text: why do kids have to be so mean?   they might not know better yet. kids learn from their parents, but they are not tied to what they've been taught. when they get older, if they are willing to see the world as it is, and lay aside the prejudices they've been brought up with, then they can become their own person. my own parents are hardly evil, but they go about their lives in a way that i have found to be unsatisfactory. i never realized this until the past few years, when i moved out of the house and made my own life. now, i'm trying to identify and utilize the good lessons they taught me over the years, and rid myself of the harmful or useless. it's not easy, but it also isn't impossible. no kid "has" to be so mean; they choose to.