Of course I am tolerant of the kid.
He did not make any agreements with anybody, so I fail to see why you want to hold him accountable for something he had absolutely no part in. His mother agreed with Glen to help cleaning some branches - why didn't she show up and do the work?
Secondly, I do not like to project stuff on other people without knowing their circumstances, and when I do not know what is going on I would rather give them the benefit of the doubt instead of judging them as harshly as possible.
Thirdly, my life is my life and theirs is their. When I was growing up my parents worked harder than any of the examples I've read in this thread to ensure that their children are properly provided for and that we can develop high skills through schooling, or artistic stuff, instead of doing low skilled work. Yes, we did that too to help them, but the values were clearly set in my family - work is very valuable, high-skilled work is more valuable than low skilled work, parents do everything they can for the benefit of their children, sacrificing for others is valuable. I am definitely going to judge the adults who provided the nurture before I judge the nature of the kid. And one of the only hard facts we know is that this kid's mother is irresponsible - it was her duty to call and give a notice and explanation why the commitment she made was broken. It is more than a simple chain of command - one of them is also an adult and is expected to work and provide for her children, the other is a child as is not expected to work at all.