leaders need to stop romanticizing dysfunction. Schools need to reinforce discipline and accountability. And Detroit needs to rebuild the village it keeps talking about but rarely practices consistently anymore.
No amount of policing can compensate for homes where children are being raised without boundaries, direction, or care. And no mayor — including Mary Sheffield — can parent an entire city’s teenagers for them.Let’s do better collectively for the city and for the youth.
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