When most children get in fights with their parents, they storm off to their rooms; maybe they take off to a friend's house once in awhile. A 13-year-old boy, however, recently took his anger a little bit further, when he stole his father's Mercedes, then ran away and drove more than 500 miles across country.
According to BBC, the boy's fight was with his adoptive mother about a cell phone bill. They live in Northern Italy, and when he didn't like what she had to say, he grabbed his passport, a couple hundred dollars, and hopped in the car in search of his birth family -- who happens to live in Poland. For almost 24 hours he drove across Europe, crossing two international borders, and filling up with gas twice, with plans to meet his biological sister.
He never made it.
Finally, German police interrupted the joyride and stopped the boy near Liepizig. Fortunately, no one was physically harmed, but the thought of a 13-year-old making that journey is crazy. According to reports, he is an "expert go-kart driver," which apparently served him pretty well behind the wheel of a Mercedes.
Eleonora Spadati from the Montebelluna police department told AFP news agency."He looks like a 16-year-old, but still! He managed to fuel up and pass two borders. It's just incredible,"
But while the story has a happy ending of sorts, and his adopted parents went to Germany to bring him back home, I can't help but wonder how this family is going to go on from here. Police say he's remorseful and realizes what he did was wrong, but clearly the boy misses his biological family. He was reportedly adopted two years, though there are no reports as to why, and his biological sister still lives with his biological parents, which sounds like a pretty tough situation for anyone. His adoptive parents have to be hurt, worried, and fearful of what the future holds after this incident. I mean really, what kind of punishment is there for something like this? It's not your typical teen angst story.
Hopefully they'll all be able to get the help they need to work through this to ensure it doesn't happen again. And hopefully the boy will find some other legal way to practice his impressive driving skills.
What's the furthest your child has ever run away?
Image via Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It./Flickr
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Comments 21
WOW! Thank goodness he is okay! This is one of most interesting stories I've read in a while. If he wants to find his birth parents, I think he should be able to meet them. As long as he knows that they might not want to meet him.
Hopefully something is done to prevent these actions from ever happening again.
WOW!! 13 and drove off in his adopitive dad Mercadades .. hmm someting makes me thing the have too much money on their hands
What?! Seriously! Like that's just a normal of growing up?
How about nowhere? My children have never run away at all.
What?! Seriously! Like that's just a normal of growing up?
How about nowhere? My children have never run away at all.
I would look, first, at why this kid was adopted from his bio-family TWO YEARS AGO. That would be at age 11, folks!! This isn't about a cellphone bill. That might have been the catalyst, but it seems like there are other issues that need to be resolved. And it has nothing to do with the family having "too much money". Please. Can we just stop with the redistribution crap already?
And as for the kid driving at age 13? Big hairy deal. I live in the country. If kids around here can't drive by 13, we wonder why.