Starting young in the family business

Mother used tot as lookout during burglary - Local News - publicopiniononline.com:
"When Brenda Neiley and Robert Lehman returned home the night of July 12, they didn't expect to see a woman and her pint-sized accomplice in their house.
"Neiley told police that Joann Monica Epperson, 29, St. Thomas, had her 5-year-old son, Austin, stand watch.
"'Tell me when they are coming,' Neiley said she overheard Epperson tell the boy as she and Lehman walked up to the house.
"'They're here, they're here,' the child said."

Sad to say, this sort of thing - moms drafting their children into participation in their crimes - is not all that unusual. And, as this case shows, it isn't just as lookouts on drug corners. In my constable days, I knew a woman who had used her daughter to distract store clerks while she shoplifted. When the daughter was old enough to know it was wrong and not a game, her mother would beat her if she refused to help until the daughter got too big for that to work, then the woman turned to using her son.