It's very embarrassing for any law abiding parent to have a wayward child out of fear that their good name would be dragged in the mud by their actions. Back in Nigeria, the adult son of a high ranking church official was suspected of breaking into my alma mata's chapel and looting items, much to the consternation of my relatives, who wondered breathlessly, "What of his parents"? I simply brushed his involvement aside because of his notorious reputation on campus. It got so worse that according to one of my school mates, his father had threatened to disown him, much to his wife's chagrin (the guy's mom) who cried. Not long ago, a prominent man's daughter recently got a divorce and one of my friends said something to the effect that since her father holds a prominent position in the Church, then perhaps, he ought to have done something (I have forgotten exactly how he paraphrased it, but he sort of held her father accountable particularly since the girl gave birth while she was still a teenager. I disagreed with him.

And my question is this: Should parents be held accountable for the bad actions of their adult children?