Stealing because it's the right thing to do

This is a true story told to me by someone connected with my family.

So I’m standing in Yelena's kitchen, and she’s sitting on this white, royal-looking chair next to the back door. We’re both eating some of this stuff she made; it’s like a cookie made of almonds and marshmellows drowned in chocolate and then frozen. It’s crunchy and sweet and the marshmellows make it squishy. Abby, the golden dingo, keeps sitting in front of me raising her paw begging for a handout.

“So I noticed that Isabel has all this new stuff, and I asked if she’s been stealing it from Walmart,” she said. “At first she said no, but then she said yes. She said, ‘Oh but mom, I only steal stuff when I see a manager being mean to an employee because I don’t think they should be treated that way.’”

“So did you tell her it was wrong to steal?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. I told her that stealing shit from them just hurts the people making the stuff in other countries. They notice how much money they’re losing on the stuff that’s being stolen, so they lower the price and pay the workers less money, so they can get away with it.”

“Wow, a normal parent would have just said that stealing is wrong and they could go to jail for doing it.”

“Yeah, well, a normal kid would have said , ‘well I’m just doing it because you won’t give me money.’”