Litter and parenting

Where do litterbugs come from?

Yesterday walking down Oakfield Road I saw a mother and son coming in the opposite direction and the boy just tossed some kind of wrapping by a tree in the pavement. I watched this action and must have followed the paper descending to the ground. I think the mother must have seen me looking and she told the boy to pick it up straight away and for good measure she said, you know you don't do that sort of thing. I almost said to the mother, well done!

...

Contrast this with the experience I had in Paddington Station some years ago when I was almost assaulted over litter by a feral parent. While waiting in a queue to buy a ticket, a boy picked up a brochure from a rack and just threw it on the floor. A woman on her way out, swooped down, picked it up and put it back in the rack and carried on, in a non-verbal critique of the child's conduct, in plain view of the father, who was clearly failing in his duty.

It was either the boy or the father who then took the pamplet out of the rack again and threw it on the floor again. Standing just behind the father, and having weighed up the situation, I gently suggested to the father that "someone is going to have to pick that up", meaning a cleaner.

Feral father than went into fight-mode, clenching his fists, weaving from side to side and shouting "shut up, shut up, shut up". Even though the father was significantly shorter than me, I had no wish to engage in a fight over a piece of paper, so I said evenly "ok", having made my point.

Having seen the appalling example set by the parent, that boy is likely to be a life-long litterer and probably pass his conduct on to any progeny.

Should parents not be more accountable for the conduct of their offspring?