Sociopaths

I'm always mad at the kids for failing to care that they've done something really rotten and generated all kinds of unnecessary work and/or sadness. I tell them why whatever they did was rotten, I tell them how unhappy it made the victim, I administer their punishment, they cry and then ask what's for supper and does Dad get to stay home tonight and how do I like this picture? They're sociopaths. I want to shake them and do it all over again until they seem appropriately penitent.

But if they felt as remorseful as I think they should feel over all the crimes they commit in a day, they'd be depressed all the time. Perhaps this is some kind of built-in coping mechanism so that humans can remember their childhoods fondly. And really, it isn't just a feature of childhood. Although we occasionally feel genuine sorrow over pain we've caused, it's pretty common for our primary cause for remorse to be getting caught or having lowered others' opinion of us, no matter how old we are.