When teenagers get up to mischief, or make decisions based on no discernable logic, or even when they engage in serious wrongdoing, my reaction will always include the thought, "Oh, yeah, their brains aren't done growing yet — they're not playing with a full deck."

Brain researchers have long known that the brain's frontal lobe, which exercises restraint over impulsive behavior, doesn't begin to mature until we are 16 or 17 years old. Some researchers believe that our frontal lobes don't reach full maturity until we are in our mid-20s.

We all need to be accountable for whatever we do, and children and youth need to be taught the consequences of their actions, but the truth is that children and teenagers don't have the mental equipment that they'll have when they're grown. They are still growing, physically and mentally. This isn't an excuse for bad behavior; it's physiology.

The best we adults can do for our kids is to try to protect them from their own bad judgment. There is a reason why, of all animals, we humans have the longest childhood: We take a long time to mature. We need upwards of 20 years to equip ourselves for the complicated task of being human.

When I heard about the spike in pregnancies at Gloucester High School, my first reaction was to feel concerned for these kids (and their kids-to-be) and to wish that they had had a greater capacity for reasoning, judgment, and control of their impulses. It seems safe to say that most or all of them had no idea of the far-reaching consequences of their actions, consequences that they'll be living with for a long time.

But what can I say about the adults in Beverly Farms who thought it was a good idea to lampoon these kids? Frontal lobe immaturity doesn't explain it. Neither does the excuse that a Fourth of July Horribles Parade is supposed to be about satire. Satire is mocking the powerful and the pompous, bringing them down to size by making them appear ridiculous.

There's another word for people who mock the powerless — they're called bullies. It's impossible to say what they were thinking, the folks who entered the vulgar float in the parade and the folks who later defended them, and I don't want to analyze them from a distance. But I don't mind thinking that the "mischief" they got up to amounted to bullying. I don't mind thinking that it is indefensible.

The first principle of my Unitarian Universalist faith calls me to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. The second principle calls for justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

The Beverly Farms paraders seem to have fallen short on both counts.

The Rev. Kathy Reis is pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Rockport. Midweek Musings is a column rotated among Cape Ann clergy.