Those of us who are parents are sometimes guilty of trying to live our lives vicariously through our children. But what to make of opera singer Maleta Ernman and actor Svante Thunberg, the parents of teenage “climate change” activist Greta Thunberg?

It’s fortunate that these two were in a position to help their elder daughter cope with what’s been described as a serious case of depression along with Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition related to autism, and other mental infirmities. Yet in caring for Greta, they’ve also indulged her/their obsession with climate change to the point where Ernman has all but abandoned her singing career and Thunberg is now a vegan.

Meanwhile, Greta has become a lightning rod for criticism and derision, so it’s only natural to ask why her parents allowed it to happen; why they never asserted their authority.

There are good reasons why precocious fame is generally reserved for elite Olympic athletes or pop-music sensations rather than those with a global political message. Granted, any message that involves skipping school is going to appeal to a teenage crowd, but that audience lacks the worldly experience to consider the long-term impact of what Greta Thunberg is advocating. Those who use children as political props are well aware of their emotional effect, which is why leftists trot them out so shamelessly, on issues ranging from immigration to education to healthcare to gun control.

Let’s call Greta Thunberg what she really is: a victim. She’s an emotionally challenged teen who’s being used for political gain. She’s being ferried around the world by unseen forces to denounce her elders for their failure to take climate change as “seriously” as she does.

Think about it: What kind of teenager would shriek, “I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire, because it is.” Those are, sadly, the words of a puppet.

This is not to say that young people shouldn’t have opinions, nor act on their sincerely held beliefs. But these children (and their parents — as well as magazines that make them “Person of the Year”) should know that these kids lose their immunity from criticism when they become passionate advocates for a controversial cause; when they portray themselves as experts by the tone of their rhetoric.

In the case of Greta Thunberg and climate change, telling us to act as if our house were on fire is a tantrum that’s long since run its course. It’s a call for expanded government control of the worldwide economy and additional wealth transfer from the industrialized West to the Third World.

It gives us no pleasure to say that Greta Thunberg’s parents have utterly failed her.

(For further reference, read Mark Alexander’s essay, “The Left’s Real ‘Climate Change’ Agenda.” Regarding Thunberg, see Nate Jackson’s “Climate Policy ‘For the Children’” in which he noted after her UN debut, “Thunberg is a victim … of the ecofascist adults who have proselytized and exploited her to push the socialist agenda of the Church of Climatology.” Likewise in Jordan Candler’s “Climate Rhetoric Begets Child Abuse,” he notes, “[Thunberg] has been grotesquely proselytized and exploited by a cabal of opportunistic adults intent on leveraging a fraudulent climate crusade to elevate globalism…”)